O'Donovan on Torture

In The Ways of Judgment, Oliver O'Donovan is happy to accept a certain cultural relativism when it comes to the practices of punishment. It is possible to stand against capital punishment, for example, without regarding it as a universally forbidden practice.

But then he asks:

May it not be that even torture is accommordated within the symbolism of some penal languages? And if we define torture purely anatomically, as performing certain painful acts upon the human body, perhaps it may be so; and perhaps it may be lack of imagination that makes it seem incompatible with respect for human dignity - we need only think of the measures used by admirers of the Japanese samurai culture to commit suicide! As things stand, however, the practices we condemn as torture are clearly not viewed in that light by the societies which practice them. They are performed in secret, without due process, without legal specifications as to duration or intensity; and they in no way seek to tell the truth about the crimes they punish. These features identify such practices as subversive of the norms by which those societies formally operate. Understood in this sense, as the infliction of 'cruel and unusual' suffering outside prevailing norms, torture may be regarded as universally prohibited. (p. 122)

The very secrecy of the practice of torture gives the lie: those who practice it know already that it is wrong! But O'Donovan hones in on a problem for those descriptions of torture which rather simplistically say that it is a matter of inflicting pain on the body pure and simple. In a strange way, torture has its own language.

Why don't the New Calvinists say anything about the US government's torture policy?

I posted this question on my facebook update, and the following (I think interesting) discussion ensued. I have reproduced it here. It could be that the New Calvinists - who I take it as representing a theological position as very close to my own - have said a great deal about torture, but I haven't read it. I choose them to pick on as a form of self-criticism.


Nat Smith at 23:57 on 17 May
because they have better things to care about; like people going to hell.

Michael Jensen at 04:18 on 18 May
On the contrary: Piper has a lot to say about abortion for example. It just seems to be a selective choice of political issues to care about.

Jim Wackett at 08:37 on 18 May
Selective indeed. It'd be good to see an application of a 'reformed' world view on those parts of life that exist between the possibility of abortion and euthanasia, and not just limited to same-sex marriage.

Nat Smith at 08:50 on 18 May
waterboarding is flogging a dead horse, abortion, sam-sex marriage and euthanasia are more relevant in obama's america. i guess for piper the priority might go like this; saving innocent lives from death > saving guilty lives from pain.

Jim Wackett at 09:24 on 18 May
Actually, I think Piper would hold that there is no such thing as an innocent life.

David Starling at 09:26 on 18 May
They do - e.g. here:http://theologica.blogspot.com/2009/04/defining-and-condemning-torture-what-it.html

Michael Jensen at 10:43 on 18 May
hmm, alas the links to the Mohler and Neuhaus papers is broken. Never mind. But I am glad to see it. Nat - I am staggered that you would come up with such an awful equation and attribute it to Piper. After all, he knows that Jesus died for the guilty... how we treat the guilty is litmus test of our own understanding of the gospel, isn't it?

Michael Jensen at 10:44 on 18 May
Still, the NC's are far more vociferous in defence of their trad 'family values' issues than they are on this, and that's a bit disappointing. It suggests that American nationalism dies very hard... no?

Roger Fitzhardinge at 11:01 on 18 May
@nat: interesting description of waterboarding ;)

David Starling at 11:07 on 18 May
Two quick thoughts: 1. I think it is entirely legitimate for an individual (e.g. Piper) to pick one or two big social/ethical issues and focus his campaigning on those, rather than issuing a thousand forgettable pronouncements on a thousand different issues. 2. I think it's a bit lazy to respond to Nat's point by playing the 'no such thing as an... innocent person' card. Before God, we're all guilty, of course (and even unborn children are part of a fallen race) but that doesn't mean that the categories of 'innocent' and 'guilty' are irrelevant in interpersonal ethics and public justice. [btw, this is not an argument for the legitimacy of torture, or, for that matter, for the assumption that all Guantanamo detainees were 'guilty' - just an argument against misusing theological categories]

Michael Jensen at 11:15 on 18 May
Well maybe. But I don't think torture IS a forgettable issue. Like abortion, it is an issue that strikes at the very soul of a society.How powerful would their criticism of the former Bush govt be if they preached against this woeful hypocrisy and the endorsement of evil by bureaucratic means! The laziness was Nat's in the first instance (no ... offence, Nat!). One shouldn't have to choose this over that. Neither should preaching the gospel of grace be sectioned off from the prophetic witnes to the egregious crimes of a rather smug society... no?

Jim Wackett at 11:25 on 18 May
David...1. Agreed. But the focus on particular issues can be understood and pursued with a little more integrity if they are placed within a broader context of a commitment to 'life' from cradle to grave. So yes, there should be NC types speaking out on abortion, euthanasia and same-sex marriage. There should also be NC types speaking out on ... poverty, human trafficking, torture etc. 2. Not lazy... just time-starved! ; ) I only sought to make a single, and relevant, point, not articluate an entire response. I don't believe I misued a theological catagory, just addressed that fact that what was being articulated as 'piper's priority' didn't seem to me to hold with his writing/preaching.

David Starling at 11:27 on 18 May
I didn't say that torture was a forgettable issue. What I said was that a thousand statements on a thousand different issues (all of which could, in themselves, be issues of enormous importance) all end up being forgettable statements. And I'm not sure that accusing Nat of "the laziness" (even if the accusation sticks) absolves the rest of us in the thread of the possibility of being guilty of the same crime!

Michael Jensen at 11:37 on 18 May
Yes, thousands statements yes yes. But it is interesting, and sad, that the issues of choice for the NCs are traditional 'right' issues - so therefore easy to dismiss as so much predictible white noise. I am also concerned by the militarism of some of things I hear and read... it'd be nice to hear a counterpoint to that.

David Starling at 11:40 on 18 May
Thanks Jim for the responses. On point 1: I agree that it's a good thing for NC types to be speaking out on poverty, human trafficking, torture, etc. Of course! It happens (eg. this post on Joe Carter's blog the other day:http://evangelicaloutpost.com/archives/author/lindsay-marshall) and maybe it should happen more. But I do think it's also fair to say that on the abortion issue there are very few voices in the public square, apart from conservative Catholics and evangelicals, who are speaking up for unborn children. And as Nat said in his second comment (with the unfortunate mixed metaphor) it's a bit late to be prophetic on the torture issue in Obama's America, but there's still plenty of opportunity to be prophetic on abortion.... On point 2: fair enough - time starved is not the same as lazy! But I still do see plenty of not-so-time-starved people making the sorts of arguments (e.g. the 'no such thing as an innocent person' argument used to flatten moral distinctions

David Starling at 11:58 on 18 May
Thanks Mike for the comeback, too! I agree that in some cases the clarity and gravity of the anti-abortion case can be almost completely obscured by a whole lot of predictable RW white noise. It's one thing to be a principled social conservative - it's another to be a captive to the GOP and the machinations of a Karl Rove.Mind you, the abortion issue can just as easily get lost in a forest of more politically fashionable LW concerns in the discourse of the Campolo/Wallis types as well.... Piper's case, I'm not sure he can be quite so easily pigeon-holed and dismissed as predictably right wing. (e.g. he's been prepared over the years to lose friends within the conservative evangelical constituency on issues like race and gun laws, and I don't remember him being a flag-waver for the 'War on Terror' or the invasion of Iraq).

Michael Jensen at 11:58 on 18 May
The reason it is a bit late to be prophetic on torture is that the government - at the highest level - has been telling porky pies!!! Torture is ALWAYS like this - especially in democracies. It is a secret evil. So when IS the right time to speak out on it?

David Starling at 12:15 on 18 May
Sorry - I think our comments crossed...So this really is the last comment from me. I agree that it's never the wrong time to speak out on torture. All I was saying was that it's no longer 'prophetic' to speak out on that issue. Thankfully, the torture issue is one on which we now have the luxury of swimming with the tide of (majority) public opinion and holding the Obama administration to account for the transparency and consistency with which they follow through on their pre-election rhetoric. That's not necessarily an easy task, bit I'm not sure it's 'prophetic' (in the popular sense of the word).... Unless I'm missing something?

Michael Jensen at 12:48 on 18 May
Well, I dunno about public opinion. You can see that Cheney's arguments are persuasive with a lot of people: the requirement for national security trumps over even the most basic sort of respect for human dignity...the ends is still justifying the means.The thing is - we shouldn't imagine that this is an end to torture. We have known about the use and practice of torture for many years - and that democracies, despite their self-congratulatory rhetoric, continue to practice it anyway.

The Men Who Stare At Goats

Hearing reports about CIA agents torturing terror suspects chills me to the bone. Turns out this 'conspiracy' had the ring of truth after all. It reminded me of this review I wrote a couple of years back:


After The Da Vinci Code I have learnt not to trust books that begin by saying that “this is a true story.” It is pretty much an admission by the author that what is contained within the covers of the work is, well, unbelievable. It has a plausibility problem.

And I am not prone to believe conspiracy theories. Yes, the Apollo moon landings did occur. No, the CIA and the Mafia didn’t shoot JFK: Lee Harvey Oswald did it.

But the more bizarre elements of Jon Ronson’s The Men Who Stare At Goats are anchored in a disturbing reality that we know to be the truth. The shocking images from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were too weird, too perfectly calculated to do psycho-sexual and cultural damage, to be merely a case of a couple of bored, barely literate prison guards having a lark.

What mentality, what tactic, lead to the pyramids of naked prisoners? Recent reports of Australian Mamdouh Habib being splattered with the menstrual blood of prostitutes while in captivity at Guantanamo Bay are entirely in keeping with the species of prisoner interrogation displayed at Abu Ghraib.

Ronson’s story is a meandering series of interviews with ex-army personnel, false trails, intriguing rumours and investigative journalism. He struggles to make sense of it all, a feeling I, for one, share. One way of reading the story is this: that following the embarrassment of Vietnam the US military has invested heavily in alternative forms of warfare, including experiments in the paranormal. According to Ronson’s sources, they even had men trying to kill goats just by staring at them. That would, I guess, give an army a certain advantage over the enemy.

In the 1970s, Vietnam vet and lieutenant colonel named Jim Channon wrote a book called The First Earth Battalion Operations Manual. Channon imagined an army of the New Age, whose soldiers “would carry with them into hostile countries ‘symbolic animals’ such as baby lambs” (p.41). They would greet the enemy with “sparkly eyes” and give them an “automatic hug.” Ambient music would be broadcast to pacify the enemy. He presented his ideas to the top brass…

Only, once the military regained its confidence, it saw that some of the ideas in the manual could be used to shatter people rather than to heal them. Loud and repetitive music (rather than noodling ambient sounds) has been used by the Psychological Operations (PsyOps) group in Panama, at the Waco siege in Texas, in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The theme tune to children’s programme Barney the Dinosaur was blasted at some Iraqi detainees in a shipping container in the desert, as well as some Sesame Street favourites. Ronson records a hilarious interview with composer of some of the melodies used, who considers claiming royalties; and then he visits the PsyOps HQ to inspect their CD collection. They have Avril Lavigne, apparently.

Are the US military really experimenting with parapsychology and having battalions of men stare at goats? Some of the people Ronson interviews seem to have the obsessive intensity of the truly unhinged and lack credibility. But then – they would, wouldn’t they?

There certainly are some pretty unorthodox methods being used by the US to wage war and interrogate captives. Would it really be surprising if it were true?

The point is that the War on Terror particularly and the defence of freedom generally have produced an odd kind of paranoia among some people who have the power and resources to put their whacky ideas into practice.

But there is a blindness to see that this is in itself terror of another kind. The symbolic terror of the destruction of the two towers has its counterpart in the utter shaming of the bodies and minds of these hapless captives. The ideological madness of the religious extremists on the one side is well matched by this furtive nuttiness on the side of the forces of freedom. It makes George W. Bush’s appeal (in his second inaugural address) to a common humanity made in the image of the creator ring more than a little hollow.