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The History Of Torture In France

Decent Essays

Human rights, for centuries, has been a buzzword, creating an illusion of equality between people, united in their differences, but it is clear from the callous use of torture throughout history that human rights is only inclusive to those whom society favors. Torture is an act of repression, and establishes a direct attack to the core of human autonomy. One human being is degraded to the state of a non-human object, deprived of all empathy and legal personality. Torture has always aimed to devastate human dignity and diminish its victim to the status of a passive tool of the torturer or judicial system, as seen in Europe in the 1700s. But during this time, with the trepid introduction of human rights and the social feelings associated with …show more content…

In France, the employment of torture was a legally acceptable aspect of the criminal justice system (Hunt 2007). It was not until 1762, when French protestant, Jean Calas, was tortured as means of interrogation and put to his death, following the accusations that he murdered his son to prevent him from converting to Catholicism, that attention to torture was galvanized (Hunt 2007). Following Calas’s execution, Voltaire took up Calas’s cause, he became invested in the case, and eventually published material on it, the most famous of which was the Treatise on Tolerance on the Occasion of the Death of Jean Calas, where Voltaire first used the expression “human right” (Hunt 2007). Voltaire denounced France’s use of judicial torture claiming compassion makes people resist the barbaric practice of torture (Hunt 2007). Though, few prominent members of French society condemned torture, torture was so entrenched in France’s government, that even with Voltaire’s tentative introduction of the linkage between torture and human rights, it was not enough to get rid of the …show more content…

Torture had become a state-sanctioned public marvel. France’s government hoped publicized torture, through an individual observer’s sympathetic identification with the victim, would instill fear in the observers, a fear that would act as a warning to the collective public and provide disincentives for criminal behavior (Hunt 2007). But the opposite occurred; public torture and execution drew immense robust crowds, which viewed the official administration of cruelty as a form of entertainment (Hunt 2007). Viewing and normalizing severe violence like torture degrades the autonomy and humanity of the victim, destroying the connection spectators feel in regards to the victim, thus stunting societal progression. Benjamin Rush, a physician, writer, and humanitarian, argued that both public and private torture violates human rights, and does not act as a motivator of public deterrence from crime, but rather has the exact opposite. Publicized torture deflates the onlookers’ sensibility and bolsters their inability to empathize and understand that the victims of torture have bodies and lives similar to their own (Hunt 2007). Publicized torture violates human rights because of its capacity to demonize and dehumanize its victims; the dehumanization of persons provides justification for any crime that is carried out upon the person because

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