Walking in quick sand
Christine May 18th, 2007
There is a lengthy discussion (again) over on the Daily Dish regarding torture. Sullivan has never let this issue wilt on his blog. I so admire him for that. I don’t have the stomach to post on this issue too often, other than mentioning other conversations. The subject simply makes me weep. I recall hearing a painful story told by my German friend’s father, of how at the age of 14 he was forced to crawl on his belly under barbed wire for a great distance, engaging in war games conducted by the Hitler youth. He thankfully was able to avoid further involvement – being the war ended. I don’t believe those people ever overcame emotionally what happened in their country during those years. The Church, the populace were all complicit in their silence. I listened quietly to their stories as my friend’s older family members spoke cautiously of the Hitler era. In retrospect, in remembering, they didn’t even recognize the people they had become. The horror which transpired came upon them gradually and so secretively. The face of Germany in the mirror was a face they didn’t recognize as their own.
In the same way, I don’t know who we in this country have become anymore. There are shadowy, gray areas where we should not go. There is never a good time to torture others. The circumstances of fear, war, and terror do not sanction the use of interrogative force by our armed forces. The psychology of the perpetrators only brings home the truth that we all carry the potential for cruelty inside of us. We are capable of being the monster who we so very much fear. When the line of the Geneva Conventions was crossed there was a collapse, nearly producing a cascade effect, in conduct. The collapse occurred much too easily. As if, those moral codes were built of toothpicks. This collapse threatens the foundations of who we are as “America”. We are walking in quick sand.
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Was touched by your remarks, likening what’s happening in amerika today to what took place in Germany not so very long ago.
Particularly apt was your metaphor of the toothpicks.
As a studier of anthropology, I surmised decades ago that what we call civilization is a flimsy matter. At the heart–no, that’s too deep–at the layer not so very much deeper than a thin film of makeup, is the savage.
The fact that we even attempt to be “civilised” is the only thing that distinguishes us from wild animals.
To see how quickly, as a nation, we’ve slipped back into savagery makes me, too, want to weep. And the fact that there are still souls out there like you who realise this–and resist it–is the only reason I can continue to have any hope for us as a nation.