Torture In The Contemporary The Torture, By J. M Coetzee

In “The Case for Torture”, philosophy professor Michael Levin attempts to defend using torture as a means to save lives is justifiable and necessary. Throughout the article, Levin provides persuasive arguments to support his essay using clever wording and powerful, moving examples. However, the essay consists heavily of pathos, fallacies, and “What if?” situations that single out torture as the only method of resolution, rendering the argument hypothetical, weak, and unreliable for the city of San Jose as a whole community to follow.

In both Elie Wiesel’s, Night and the excerpt from Rudolf Vrba’s, I escaped from Auschwitz, a sense of desolation and callousness loomed throughout each biography. The figurative language and diction in each autobiography illustrate the camps to be horrific and dismal. Wiesel’s creates a powerful tone of despair through vividly harrowing imagery. When describing the conditions of the camp prison life, Wiesel uses exaggerated painful imagery to produce the atrocious experience, and create the hopeless tone. To express the weather was cold and fierce Eliezer claimed the “glacial wind lashed us like a whip”(Wiesel 77).

The cruelty on the part of the German army and scientists is legendary, but to Holocaust survivors it has been haunting. They did not even treat the Jews like people. For Wiesel, the things he witnesses and experiences at the hands of the Nazis and even desperate Jews, never leaves him. One incident in particular takes the brutality and inhumanity of the Nazi soldiers to a new extreme: the hanging of the pipel, an imprisoned young boy with a beautiful face. The Germans hang a child, not even heavy enough to grant himself a quick death, without remorse. This, the apex of cruelty, again shows the lengths the Nazis are willing to go to simply to make a point and scare the others. This horror adds to the theme when Elie, forced to witness this hanging, recalls, “Behind me I heard the same man asking ‘Where is God now?’ And I heard a voice within me answer him: Where is He? Here He is. He is hanging here on the gallows.”

Within a few nights of Wiesel being in the concentration camp his humanity was lost. The Commando in charge of Wiesel and his father’s unit was unable to view them as fellow human beings. The Commando felt justified in beating them. The “gypsy” degraded Wiesel's father and turned him into the animal he was seen as by the prison guards, beat him until he crawled on all fours.

Elie Wiesel was inspired by the Holocaust when he wrote his novel “Night”. The publication of this novel was to serve as a reminder to the future generations about human empathy and morality. In the novel, Elie Wiesel shows that when humans are faced with protecting their own mortality, they abandon their learned morals and values. This shows us that core morals are learned values, not hardwired traits. Moreover, natural disasters have a significant influence in the behavior of the people who have been affected. There is always a general mentality of scrambling for most act on the analogy of survival for the fittest. In the novel, “Night”, there are specific instances that illustrate the fight that exists between morality

Torture, (n.), the action or practice of inflicting severe pain on someone as a punishment or to force them to do or say something, or for the pleasure of the person inflicting the pain. After reading “Torture” by Holocaust survivor, Jean Amery, it is clear that the above definition of torture does not provide an honest connotative definition for the act and effects of torture. Amery speaks about torture from his own personal experiences in both Auschwitz and Buchenwald, providing witness to the dehumanization of Jews. In “Torture”, Jean Amery truthfully depicts torture as an unimaginable terror, in which one loses sense of self, human dignity, and trust in the world, while gaining a haunted future.

The definition of torture is perceived differently to every person. In this dispute, the two opposing sides are generally immovable. Many claim that it is not an effective tool, it is downright wrong, and it just does not work, while the other side claims the opposite. The argument “The Gray Zone: Defining Torture” by Barry Gewen examines the controversial issues that erupt from the touchy topic of torture. Gewen writes a successful and persuasive argument for his favorable position towards torture as an effective mean for gathering information and halting life-threatening situations which he does through his use of strong premises, logos, and ethos, building him a credible and structurally sound argument.

Colonel Joll and the Magistrate symbolize two different

You live in America a country of freedom and human rights but all within variation, so imagine this. Some foreigner coming into your country and torturing you just because you were american, how would you react. The tortue rate is higher than ever with all the terrorist groups going on around the world and with that comes innocent lives taken for personal gain. Some call it torture with a purpose trying to gain “national information” but all it really is cruel and inhumane . although torture has helped in a few cases it has done more damage than help.

On March 19, 60 Minutes aired the interview of Holly Williams, a news correspondent with Mohamedou Slahi, an author and ex-prisoner at Guantanamo prison. He explained his personal “enhanced interrogation” program that was approved by then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Specifically he claimed that “he was interrogated for 70 straight days, almost around the clock.” Throughout the 70 days he experienced complete isolation in “the fridge”(small holding cell that is cold), two hours of sleep, and much more inhumane acts. As the interviewee said, “they broke me. I told the captain, that the boss of my team” even though that information was false. Slahi was merely protecting himself from any more cruel and unusual punishments. Although some people believe that Slahi’s book can be humorous, Slahi insists that the now illegal form of interrogation or torture is an invalid way to gain information. All things consider Slahi states, that torture works “giving false confessions” but doesn't work with “giving good intelligence.” In sum,

After the US lead invasion of Iraq many priests were kidnaped, tortured and killed. In November 2006, Father Douglas Joseph, an Iraqi Catholic priest was kidnapped and a high ransom was demanded by his abductors. For several days he was tortured as the church tried to negotiate payment of a ransom with his captors. He suffered multiple injuries including two broken vertebrae from his spinal cord, and his face and knees were smashed using a hammer.

Michael Levin author of the article The Case for Torture argues that the general public should change its negative views on torture and that it is justifiable in order to save the lives of innocent bystanders who did nothing wrong. In his given example, he claims that the mass murder of millions of innocent people by a terrorist justifies the use of torture to stop such a barbaric act. When a terrorist has clearly intended to harm the lives of millions, why is it not justified then, to inflict pain on the terrorist, with the motive of wanting to protect the lives of many more innocent people? Well because every single person is born with human dignity and rights, and no matter what somebody thinks they do not have the right to torture anyone regardless of what that person has done or will do. It does not matter what someone threatens to do; it does not make any since how someone can think that torturing someone else to prevent even the most horrible acts is “right” by any means. It’s morally unacceptable.

Many opinions have been historically perceived on modern debates about the moral principles of torture. Torture has been carried out or sanctioned by individuals, groups, and states throughout history from ancient times to modern day, and forms of torture can vary greatly in duration from only a few minutes to several days or longer. (Torture, 2016). Torture is the act of inflicting excruciating pain, as punishment or revenge, as means of getting a confession or information, or for sheer cruelty. (Torture, 2016). Now that we have an idea behind the meaning of torture, we need to know if it is ethical. Ethical can be described as fair, legitimate or moral. All and all, is torture the right thing to do? Let’s take a look at some of the reviews of those that are skilled professionals in discussing if it is just or permissible to use torture.

Torture (Latin torquere, “to twist”), in law, infliction of severe bodily pain either as punishment, or to compel a person to confess to a crime, or to give evidence in a judicial proceeding. Among primitive peoples, torture has been used as a means of ordeal and to punish captured enemies. Examination by torture, often called the “question,” has been used in many countries as a judicial method. It involves using instruments to extort evidence from unwilling witnesses.

In Waiting for the Barbarians, J.M. Coetzee introduces the controversial idea of civilized and barbaric through a nameless empire. The novel features the first person narration of an unnamed magistrate who becomes conflicted upon his duties after meeting Colonel Joll. As the antagonist of the novel, Colonel Joll coincides with the depraved actions of the Empire, one of the most prominent being imperialism. Later in the novel, the Magistrate also encounters an unnamed barbarian girl, who he brings into his home and claims responsibility for. With the intention of learning about her past and about the pain inflicted by his Empire, he aims to to extract the “truth” through means of