Attitudes toward torture reveal the moral and political state of societies and individuals. A willingness to allow torture in one’s name without speaking out in opposition is an indication of moral dereliction and political decay, particularly in a democracy with a tradition of freedom of expression.
In times of war and conflict, it becomes more difficult, but also more imperative, to take a public stand against those agents and supporters of torture (and there are always many) as a necessary element in national “security”.
By its nature, torture is something people don’t normally want to contemplate very much. Its repulsive essence — the systematic and deliberate infliction of physical and psychological pain on defenseless and trapped human beings — is not easy to dwell upon at length or in depth. Most would rather not give it much consideration at all.
Thus anyone who struggles to overcome this very human aversion to thinking about and analyzing torture is already an exceptional person.
But the person who then takes the next step to give voice to their opposition to their government and society’s willingness to commit torture is the truly extraordinary individual. In doing so, one is most certain to come under attack and be vilified for a failure to show sufficient patriotism and for supposed political naivete.
Not many of us develop the fortitude and courage to publicly speak and write against torture as national policy or practice. Thinking and writing about, and against, torture, day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year would take its toll — psychologically, spiritually, probably physically — on anyone.
It is a monster of a commitment.
It is, therefore, incumbent upon people with a conscience to at a minimum give some level support and show respect to those who do speak out against torture done in our name, lest we become complicit with those who actually commit torture in our name.
It speaks well of this website to have hosted Valtin as a prolific writer against torture (257 diaries on the subject), and I am sad to see him go, and also am a bit ashamed to belong to something where people mock, celebrate, deride, and laugh at Valtin’s exit.
Honestly, I am not up to the task of properly honoring Valtin. Instead, I will simply close by quoting one of his many great diaries that reveal
to us someone with a serious, clear moral compass:
It’s morally exhausting to live in this country (from December 20, 2006):
I am speaking of the United States. I can't speak of the psychic and emotional cost of living in other countries, since I don't live in any other country. Of course, I suppose that cost can also be great.
Why so exhausting? I will sum it up: the moral obliqueness of the general population, the lack of selflessness, the quest for mindless pleasure and distraction, the anti-intellectual self-congratulation -- and all in the context of trying to live a sane and morally centered life in the midst of a society engaged in a criminal war that results daily in horrific slaughter and chaos.
….
Who will not rage at the massive mismanagement of this society that has eviscerated the educational system, made the health care system nearly arcane and unreceptive and uncaring, and trashed the industrial and social infrastructure of the society?
It is morally exhausting to live in America. To breathe its air of hypocrisy and cynicism and stubborn racism. To write this diary and sleep at night, along with all the criminals that torture, kill, mislead, steal, and lie, and then sleep well at night, who send their children to the best schools, who attend conferences, and premieres, and dances, and picnics, and PTA meetings, and angry meetings, and poetry readings, and movies, or watching TV, playing video games, drinking bottled water, writing Daily Kos diaries... an infinite regression to rant, and then start all over again.
Forgive me this spate of pessimism and despair, but sometimes, if you are a thoughtful and feeling human being, it truly is exhausting to be a person in these United States, circa 2006.
Thank you, Valtin.