That's the thing...samblobNovember 18 2005, 09:44:34 UTC
I don't think of the "torturer's" job as being to torture; I think of it as being to extract information. The satisfaction in the job well done would be in getting the intel, not in breaking the spirit. The art would be in breaking the spirit the right way, so that the subject doesn't care any more and starts talking. Break the spirit the wrong way and the intel is buried in the rubble of the subject's mind, or worse, dies with the subject.
The most terrifying aspects of the records of the experiments at Auchwitz was that they generally did not differ from the records of regular experiments on chemicals or animals. The suffering and agony of the human subjects were recorded with clinical objectivity and indifference. The horror of it is that these were *not* grinning, snickering, hand-wringing psychos; these were trained scientists treating people like lab rats and being generally unconcerned about it.
That's how I see the ideal "torturer", clinical, indifferent and goal-oriented, the goal being the intel. This person has intelligence that is vital to his cause and he must extract it as clearly as possible. Furthermore, intel tends to be time-senstive, so he probably has to work within a time frame without rushing the job and slipping up.
Re: That's the thing...the_arch_vileNovember 19 2005, 03:33:59 UTC
hehehe, I agree with you both actually; but I just see the figure of the humane torture, he who sees his work as art, to be more terrible than that of the cold, clinical torture...and easier to actually speak to about his craft. While a clinical subject may simply reduce it to experimentation, a more human one actually talks about it with glee...as if he had just finished an astonashing portrait.
A grinning madman...samblobNovember 19 2005, 14:40:45 UTC
...is a stereotype that's easy to identify.
The lab techs at Auchwitz are terrible because they weren't stereotypical lunatics, they were "ordinary people". Which makes one realize the depth to which one should beware of one's fellow man, no matter how nondescript or unassuming he may be.
The most terrifying aspects of the records of the experiments at Auchwitz was that they generally did not differ from the records of regular experiments on chemicals or animals. The suffering and agony of the human subjects were recorded with clinical objectivity and indifference. The horror of it is that these were *not* grinning, snickering, hand-wringing psychos; these were trained scientists treating people like lab rats and being generally unconcerned about it.
That's how I see the ideal "torturer", clinical, indifferent and goal-oriented, the goal being the intel. This person has intelligence that is vital to his cause and he must extract it as clearly as possible. Furthermore, intel tends to be time-senstive, so he probably has to work within a time frame without rushing the job and slipping up.
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While a clinical subject may simply reduce it to experimentation, a more human one actually talks about it with glee...as if he had just finished an astonashing portrait.
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The lab techs at Auchwitz are terrible because they weren't stereotypical lunatics, they were "ordinary people". Which makes one realize the depth to which one should beware of one's fellow man, no matter how nondescript or unassuming he may be.
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indeed, indeed...
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