javasaurus (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
javasaurus) wrote2009-07-10 11:23 am
javasaurus) wrote2009-07-10 11:23 am
Waterboarding?
Is waterboarding "torture"?
Most people reading this will likely think, "Java has been smoking his coffee instead of drinking it" -- but hear me out.
First, I'll say up front that waterboarding is certainly excessive torment, abhorrent, inexcusable, and should be illegal. I'm strictly talking definitions here, not morality. With the moral issue, we're probably in agreement here.
The problem is this: The basic definition of torture is the causing of extreme physical pain. Common usage goes beyond this to include doing pretty much anything extremely bad to someone. Expressions that were originally hyperbole (such as "This math exam is torture!") have become common to the point of acceptance, rather than exageration. The word has changed in some people's minds to mean any level of discomfort (physical or otherwise) inflicted on another.
The mental/emotional version of torture is torment, though it's my understanding that torment is not necessarily extreme.
So waterboarding may qualify as "torture" in common usage, but by the root definition, it doesn't qualify because the aim of waterboarding is fear, not pain. Language loophole.
Still, whether or not it's "torture," it's barbaric, eh?
Most people reading this will likely think, "Java has been smoking his coffee instead of drinking it" -- but hear me out.
First, I'll say up front that waterboarding is certainly excessive torment, abhorrent, inexcusable, and should be illegal. I'm strictly talking definitions here, not morality. With the moral issue, we're probably in agreement here.
The problem is this: The basic definition of torture is the causing of extreme physical pain. Common usage goes beyond this to include doing pretty much anything extremely bad to someone. Expressions that were originally hyperbole (such as "This math exam is torture!") have become common to the point of acceptance, rather than exageration. The word has changed in some people's minds to mean any level of discomfort (physical or otherwise) inflicted on another.
The mental/emotional version of torture is torment, though it's my understanding that torment is not necessarily extreme.
So waterboarding may qualify as "torture" in common usage, but by the root definition, it doesn't qualify because the aim of waterboarding is fear, not pain. Language loophole.
Still, whether or not it's "torture," it's barbaric, eh?
no subject
Is the Chinese water torture torture?
Oxford English Dictionary, second meaning: 2. Severe or excruciating pain or suffering (of body or mind); anguish, agony, torment; the infliction of such.
Mental anguish, and physical reaction of a body very convinced that it is about to die. Yes, it is torture.
no subject
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