Torture or not torture, cont.

Though I think we’re quickly approaching the land of diminishing returns, this is my response to John Schwenkler’s response to my response to his criticism of my argument that segregating violent prisoners for the safety of everyone at Gitmo doesn’t constitute torture. I say that we’re running into diminishing returns because John and I share a fundamentally different view of what constitutes torture. I simply don’t believe that segregating violent prisoners in a vaguely unpleasant manner lives up to the standard of torture. Would I want to be stuck in a 3x3x6 foot box for hours on end? Of course not. But then again, I also wouldn’t pick fights with guards at Gitmo, threaten my fellow prisoners with violence, or try to commit suicide as an act of protest.

Again: If we called practices like this “torture,” then we’d have to shut down half of the max security prisons in this country, and probably 90% of fraternities. (I knew of a guy who, along with his pledge class, was forced to crawl into a chimney and spend the night there. That sounds about 10 times worse than spending 12 hours in one of those segregation crates.) The reason I find this so frustrating, I think, is that to call this torture demeans actual torture. Getting your knees broken or your fingers cut off while being questioned is torture. Getting beaten with bamboo rods in order to induce a false confession is torture. Getting put in a box because you’re a threat to yourself and those around you is unpleasant (and it should be unpleasant because it’s a punishment). But it isn’t torture, and hyperbolically calling it torture because you hate the people in charge doesn’t help anyone.