The idea that we can become evil through attempts to defeat evil, or while claiming that end—that we become what we fear—is common in discussions of capital punishment, and of terrorism and torture. The War on Terror—a title that can be read as “the War predicated on terror,” the war whose cause and logic is fear—has been driven by a 17th century belief in both inhuman forces and our ability to contain them. It seems today that we rarely remember how conspicuous was the public language of “evil” and “darkness” as George W. and his associates primed the country for a military response to September 11th. And since the War on Terror began, foreign prisoners at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and other American camps, have been dressed in hoods, made to squat in darkness, held underwater, chained to cement, jammed into small crates, all to make them speak—to admit their evil, or the evil they’ve seen. The Devil in Massachusetts—Katie Ryder looks at a history of Puritan justice via Tsarnaev’s trial and WGNs Salem: the.blvr.org/1ifJ2J6
Posted on: Wed, 23 Apr 2014 18:42:42 +0000
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