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Saturday, December 17, 2005
War Of The Words
No, that isn't a typo.
At Catholic and Enjoying It, there's a rather pointless discussion going on over torture. One side simply chants "torture is always wrong," to which the antiphon is "define torture." Eternity Road reader Jayson asked your Curmudgeon to comment, as follows:
By any chance, have you been following the so-called "torture" posts on the blog of fellow Catholic Mark Shea?Personally, I think Mr. Shea's "moral" posturing is awful. I think Mr. Shea in inadvertently contributing--albeit (at least for now[??]) in a minor[??] way to the morale of either the jihadis, their sympathizers, and/or the Leftists (as well as "paleocons") who are at least their de-facto allies.
I've always found Mr. Shea to be, well, a great Catholic voice; I've always loved his blog and his writings (well, most of them anyway). But this so-called "torture" "discussion" of his is breaking my heart. If I may paraphrase the gospel reading a few weeks ago (on the "talents"), if one is not credible in minor things, then one may not be credible in major things; the supposed "public debate" over the issue of our treatment of captured enemies is certainly not a "minor" matter; if Mr. Shea isn't credible in a "major" matter....
Your Curmudgeon's first reaction to the thread Jayson cited was that it was torture to read it. His second was that the level of demonstrated penetration of the real issue is so shallow as to be undetectable. But then, Mark Shea and his readers have never impressed your Curmudgeon as a particularly bright or thoughtful group.
"Torture" is merely a label. For one to say that he's opposed to torture without a firm grasp on what it is merely marks him as a fool. Nor has the Church distinguished itself in this regard:
"The varieties of crime are numerous: all offenses against life itself, such as murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia and willful suicide; all violations of the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, physical and mental torture, undue psychological pressures; all offenses against human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children, degrading working conditions where people are treated as mere tools for profit rather than free and responsible persons: all these and the like are criminal: they poison civilization; and they debase the perpetrators more than the victims and militate against the honor of the creator." [From Gaudium Et Spes.]
Your Curmudgeon will pass over the aggregation of murder and genocide alongside "subhuman working conditions" and "undue psychological pressures." Quite likely the authors did not intend for the reader to see these as equivalent matters. But to toss off something like "undue psychological pressure" as a "crime," without specifying what's meant by "undue" or defining the range of conditions within which any particular degree of psychological pressure might qualify as "undue," is itself an offense against the dignity of Man -- in this case, an offense against his rationality, his conscience, his responsibility for moral judgment, and his sense for appropriate priorities.
Your Curmudgeon is a notorious absolutist. That which is wrong cannot be made right by legislative action. The converse is also true. But let it be said in tones of thunder that in all matters where there's objective moral ambiguity, each individual is expected to follow the dictates of his sincere, mature conscience. That is Church teaching and always has been.
In his last emission on this subject, your Curmudgeon proposed that juries are the proper place for the determination of questions about torture, coercive interrogations, and so forth. The "would you have done it in his place?" test, buttressed by the sovereign jury's privilege of nullifying any law in any particular case, is a sounder mechanism than any formal rule to be followed at all times. Similarly, the individual conscience, buttressed by a mature apprehension of consequences and a healthy regard for the limits of one's own knowledge, is where such matters as "undue psychological pressure" should be judged. No adequate external standard exists, nor ever can.
