This morning in Binghamton, NY a lone shooter walked into an immigration service center and opened fire on the people inside, killing at least 12 and wounding dozens more. After the man wounded many people he then turned the gun on himself and committed suicide. This act of violence and terror on innocent people in a quiet and friendly neighborhood, has shocked the nation and frightened the community. This event reminded me of "24" and in its many seasons how it has shown terror in our nation being acted out by individuals for reasons that come easily to no one, and are seen as "senseless acts of violence."
The shooter in Binghamton was a 42-year-old asian male, who recently lost his job at IBM, a fact that may or may not have had a direct affect on his actions of late. He acted supposedly alone and killed without prejudice or mercy, so for me the question seems to by why would someone do this? Is it inherent evil or a psychological break? I think that a very grim pattern is emerging, that can be seen in real-life events like today's and in ficitious shows like "24," amongst common people, not evil warlords, commiting acts of terror in their communities out of desperation and despair in their own personal situations. I sincerely hope that in time something will be done to reach out to those who would think of doing something like this before it is too late, and that our government would not write off such events as senseless and call them what they are...tragic.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Scarry and an article on torture
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/01/BAVH16R1H0.DTL&tsp=1
Four people are indicted for torturing and abusing a 16 year old boy. The article explains how this boy was tortured. Here are some quotes from the article to explain:
"vitriol, corrosive acid, flammable substance and caustic chemical with the intent to injure the flesh and disfigure the body of the said victim."
He also reported that he had once been cut with a knife and "strangled with a belt until he lost consciousness,"
After reading the some of Elaine Scarry, it is interesting to note how the article is somewhat trying to convey the pain the tortured boy has felt. Scarry outlines the unsharability of pain in the introduction and how the story-teller objectifies the characteristics of pain, "the image of the weapon only enables us to see the attributes of pain" - the weapons in this article being the acid and the belt. A reader can picture what the weapon can potentially do but the descriptions of how the boy is tortured does not express the physical pain.
Four people are indicted for torturing and abusing a 16 year old boy. The article explains how this boy was tortured. Here are some quotes from the article to explain:
"vitriol, corrosive acid, flammable substance and caustic chemical with the intent to injure the flesh and disfigure the body of the said victim."
He also reported that he had once been cut with a knife and "strangled with a belt until he lost consciousness,"
After reading the some of Elaine Scarry, it is interesting to note how the article is somewhat trying to convey the pain the tortured boy has felt. Scarry outlines the unsharability of pain in the introduction and how the story-teller objectifies the characteristics of pain, "the image of the weapon only enables us to see the attributes of pain" - the weapons in this article being the acid and the belt. A reader can picture what the weapon can potentially do but the descriptions of how the boy is tortured does not express the physical pain.
Stanford Prison Experiment
In 1971 there was a psychological experiment conducted in which 24 young men were placed into the role of a prisoner or a guard; half and half, chosen at random. The experiment was planned as a two-week session in which each participant would be paid for his participation. A prison was constructed including cells, a yard and even a solitary confinement area. When the prisoners were brought in they were stripped, searched and deloused, issued prison clothes with number, given a nylon cap (as opposed to shaving the head) and made to wear a chain around their ankle. Guards were given no instructions and thus created their own set of rules to follow. They used push-ups to discipline out of line prisoners. When a rebellion took place the guards reverted to psychological tactics of discipline. The experiment got completely out of hand and was ended after only 6 days.
The psychological torture the 'guards' put the 'prisoners' through was said to have paralleled to that seen at Abu Ghraib. Guards had no reason to treat the prisoners as they did, especially knowing full well that the men were only placed into their role by chance. Foucalt discusses the power one holds over another saying "it is not the 'privilege', acquired or preserved, of the dominant class, but the overall effect of its strategic positions" (pg 26-27). The guards dominance was used to such an extent that it turned them into power-crazed monsters who in turn transformed the prisoners into compliant, terrified children.
The psychological torture the 'guards' put the 'prisoners' through was said to have paralleled to that seen at Abu Ghraib. Guards had no reason to treat the prisoners as they did, especially knowing full well that the men were only placed into their role by chance. Foucalt discusses the power one holds over another saying "it is not the 'privilege', acquired or preserved, of the dominant class, but the overall effect of its strategic positions" (pg 26-27). The guards dominance was used to such an extent that it turned them into power-crazed monsters who in turn transformed the prisoners into compliant, terrified children.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
The Prison Building as Spectacle
One of the basic premises that Michel Foucault makes concerning the transition of power, is the decline of the spectacle of the scaffold and the rise of a meticulous order of justice and punishment. Although the visibility of the prisoner is quite reduced, there are still great symbols of justice, which persist in great visibility and act as constraining forces on human action. One of the most noticeable aspects of this is the physical institution of the prison.
My father worked for over thirty years in a building that was approximately a mile from the large penitentiary in Rahway, New Jersey. This prison is located in a large field surrounded by barbed wire fences, but it is far from isolated from the surrounding social space. There is a DMV less than a quarter mile from the prison, as well as numerous consumer businesses in the immediate area. Although the building acts to obscure the prisoners from the gaze of the general public, the building itself takes on the symbolic role as an indicator of the practice of justice.
This shift from an overt expression of justice to a covert symbol of justice gives greater range to the thought of the external observer, and potentially the capacity for violent images of justice. As filmmakers have observed for many years, overt televised violence tends to pale in comparison to the illusion of violence. The human mind is able to imagine violence that filmmakers can never express. Similarly, I wonder whether the mental concept of prison is even more spectacular than the town battle between the sovereign and the condemned.
My father worked for over thirty years in a building that was approximately a mile from the large penitentiary in Rahway, New Jersey. This prison is located in a large field surrounded by barbed wire fences, but it is far from isolated from the surrounding social space. There is a DMV less than a quarter mile from the prison, as well as numerous consumer businesses in the immediate area. Although the building acts to obscure the prisoners from the gaze of the general public, the building itself takes on the symbolic role as an indicator of the practice of justice.
This shift from an overt expression of justice to a covert symbol of justice gives greater range to the thought of the external observer, and potentially the capacity for violent images of justice. As filmmakers have observed for many years, overt televised violence tends to pale in comparison to the illusion of violence. The human mind is able to imagine violence that filmmakers can never express. Similarly, I wonder whether the mental concept of prison is even more spectacular than the town battle between the sovereign and the condemned.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Finally, I can post...
So apparently Google wasn't too happy with my email account. Luckily, that has been sorted out. My first post will be in response to the Body in Pain introduction. I found the most interesting part of the introduction to be part on pages 15-16 where Elaine Scarry discusses the process of the body externalizing its pain. I was definitely able to relate to this segment, and I'm sure others are able to, as well. How many times have you said, or have heard someone say, that you feel like someone has 'stabbed you in the back,' or that you're in so much physical pain that it feels as though there's a knife cutting into your stomach, throat, thigh, et cetera? These statements or externalizing our internal pain are so common in terms of expressing our pain because, as Scarry words it so nicely, we are trying to "make sharable what is originally an interior and unsharable experience." (Scarry 16) We have no idea was exactly is happening and causing the extreme pain within our body because we have little to no knowledge of our interior. Thus, we rely heavily upon these types of analogies to better explain the amount and quality of the pain we are feeling.
Season Premiere: Locked Up Abroad
While watching television this weekend, I saw an advertisement for a show that could have some strong correlation to the class discussions. National Geographic Channel is starting a 5 part series tonight at 10PM called "Locked Up Abroad". The National Geographic Channel website lists episodes to have real-life accounts of imprisonment set Caracas, Ecuador, Puerto Vallarta, Cuzco, and the Philippines. I plan to watch the show tonight and possibly blog more about it later this week and/or in the upcoming weeks.
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