{"id":652,"date":"2015-01-23T16:35:11","date_gmt":"2015-01-23T16:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/?p=652"},"modified":"2015-10-13T19:01:03","modified_gmt":"2015-10-13T19:01:03","slug":"taking-stock-of-torture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/2015\/01\/23\/taking-stock-of-torture\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking Stock of Torture"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last month the Senate Intelligence Committee released its report on the CIA\u2019s use of \u201cenhanced interrogation techniques.\u201d News outlets<\/a> have raised a number of disturbing takeaways from the report\u2019s 500+ page summary, including the gritty details of torture, the failure of many of these practices to get results, and the $81 million paid out to the advisors who helped design them. We typically think of torture as either a barbaric practice or a necessary, if extreme, evil in some limited cases. But while the public wonders whether it actually works, research shows this question doesn\u2019t really decide whether an organization will turn to torture in the first place.<\/p>\n

Torture only works because of a highly developed social relationship where the perpetrator can perceive the victim\u2019s pain, but continue with the practice. Randall Collins argues this makes it an extreme way to symbolize human social boundaries\u2014who is in with the powerful community and who is not. This relationship maintains dominance, regardless of whether it gets information.<\/h5>\n