Yoga and the Social Body

Once again surfing the internet and I typed in the search engine Social bodies, of course a load of books came up, then i saw "Yoga and the Social Body". I clicked on it and it was an abstract of someone researching the effects of yoga on the social body of a person. 

Yoga is a mind and spirt practice that helps many (including myself) calm and relax their bodies and minds. It is a rejuvenating practice that demands a ton of concentration, while breathing and while focusing on moves. After you leave yoga, you feel like a new you. While feeling sore, you also get this feeling of calmness and serenity that takes over you mind. This abstract states, "The process of bodily knowledge becoming social forces is often neglected in the social sciences. This research is an attempt to begin filling that gap. I investigated the visceral process by which a yogic habitus is developed and lifestyle transformed. This paper explicates the mechanisms by which the emotional, intellectual, and social lives of yoga practitioners have been transformed from the body and how visceral memory traces became resources for agency in social life." After reading this abstract it got me thinking about my reactions and feelings after I do yoga. There is a transformation from the body there is an inner peace that is reached when you practice yoga (especially meditation and Vinyasa). 

I know yoga can be a way of life for some people, and others it is a way to relax and cope with the real world. But what happens during yoga is a mind and body experience, it does transform your social body and you sometimes leave being a different person, and in society there is a more demand for stress relief, ways of coping, and ways of relieving anger. 

It is a stretch that Yoga can be related to the social body, but it is interesting to think that in some way it does affect our social life and the way we live. Yoga and the social body might not go  hand in hand but yoga and the body self sure does.

Break-in's... Mind Violation?

Last night my roommate and I were sitting in our living room trying to study amongst the rave-like noises outside our apartment on Easton Ave, which were of course the result of the Rutgersfest festivities. I was trying to work on my blogs as a matter of fact, struggling because I couldn't figure out what to write about for my last few. Around 11pm we heard a loud bang from downstairs and then a few seconds later another loud bang. It was enough to shake the house and my roommate and I both commented on how much we hate it when the drunks on the street bang on our front door, especially on nights like these. As I went back to writing my blog comforted by the fact that the banging seemed to have stopped, I noticed my roommate's bedroom door, which was located off of the kitchen, slowly open so that I considerable amount of light was shining through. I turned to her and asked her if she had noticed the door move and to my surprise she said something that quite frankly, scared the shit out of me. She told me that one of our other roommates was in her bedroom and had looked at her, very slowly put her finger to her lips as to say be quiet and slowly closed the door back.

Now this wouldn't necessarily be the scariest thing ever two things hadn't been true: first, we don't share bedrooms and therefore our other roommate who lived on another floor entirely would have no cause at all to be in that room and second, that other roommate in question I knew for a fact, had been in her room upstairs for the past few hours. I told the roommate I was with that she was wrong and that it was not our other roommate and after a split-second pause we both ran into my room, which is off of the living room locked the door and stood in the farthest corner near a window. We looked outside to see if and police officer's were outside stationed across the street where they usually are, and there were none, so we proceeded to call our landlord then the police. The police were in our house with in less than a minute of my phone call and called us out of my room to tell us it was safe. My other roommate who was up in her room came running down looking confused and the police officer nearest notified us that someone had kicked in our back door and inside door and gotten into my roommates bedroom.

However, that wasn't the freakiest part. When my roommate went to survey her room to see if anything had been stolen she was surprised to see nothing was missing, her ipod was still sitting on her bed as well as her wallet and many other valuables. Nothing had been moved our taken and all that was left as a result of our intruder was two busted doors. The cops (rookies not 5 years older than myself) immediately wrote the whole thing off as a drunk guy who had gotten lost and confused into thinking that it was his apartment and left. They wrote a quick report as our landlady hysterically tried to fix the doors and left as quick as they came.

So, this might have been the scariest few minutes of my life to date and I have to state a few things I noticed about it. The fear of not knowing what was happening, and knowing that I had no way to defend myself if the worst had happened or if my roommate wasn't with me, was the most torture I've ever been in that had absolutely nothing to do with physical pain, which makes me think of Scarry's classifications of torture. However after the torture subsided, the adrenaline that was rushing through my body made me feel more alive in the face of potential death than I have ever felt and for at least a few hours after, that I thought about how lucky I was that things didn't end worse than they did and that things that I've felt were important in my life for so long like school and a career mean nothing in death. All of these sensations were a direct result of my situation, the torture, which was caused by fear and then gave me liberation. I feel like this experience related to a lot of the discussions that we've had in class about the mind-body-pain link, all of which worked together to help me cope with a traumatic experience.

Of course, after my adrenaline died down I knew life still had to go on and I would still need to finish up the semester's coursework, which includes these blogs so I wrote one, this one...

(PS, the guy that did it is still at large and we don't think he was after money, he more likely had a more aggressive intent... and the investigation is ongoing.)

Clockwork Orange & Foucault's Reform

I recently saw A Clockwork Orange for the first time a few weeks before we started to read Foucault in class. The movie version of the story revolves around a character named Alex who is a juvenile delinquent. He commits crimes with his gang around his community which is portrayed as a corrupt place with a high violence and crime rate. He eventually gets caught in the film and sentenced to a term in prison where he spends some time and then volunteers to be part of an experimental treatment to cure him of his "baddness", which is where I think some of Foucault's principles apply. Foucault talks about reform of the body through training and repetition, and in A Clockwork Orange these systems are used but in a torturous extreme. Alex is put in a strayjacket and made to watch horrible images on a screen for a length of time each day, but the aspect in which the cure comes in is when the doctors gave him drugs that put him in an extruciating amount of pain that caused him to feel violently ill. The pain and the images put together were a way of conditioning his body to have a negative reaction to violence so that he would become "good". While Foucault doesn't give examples this severe as a way of reform, I think that this movie really relates well to his ideas.

Extremism leads to Nationwide Protesting of the Roma in the Czech Republic

As Krista told us in class the discrimination against the Roma in the Czech Republic has risen to an all time high. They are being forcefully evicted from their homes, segregated in schools and therefore getting less than standard educations, and fired from or denied jobs. Individual acts of violence against the Roma have also become much more extreme targeting not only adults but whole families. Recently molotov cocktail bombs were thrown into the home of a Roma male with more than seven of his family members still in the home. One of their children, a two-year-old girl, was burned on over 80% of her body and is currently in a coma . The Roma community and other social civic activists are marching in a nationwide protest against the terror being reigned on the Roma in the Czech Republic. It is definitely appaling that these people are being discriminated against in such a way and that they have been unsuccessful in trying to protect themselves from the government who should be helping, not hurting them. However I think that they are taking a step forward by coming together because with unity comes progress and results. By protesting they are sending a sign to those who would be against them that they are not giving up and are willing to fight to gain their freedom from terror and violence. Hopefully in time the Roma will finally get to live with rights equal to any citizens in Eastern Europe but until then, all they can do is march and persevere.

Homosexuality in the "New" Iraq

A reporter from the NY Times recently wrote an article from Baghdad on the increasing killings of gay men in and around the city of Sadr. Since the recent development of democracy in the country as well as the heightening in security, many gay men and women have started to become more open about their sexuality by socializing in public and wearing clothes that more fit their personalities and lifestyles. However, with the coming out of many homosexual men, a lot of the rest of the population have become angry and appalled by the new surge in the openness of sexuality because of their highly conservative religious beliefs. Police officials and Clerics have openly spoken out against homosexuality saying it’s disgusting and against the law, and are trying to get people to help them root out homosexuality in Iraqi society. Radical groups have begun to kill gay men when walking on the streets, and even more shockingly the family of the gay men have started to shoot them, resulting in the death of at least 25 people in the past few months. The openly gay men affected have said that they are afraid to leave their homes for fear of being killed but still do because they need to live their lives. This type of persecution of homosexual individuals and the violence on the body self that is involved in the situation in Iraq today, is one that needs to be addressed in the near future before it becomes even more horrific than it is now. However what I find most intriguing about this whole situation is that many Americans see Iraq as a country that is being “saved” by the military presence that we have imposed upon them, when in reality they are killing their own people because of something so trivial as their alternative lifestyles.

Violence Against Indigenous Women in Canada

In 2004 Amnesty International first wrote a report about a group of Indigenous women in Canada who lives are in danger. They are being singled out for acts of violence, by non-Indigenous men and usually abducted brutally raped and killed. In fact the statistic given by the Canadian government was that Indigenous women were five times as likely to die as a result of violent crime than non-Indigenous women in the population. This has become a serious issue for the girls living in the community to live in fear of becoming a victim, but even worse the Canadian police force has also refused to keep records of how many Indigenous women have been attacked and also rarely prosecute any of the perpetrators. Amnesty believes that the targeting of Indigenous women is a result of the systematic discrimination and racism that they have to face on a daily basis, which is keeping them from getting jobs, good educations, and the proper protection they so desperately need. This type of victimization of the female body that is occurring in Canada today, relates to the type of victimization that Zarkov writes about in her book. The Muslim women Zarkov writes about, are brutally sexually assaulted simply because of their beliefs and ethnicity and as a way for groups with opposing views to express their dominance over them, which is what I believe may be happening to the Indigenous women in Canada. In my opinion the worst type of violence that can be inflicted upon a person is sexual because it violates a persons body in the most personal intimate way possible, which is why I think that what Amnesty and Zarkov have done by addressing the issue of sexual violence against women is so important and admirable, so that people will finally recognize it and fight to see change.

Entertainment and torture

So it is a little challenging to come up with a topic to write about when it comes to torture and relating to class....Well for me any how.... However i was surfing the internet and thought about the different things in entertainment that have to do with torture. Well for starters film, horror movies seem to be based around torture and not killing anymore. It seems that entertainment for people now a days is more about torture then it is killing. Some movies come to mind, Saw(1-10?), Hostel 1 and 2, The Hills Have Eyes, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hitcher, Turistas, I believe you get the picture.  Why is it that entertainment is all about torture? Why do people find it entertaining? We have a situation in the United States about the torture memos and what to do with those who committed the acts of torture, and so we find the acts they committed horrible and unethical, and so on, yet we enjoy watching films all about torture. Why is that? We say it is unethical for a person to commit such horrific acts, yet we will gladly watch it on the big screen, whether it be a true story or made up. 

How can entertainment be different from real life when it comes to torture. How can we withstand the look of it on the big screen but not in the real world, even if its a true story?

The world works in so many mysterious ways, ways in which one cannot understand. Torture is one of the mysteries in the world, what is moral and what isn't, what is extreme and what is testing the waters. People believe it is a no brainer to explain what torture is, they believe that the word torture explains itself. In reality it does not, there are so many "justifications" of torture. So what does make it legitimate? When is it getting out of hand? Are doctors being handy making it legit or is it illegitimate that they can die and a doctor is on staff to revive them. Who knows! All i know it is a complicated world, it is a world that may never be explained. All we can do is try and debunk what we feel is  false and stereotypical. 

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

In the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey, the main character McMurphy was sentenced to do time at a work farm but decided to fake insanity and be placed into a mental hospital. McMurphy believes that his sentence would be made much easier being carried out at the hospital. Foucault discuses, "whether the mental hospital would be a more suitable place of confinement than the prison, whether this confinement should be short or long, whether medical treatment or security measures are called for" (Foucault, 21). Reading about this particular wing of the hospital, who is headed by the notorious Nurse Ratched, we find that this place is not particularly suitable for individuals. As we spend our time with McMurphy we find that he has made a very grave mistake in choosing to spend his sentence in the hands of Nurse Ratched. Here the length of his stay is placed into the hands of the nurse and she gets to choose whether or not he is ready to go back out into the world rather than his sentence being finite on the work farm. The nurse constantly utilizes her position of power to an unnecessary advantage upon the patients and seems to place more of a security restraint upon them rather than assisting them to overcome their mental disabilities.

A Peaceful World

The last piece I wanted to discuss is a contrast to the class, it’s about peace and how we can bring peace to the world. John Denver’s The Peace Poem, is about how war and killing has corrupted the minds of those in charge. It is about making choices, not necessarily the wrong choices but ones that have an impact on the world and those around us. He believes that if peace would be our answer instead of hatred then there wouldn’t be torture and pain in the world. I believe with peace there wouldn’t be a need for this class on the torture of the body. Scarry’s work about interrogation as a way to get information and the loss of words due to pain wouldn’t exist. If there were peace and everyone got along with one another we wouldn’t have to discipline or punish people and Foucault’s work, on the history of discipline and punishment, would be null and void. However, if there were peace it would be a perfect world and everyone would be flawless. The perfect utopian world does not exist and never will because no one can ever be perfect no matter how hard we try. This is why Foucault and Scarry’s works have meaning and relevance. They shed light on the history of pain and torture and the government’s view on it. Starting with Foucault’s kings and ending with Scarry’s government debates on torture techniques being reasonable for the purpose of information gathering.

To the man who has touched the lives of so many, I wanted to say thank you, your words and music are not forgotten by those who knew you, and you are deeply missed. If people would have listened to you there wouldn’t be torture tactics to produce confessions so our military could protect us; we wouldn’t be in a war against terrorism; we wouldn’t be missing two towers in New York; and all the people who gave their lives when the towers collapsed would be sitting at home with their loved ones instead of in box. I can’t help wondering what you would have to say to the people of the world about problems that occurred since your senseless death. One man can’t do everything, but one man can do something.

The Peace Poem
(Denver)

There's a name for war and killing
there's a name for giving in
when you know another answer
for me the name is sin
but there's still time to turn around
and make all hatred cease
and give another name to living
and we could call it peace

And peace would be the road we walk
each step along the way
and peace would be the way we work
and peace the way we play

And in all we see that's different
and in all the things we know
peace would be the way we look
and peace the way we grow

There's a name for separation
there's a name for first and last
when it's all for us or nothing
for me the name is past
but there's still time to turn around
and make all hatred cease
and give a name to all the future
and we could call it peace

And if peace is what we pray for
and peace is what we give
then peace will be the way we are
and peace the way we live

Yes there still is the time to turn around
and make all hatred cease
and give another name to living
and we can call it peace

http://www.john-denver.org/Default.asp?id=60

I can’t believe that this is my last blog of the semester. I have learned a lot about torture and the impact it has on the body. I enjoyed the class discussions and meeting all of you guys! Krista, you have made class fun and kept us talking about torture. I’m not one for discussion based courses, as I am the quiet type who listens then speaks, but I definitely enjoyed the topics and the effort you put into trying to bring each of us into the conversation, especially if we sat silent too long. Thanks guys for a fun semester!

Who is Raven’s Child?

John Denver’s Raven’s Child is a song about stopping those that believe greed rules the world instead of the hearts of the people. He states that the drug king, oil king, and arms king are the ones who have corrupted the world bringing pain to the people. Raven’s Child is nothing more than the conscious that lives in all of us. When we turn our backs on our conscious we give up on life and we become nothing more than the drug king, arms king, or oil king. Scarry would believe that this lack of conscious is a betrayal of our souls. It is the confession that greed, believed to be a form of pain, has twisted out of us. It is sad to see that the only ones who truly are affected by our lack of conscious are the children of the future. I believe that if we try to take our conscious back we can begin to heal and take back the future for our children. If we don’t attempt to knock the drug king, arms king, and oil king off their thrones the future will be lost and the world will not change. It will simply cease to exist because we will kill ourselves off. War is not the answer rather it is a way the people think makes change happen.

Ravens Child
(John Denver)

Ravens child
Is chasing salvation
Black beak turned white
From the crack and the snow
On the streets of despair
The answer is simple
A spoonful of mercy
Can set free the soul

The drug king sits
On his arrogant throne
Away and above and apart
Even childrenAre twisted to serve him
And greed has corruptedWhat once was a heart

Ravens child
Keeps vigil for freedom
Trades for the arms
That once made her strong
With nuclear warheads
And lasers in heaven fear does the choosing
Between right and wrong

The arms king sits
On his arrogant throne
Away and above and apart
Bankers assure him
That he needn’t care
And greed makes a stone of
What once was a heart

Ravens child
Is washing the water
All of her wing-feathers
Blackened with tar
Prince William shorelines
An unwanted highway
Of asphalt and anger
An elegant scar

The oil king sits
On his arrogant throne
Away and above and apart
Lawyers have warned him
He mustn’t speak
And greed has made silent
What once was a heart

You know there are walls
That come tumbling down
For people who yearn to be free
Still there are hearts
That long to be opened
And eyes that are longing to see

Ravens child is our constant companion
Sticks like a shadow
To all that is done
Try as we may
We just cant escape him
The source of our sorrow and shame
We are one

The true King sits
On a heavenly throne
Never away nor above nor apart
With wisdom and mercy
And constant compassion
He lives in the love
That lives in our hearts

http://www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/John-Denver/Ravens-Child.html

The Man Who Spoke to Many

I know many of you may not who John Denver is but I thought my last three blogs could give a little insight about the man who fought so hard to try to bring peace and freedom to so many people around the world. He touched the lives of millions with the words of his songs. He did not believe in torture or the pain caused by another’s hand. He spoke of unjust events done to people. He visited places that no one thought of or seemed to care about and tried to help the people who lived there. His song It’s About Time is about trying to bring peace during war time and trying to bring the two sides together to make a change so the people of the world can get back to living. The song is about the pain he feels when he looks at the world and sees so many people suffering and no one looking twice or offering a helping hand. This would even pull at the coldest heart and make it look to make a change, even the smallest one will help to stop the pain and agony of a few. This is the point he is trying to make. Make small changes to help those of tomorrow so mankind won’t die out because “we are all in this together.”

It’s About Time
(Denver/Hardin)

There's a full moon over India and Gandhi lives again.
Who's to say you have to lose for someone else to win?
In the eyes of all the people, the look is much the same,
for the first is just the last one when you play a deadly game.
It's about time we realize it, we're all in this together.
It's about time we find out, it's all of us or none.
It's about time we recognize it, these changes in the weather.
It's about time, it's about changes, and it's about time.

There's a light in the Vatican window for all the world to see
and a voice cries in the wilderness and sometimes he speaks for me.
I suppose I love him most of all when he kneels to kiss the land,
with his lips upon our mother's breast, he makes his strongest stand.
It's about time we start to see it, the earth is our only home.
It's about time we start to face it, we can't make it here all alone.
It's about time we start to listen to the voices in the wind,
it's about time and it's about changes and it's about time.

There's a man who is my brother, I just don't know his name.
But I know his home and family because I know we feel the same.
And it hurts me when he's hungry and when his children cry.
I too am a father, and that little one is mine.
It's about time we begin it, to turn the world around.
It's about time we start to make it, the dream we've always known.
It's about time we start to live it, the family of man.
It's about time, it's about changes and it's about time.
It's about peace and it's about plenty and it's about time,
It's about you and me together and it's about time.

http://www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/John-Denver/Its-About-Time.html

Renegade

So have you ever heard the song Renegade by Styx? It is a prime example of Foucault’s scaffold. The person in the song is a renegade running from the law. He gets caught and is sentenced to the gallows. He states to his mom that he doesn’t have very long as the hangman in coming down from the gallows. In the old days the sheriff was the county’s judicial ruler, what he said went. This renegade knew he had a price on his head from the law man and that once he was caught he wouldn’t have a say in whether he lived or died. He knew he would be sentenced to death. The sheriffs acted much like Foucault’s sovereign king who ruled over the land and killed those that disobeyed him. I was in my car, on my way home from this class, listening to one of my cd’s when this started playing. I couldn’t stop laughing at the possibility that the writer could have been thinking about Foucault when he wrote it.

Renegade
(Tommy Shaw)

Oh Mama, I'm in fear for my life from the long arm of the law
Law man has put an end to my running and I
'm so far from my home
The jig is up, the news is out
They finally found me
The renegade who had it made
Retrieved for a bounty
Never more to go astray
This'll be the end today
Of the wanted man

Oh Mama, I've been years on the lam and had a high price on my head
Lawman said 'Get him dead or alive' and it's for sure he'll see me dead
Dear Mama I can hear you cryin', you're so scared and all alone
Hangman is comin' down from the gallows and I don't have very long

The jig is up, the news is out
They finally found me
The renegade who had it made
Retrieved for a bounty
Never more to go astray
The judge'll have revenge today
On the wanted man

Oh Mama, I'm in fear for my life from the long arm of the law
Law man has put an end to my running and I'm so far from my home

The jig is up, the news is out
They finally found me
The renegade who had it made
Retrieved for a bounty
Never more to go astray
This'll be the end today
Of the wanted man

http://www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/Styx/Renegade.html

Child Torture

I recently wrote a paper on child trafficking to and from Latin America, Europe, and Asia. I was dismayed and appalled at the research I had to read to write the paper. Many of the children were taken from their homes and locked in cold, dark, damp cellars with little to no food for days before they were transported to new locations. These children were forced to walk late at night for miles at a time and pushed to keep going. When they couldn’t walk any more they were beaten until they agreed to walk. Many of the children were used in child pornographies, sold as sex slaves or general slaves without pay, and many were killed merely for their bodily organs. Parents in these third world countries will sell their children so they can afford to live and many parents believe their children will have better lives. This isn’t the case though. These children are tortured and mentally abused by the traffickers and by those who buy them. Many of the girls are sold into sex brothels and prostitution rings before they even reach their teens. I had a rough time trying to do the presentation that went along with the paper because I feel that children are our future and should be respected and allowed to grow up playing and laughing and having fun. It makes me mad that there are people out there who would hurt an innocent child for nothing more than money. They don’t care that they are hurting the child or that they are using the child to get money or drugs. I see this as a form of torture and maybe, I am stretching this here, but even a form of Scarry’s interrogation, especially during their transportation. These children were forced to walk miles and beaten or threatened if they didn’t walk fast enough or weren’t quiet enough. Their confession would be the act in which stops the beatings or threats. The betrayal is to their selves because their bodies are what need the rest, but they force their bodies to keep going. My heart goes out to all those children who have suffered at the hands of another.

Zarkov and Chained Heat 2

The movie Chained Heat 2 is about Alex a woman who is charged with a falsified drug trafficking charge and found guilty and sentenced to 25 years in the Razik Prison while she and her fiancée are on a trip in Prague. The prison she is sentenced to entraps beautiful women into prostitution and actresses for cheap porn movies for the warden Magda. The other women prisoners have the same fate as she does. When they become too old to be of use they are released and sent home. Many of them said they would never let anyone know what they were put through. Alex fought for her freedom from imprisonment under false unjust pretenses. The Muslim women and fought for the same freedom from their captures too. At the beginning of Zarkov’s book she discusses the politician who called for women from the surrounding countries to come have sex with his men and the women became offended. The women declared they were mothers of Serbian soldiers and fought back against the politician’s unjust words. I thought the movie was interesting and suspenseful and related to the class discussions from Zarkov and maybe even a little of Foucault.

Scarry and Zarkov in Law and Order

As I was watching one of my favorite T.V. shows I realized that the topic related to the book I was reading for class. Scarry’s idea about pain and the infliction of pain as an interrogation technique to gain something or information can be seen in the Law and Order Criminal Intent episode Homo Homini Lupus. The episode is about a wealthy man whose wife and daughters are kidnapped and taken as collateral until he pays his loan shark all of his debt. He is told he will never see them again unless he pays up. The eldest daughter is raped by a former militant from another country. Scarry’s idea that the loan sharks were not concerned about the pain which was inflicted on the women or the wealthy man but rather they were concerned about the money they had loaned him and wanted it back. Zarkov’s idea about the rape of women as a form of torture became clear for the teenage girl when she was violated to torture her father into paying the ransom. The tactics her rapist used seemed to be the same for the Muslim women in Zarkov’s book. After they were released the family pretended nothing ever happened to the girl while the girl pretended that her rapist had feelings for her and that’s why he had sex with her. This is the same thing that many of the Muslim women did when they were released from their hostage cells so they could go back to their lives and not have to deal with what happened to them.

Elaine Scarry’s Goonies

“Aye you guys!” We all know this line. It comes from the famous beloved movie The Goonies. When we were going over Elaine Scarry in class this movie came to mind. More specifically a scene came to mind which is good example of what Scarry is trying to explain about pain and torture. Chunk, the fat kid who has a weird sense of humor, was kidnapped by the bad guys, the Fratellis. They take him back to the cellar of their hide out, on old tavern, to interrogate him hoping to find out where Chunk’s friends were. They stick his hand in a blender and threaten to cut it up so he won’t be able to use it again if he doesn’t tell them. The dialog goes something like this:
Francis Fratelli: Tell us everything! Everything! Chunk: Everything. OK! I'll talk! In third grade, I cheated on my history exam. In fourth grade, I stole my uncle Max's toupee and I glued it on my face when I was Moses in my Hebrew School play. In fifth grade, I knocked my sister Edie down the stairs and I blamed it on the dog... When my mom sent me to the summer camp for fat kids and then they served lunch I got nuts and I pigged out and they kicked me out... But the worst thing I ever done - I mixed a pot of fake puke at home and then I went to this movie theater, hid the puke in my jacket, climbed up to the balcony and then, t-t-then, I made a noise like this: hua-hua-hua-huaaaaaaa - and then I dumped it over the side, all over the people in the audience. And then, this was horrible, all the people started getting sick and throwing up all over each other. I never felt so bad in my entire life. Jake Fratelli: I'm beginning to like this kid, Ma! Mama Fratelli: Hit puree! (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089218/quotes)
Scarry would view the infliction of pain on Chunk as that of the possibility of losing his fingers. When he is told to spill and tell everything, the only thing that comes to mind is all the stuff he did wrong over the years. This is the confession he makes which is scene as a betrayal of his conscious and individual self. The Fratellis would deny they used a form of pain to gain knowledge of where the other kids were. They would see the information gained as a way to preserve their whereabouts a secret. This is the same way that Scarry believes the government views their interrogation procedures.