Anarchists and the fine art of torture

[repeater138]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/spain/article/0,...,883074,00.html (http://www.guardian.co.uk/spain/article/0,2763,883074,00.html)

Anarchists and the fine art of torture

Spanish art historian says they put enemies in disorienting cells

Giles Tremlett in Madrid
Monday January 27, 2003
The Guardian

A Spanish art historian has uncovered what was alleged to be the first use of modern art as a deliberate form of torture, with the discovery that mind-bending prison cells were built by anarchist artists 65 years ago during the country's bloody civil war.

Bauhaus artists such as Kandinsky, Klee and Itten, as well as the surrealist film-maker Luis Bunuel and his friend Salvador Dali, were said to be the inspiration behind a series of secret cells and torture centres built in Barcelona and elsewhere, yesterday's El Pais newspaper reported.

Most were the work of an enthusiastic French anarchist, Alphonse Laurencic, who invented a form of "psychotechnic" torture, according to the research of the historian Jose Milicua.

Mr Milicua's information came from a written account of Laurencic's trial before a Francoist military tribunal. That 1939 account was written by a man called R L Chacon who, like anybody allowed to publish by the newly installed dictatorship, could not have been expected to feel any sympathy for what Nazi Germany had already denounced as "degenerative art".

Laurencic, who claimed to be a painter and conductor in civilian life, created his so-called "coloured cells" as a contribution to the fight against General Franco's rightwing rebel forces.

They may also have been used to house members of other leftwing factions battling for power with the anarchist National Confederation of Workers, to which Laurencic belonged.

Hidden

The cells, built in 1938 and reportedly hidden from foreign journalists who visited the makeshift jails on Vallmajor and Saragossa streets, were as inspired by ideas of geometric abstraction and surrealism as they were by avant garde art theories on the psychological properties of colours.

Beds were placed at a 20 degree angle, making them near-impossible to sleep on, and the floors of the 6ft by 3ft cells was scattered with bricks and other geometric blocks to prevent prisoners from walking backwards and forwards, according to the account of Laurencic's trial.

The only option left to prisoners was staring at the walls, which were curved and covered with mind-altering patterns of cubes, squares, straight lines and spirals which utilised tricks of colour, perspective and scale to cause mental confusion and distress.

Lighting effects gave the impression that the dizzying patterns on the wall were moving.

A stone bench was similarly designed to send a prisoner sliding to the floor when he or she sat down, Mr Milicua said. Some cells were painted with tar so that they would warm up in the sun and produce asphyxiating heat.

Laurencic told the military court that he had been commissioned to build the cells by an anarchist leader who had heard of similar ones used elsewhere in the republican zone during the civil war, possibly in Valencia.

Mr Milicua has claimed that Laurencic preferred to use the colour green because, according to his theory of the psychological effects of various colours, it produced melancholy and sadness in prisoners.

But it appears that Barcelona was not the only place where avant garde art was used to torture Franco's supporters.

According to the prosecutors who put Laurencic on trial in 1939, a jail in Murcia in south-east Spain forced prisoners to view the infamously disturbing scene from Dali and Bunuel's film Un Chien Andalou, in which an eyeball is sliced open.

El Pais commented: "The avant garde forms of the moment - surrealism and geometric abstraction - were thus used for the aim of committing psychological torture.

"The creators of such revolutionary and liberating [artistic] languages could never have imagined that they would be so intrinsically linked to repression."

[Severian]

You might want to take into account - that this article is based entirely on allegations presented by Franco's regime.

[repeater138]

So what's your point? That it's not true, because of its source?

Is it really that hard to believe that someone would use modern art for torture? ;)

[JKP]

Isn't Dali to blame, and thus the fascists for this?

[violencia.Proletariat]

This should belong in the onion :lol:

[bcbm]

Sweet.

[LSD]

Is this meant to "shock" us?

I have absolutely no problem with torturing fascists and, especially during a life or death struggle like the Spanish civil war, one cannot reject any available tools.

Remember, those captured by Franco had a lot more to worry about than some funky modern art.

I don't know if "avant-garde" torture is actually effective, but if it is, I say go for it. Revolutionary leftism is about class politics, not fucking liberal idealism. We don't need to be "constant" in our "principles". Torture is wrong when the bourgeoisie does it. Torture in defense of worker revolution, however, is perfectly acceptable.

[violencia.Proletariat]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2006, 03:54 PM
Is this meant to "shock" us?

I have absolutely no problem with torturing fascists and, especially during a life or death struggle like the Spanish civil war, one cannot reject any available tools.

Remember, those captured by Franco had a lot more to worry about than some funky modern art.

I don't know if "avant-garde" torture is actually effective, but if it is, I say go for it. Revolutionary leftism is about class politics, not fucking liberal idealism. We don't need to be "constant" in our "principles". Torture is wrong when the bourgeoisie does it. Torture in defense of worker revolution, however, is perfectly acceptable.
I would agree with this except torture isn't effective. Unless you get entertainment out of it :blink:

[LSD]

Sometimes it's effective, sometimes it isn't. But if looking at some modern art makes a prisoner less resistant during interogation, I say go for it.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2006, 08:58 PM
So what's your point? That it's not true, because of its source?

Is it really that hard to believe that someone would use modern art for torture? ;)
Hard to believe? Not especially.

My point, obviously, is that the source is not to be counted on - and it might or might not be true.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2006, 01:54 PM
I don't know if "avant-garde" torture is actually effective, but if it is, I say go for it. Revolutionary leftism is about class politics, not fucking liberal idealism. We don't need to be "constant" in our "principles". Torture is wrong when the bourgeoisie does it. Torture in defense of worker revolution, however, is perfectly acceptable.
Thank you, Joseph Stalin.

The question is not just whether torture is effective in extracting accurate information.

You gotta ask, as always: is this a method which can help advance towards communism?

No, a secret police which uses torture is going to be an obstacle to that.

[LSD]

No, a secret police which uses torture is going to be an obstacle to that.

Who said anything about "a secret police"?

The issue here is whether or not it is acceptable to expose prisoners to "modern art" in an effort to soften them up before interogation. Again, I'm not sure if such a technique is actually effective, but if it is, I certainly have no "moral" objections to it.

Obviously any such policy would have to be publically and democratically decided as any "secret" policies are inevitably corrosive to revolutionary political development.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2006, 06:14 PM

No, a secret police which uses torture is going to be an obstacle to that.

Who said anything about "a secret police"?
Oh, come on. Any organization that detains and tortures political opponents is effectively a secret police. Anarchists, of course, would call it something else, but so what?

[LSD]

Oh, come on. Any organization that detains and tortures political opponents is effectively a secret police.

Only if it does so in secret.

[Severian]

"Secret police" is an expression. It's not usually a secret that the organization exists and is detaining or torturing people. The whole point of doing so is to terrorize the population.

Oh Christ, I just got drawn into another one of your pointless quibbles. Next you'll have me explaining whether I think people have the right to cut their little fingers off. See, this is why I usually don't do extended discussions with you.

[LSD]

"Secret police" is an expression. It's not usually a secret that the organization exists and is detaining or torturing people.

No, but the power of the organization comes from its extrajudiciality; the seeming limitlessness of its purvue and the secrecy of its specific policies.

None of that applies to "modern art torture" as a method of interrogation. After all, all moddern interrogation techniques are, in one sense or another, about weakening resitance.

While pure physical torture has been established as generaly unreliable, psychological persuasion is an integral part of debriefing ones enemies. Again, I don't know if "art" can contribute much in that area, but if so I really don't see the moral objection and I certainly don't see the cause for your hyperbolic paranoia on the subject.

Interrogations need not be conducted by "secre police", no matter how they are structured.

In a revolutionary context it is essential to have accurate information on opposing forces and if watching surrealist films or being stuck in an all gree room can make a fascist soldier more willing to talk, it frankly baffles me that you would have a problem with it.

[Morpheus]

If workers have our own torturers it will be like having our own politicians. They will be corrupted by power.

[LSD]

And your alternative would be what? Letting captured fascists go free? Refusing to question them out of some pathetic deference to "principle"?

Obviously any and all interrogations need to be publically accountable, but in war a lack of information will kill you. Remember, we're not talking post-revolution here, we are talking about the midst of a life-or-death revolutionary struggle.

Besides, we're going to be holding these people no matter what, we might as well try and get some information out of them. And if certain paint colours or films helps us in that endeavour all the better.

[Luís Henrique]

Who said anything about "a secret police"?

Torture is not necessarily ineffective, but torture performed by amateurs is.

If you want torture, be prepared to support the creation of a specialised, even if not "secret", body of professional torturers. Whose particular interests, of course, may vary from the proletariat's class interests.

Not a good idea.

Luís Henrique

[Mesijs]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21 2006, 08:58 PM
And your alternative would be what? Letting captured fascists go free? Refusing to question them out of some pathetic deference to "principle"?
No. Be nice to them, talk to them about socialism/anarchism, teach them, treat them nice, and convert them to your cause. Because when he is a truly well reasoning person, he would in the end choose for the best of the battling powers, and that's not Franco's fascism.

[LSD]

If you want torture, be prepared to support the creation of a specialised, even if not "secret", body of professional torturers.

Nonsense.

An understanding of human suggestibility comes out of an understanding of human psychology. We don't need "professional torturers", just psychiatric advisors and a democratic oversight.

"Secret polices" can only exist in authoritarian socities. They exist, after all, to intimidate the masses. When the masses are the bosses, however, intimidation isn't really an option.


No. Be nice to them, talk to them about socialism/anarchism, teach them, treat them nice, and convert them to your cause.

Obviously that's the best case scenario, but in life-or-death revolutionary struggles we don't always have the time for that kind of prolonged dialog.

In the short-run, interrogations need to be conducted and intelligence needs to be gained. Anything which contributes to that end should be fully explored.

That means of course that physical torture is almost certainly out of the question as it has been pretty conclusively shown to be ineffective; but there are numerous psychological techniques which are oftentimes quite useful in extracting information.

In this case, the "torture" in question was exposure to modern art. I, again, am somewhat dubious as to whether or not such a method would work, but if so I have absolutely no objection to its employment.

After the war is done, prisoners should of course be integrated into society as quicly and humanely as possible.

But we do not always have the luxury of "convincing" our enemies. Remember, fascists believe in their ideas just as strongly as we believe in ours. They will not be "reasoned with" easily.

[repeater138]

LSD:

You sound exactly like Bush or Gonzalez explaining why the use of torture is legitimate in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.

First of all, the subject of torture is an illegal person, no longer deserving of legal rights againsts torture. For you it's a fascist, for them it's an unlawful combattant. That is to say nothing about the article's claim that Communists and other leftist cadre were put in these prisons.

Secondly, you redefine torture. It's ok if we torture them with "modern art", hey they might even learn something. Just as for Bush and Gonzalez it's ok to impose sensory deprivation, stress positions, and extreme variance in temperature and light, after all we're not actually beating them (well not mainly anyways). The cells are not modern art. They are based upon the ideas of modern art, there is a difference. The purpose of the cells is to create sensory overload and disorientation. This is torture by any definition except that of the current US government.

And then we get a new permutation of the "ticking time bomb" justification for torture: "Obviously that's the best case scenario, but in life-or-death revolutionary struggles we don't always have the time for that kind of prolonged dialog."

And then, ironies of ironies, LSD actually ends up giving an argument for the legitimacy of torturing anarchists: "But we do not always have the luxury of "convincing" our enemies. Remember, fascists believe in their ideas just as strongly as we believe in ours. They will not be "reasoned with" easily."

YOUR ideas are fascist, LSD.

Regarding severan's comment on the truth of the article...

I don't know if it is true, it very well could be and there is at least some evidence for it. Regardless the reason for posting this article here is exactly to see the kind of cognitive dissonance it creates among anarchists. They don't seem able to even conceive of the notion that anarchists could be inhumane and brutal. It's like a contradiction in terms for them. The article also disrupts the simplistic formula of who the "good guys" and the "bad guys" were in the Spanish Civil War. Also notice how some people actually conflate the Stalinists with the Fascists, even as they endorse a fascistic policy.

It's fascinating to me. It is amazing how dogma and ideology can, depending on what stimulus encounters it, lead to a person becoming what they define themselves as not being, just as it unveils the truly operative assumptions behind the various symbols of identity.

[LSD]

Regardless the reason for posting this article here is exactly to see the kind of cognitive dissonance it creates among anarchists. They don't seem able to even conceive of the notion that anarchists could be inhumane and brutal.

That assumes that psychological torture is nescessarily something that "Anarchists" would oppose. There's no "cognitive dissonance" unless one has a pathetically naive view of what a revolution is.

Of course the Spanish Anarchists weren't "nice" to their fascist prisoners. What did you people expect? "Anti-authoritarian" prisons? :rolleyes:


You sound exactly like Bush or Gonzalez explaining why the use of torture is legitimate in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.

Except I'm not Bush and I'm not talking about Guantanamo Bay.

The reason that we oppose American crimes in Guantanamo is not because force is "wrong" or any such idealist nonsense, but because force in defense of the bourgeois state is contrary to our class interests.

Just like how we oppose the bosses using force against workers but have no problem forcibly taking their factories away from them.

Revolution is a forcible business. It's about imposing the will of the majority onto the recalcitrant minority. Is that "authoritarian"? Is that the "tyanny of the majority"? Maybe, but it's also democracy.

When the awakened workers are fighting for their class lives, they do not have time to "convince" or "debate" fascists. When there are armies mounted against them, when the entire arsenol of international capital lies waiting to pound and stomp them out of existance, the "moral line" is a whole lot less "holy".

Is it "imoral" to intentionally inflict pain in another human being? Perhaps, but "morality" has never been a part of the communist programme.

We're materialists, we understand that "principles" are only useful insofar as they are practically and contextually effective. If failing to torture would result in revolutionary failure then, pragmatically speaking, we have no choice but to torture.

Obviously any and all interrogations should be democratically overseen, but then this idea that democracy and torture are incompatible never had any basis in reality.

I'm not saying that torturing should ever be an "easy" decision, but if it can be justified rationaly and logically before a democratic and participatory cross-section of the revolutionary proletariat then it is acceptable.

Blanket "morals" don't do anyone any good.


First of all, the subject of torture is an illegal person, no longer deserving of legal rights againsts torture.

That's a circular argument. You're defining humanity as "having rights against torture". Well, by that definition, yeah, torture is contrary to humanity, but that's a fucked up definition of human!

Human rights are not divine or "superhuman", they come out of society and they exist to serve society as a whole. Even more importantly, human rights are fundamentally contextual.

People have the right not to be killed, but if they chose to defend the bourgeois state against the revolutionary proletariat, we have every right to shoot them.

Similarly, it is in our class interest and in the interests of society in general to learn whatever military intelligence they might have. Not torturing them might make us "feel good", but it will directly harm our chances of successfully establishing a functional postrevolutionary society.


Secondly, you redefine torture.

Where?

Torture is defined as the infliction of physical or psychological pain with the intention of gathering information.

That is precisely what I've been talking about. I've rejected the use of physical torture because it is generally ineffective; but inducing psychological pain is the cornerstone of interrogation.

I notice that you have yet to provide an alternative. What would you do with captured fascists or bourgeois collaborators? Would you, as Mesijs proposed, naively attempt to "convinced" them of the superiority of communism?

Good luck!

The KPD also once thought that Nazis could be "convinced". After all, they were National Socialists, surely they weren't that far off...

In the end, of course, they learned the hard way that the only way to deal with a fascist with a gun is to take away his gun.

Once we've defeated the enemy, then we can try to reason with them, but during war we do not have time to play politics with fascists.


It's ok if we torture them with "modern art", hey they might even learn something.

Don't be an ass. I never said anything of the sort. "Modern art torture", if effective, would be just as brutal and painful as any other form of torture ...like say telling a suspect that his "buddy ratted him out".

You see, all interrogations are ultimately predicated on some degree of torture. And during times of intense crisis or conflict (like, say, a revolution), people are going to be tortured.

Now, we can either close our eyes and pretend that its not happening, which would effectively allow local guards and interrogators to set the line, a decidely bad idea; or we can accept reality and maintain democratic oversight.

Keeping a prisoner locked up in an isolated cell 24 hours a day, not allowing them to see friends and family, restricting their diet to the bear minimum, it's all torture. But it's also all nescessary.

If, in addition to standard methods, we also add some "surrealist inspired" elements to the cell, I fail to see who suddenly its such a "moral" dillemma.


And then, ironies of ironies, LSD actually ends up giving an argument for the legitimacy of torturing anarchists

Anarchists do not fight against proletarian revolution; Anarchists will not execute all communists if victorious.

Why you are incapable of grasping this I'll never know.


YOUR ideas are fascist, LSD.

<_<

Can we please establish a moratorium on people using the word "fascist" when they have no idea what it means?

Fascism is a specific kind of political and economic organization. It is not a synonym for "authoritarian" or "evil" or "nasty".

If you want to critisize my ideas, fine, but how about you lay off the hyperbolic "fascist" bullshit? ...and while you&#39;re at it, don&#39;t critisize my ideas. Not unless you can come up with better rebuttals than "you&#39;re a fascist" and "you&#39;re just like Bush".

My golden retriever could come up with better arguments than that.

[repeater138]

Fascism is a specific kind of political and economic organization. It is not a synonym for "authoritarian" or "evil" or "nasty".

That&#39;s not a full definition of Fascism. Fascism is also a world view, an ideology which reinforces and reproduces its own specific kind of political and economic organization. As such the ideas of Fascists can be recognized as fascist. It&#39;s as if you were to say Mein Kampf and the ideas in it aren&#39;t fascist because "Fascism is a specific kind of political and economic organization". Two of the major aspects of fascist ideology are 1) the predominance of a majoritarian viewpoint built upon the foundation of who are recognized by the state, that is, who The People are, and who they are not. 2) The instrumental and relativistic use of truth, that is, there is no objective truth, as in torture is wrong, the truth applies to different people differently. Moreover the real measure of whether something is true is whether it serves to maintain the ideological system which the particular fascist is a partisan of. That is, whether "it works", even as the ideology is based upon a radical idealism.

I&#39;m not a humanist, far from it. I recognize the need for gathering intelligence in any military or political struggle, but there are limits, torture being a line that one does not cross.

If you want to know what fascism is, maybe you should see what fascists themselves have to say about it. I really do suggest reading Mein Kampf, and looking at the way Hitler deals with truth, and the similarities in what you&#39;ve set out in your specific arguments, especially the points that I&#39;ve listed above.

As for the specifics of the rest of your post, they simply restate what I criticized, that is, you just proved my point, and so there is no need to get into it again.

[LSD]

Fascism is also a world view, an ideology which reinforces and reproduces its own specific kind of political and economic organization.

That has got to be one of the most useless statements ever made on this board.

Of course fascism seeks to "reinforces and reproduces its own specific kind of political and economic organization". Every ideology seeks to "reinforces and reproduces its own specific kind of political and economic organization", that&#39;s the whole fucking point.

So the hell what?


Two of the major aspects of fascist ideology are 1) the predominance of a majoritarian viewpoint built upon the foundation of who are recognized by the state, that is, who The People are, and who they are not.

Absolute rubbish.

Fascism is not "majoritarian" in the slightest. The only "people" who have a say in fascist government are members of the fascist party, and then only rulling members.

Think about what you&#39;re proposing&#33; That the Nazi state was "majoritarian", that the majority of Aryans (roughly 75% of the population) had direct control over the government, and that by extension that Adolf Hitler was political subservien to the majority of society in general.

That shows a shocking misunderstanding of what fascism actually is.


2) The instrumental and relativistic use of truth, that is, there is no objective truth, as in torture is wrong, the truth applies to different people differently.

Actually, fascism tends to be rather absolutist in its moral paradigm. The state is "always" right, resistance is "always" wrong, the leader must "always" be obeyed.

Relativism is more of a liberal idea and one which Mussolini was quite critical of from the begining. He saw it as "weak" and "individualistic" and certainly did not build his ideology around it.

It strikes me that you seem to be crafting a definition of fascism that justifies your casual use of it earlier. If I were you I wouldn&#39;t even bother. Just admit that you were being rhetorically hyperbolic and move on.

But if you&#39;re really interested in the definition of fascism, the latest mainstream one is:
a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.

Notice that the words "majoritarian" and "relativist" do not appear. Neither, of course, does "torture".


I&#39;m not a humanist, far from it. I recognize the need for gathering intelligence in any military or political struggle, but there are limits, torture being a line that one does not cross.

Bullshit. It&#39;s a line that every single army on earth crosses. We&#39;re all just too queasy to admit it.

Military prisoners do not want to talk and they do not want to aid the enemy. The only way to extract information from them is to make it more difficult to not answer questions than to answer them.

The process of setting that up is, in common parlance called "torture".

Whether it&#39;s solitary confinement,

And during times of intense crisis or conflict (like, say, a revolution), people are going to be tortured.

Now, we can either close our eyes and pretend that its not happening, which would effectively allow local guards and interrogators to set the line, a decidely bad idea; or we can accept reality and maintain democratic oversight.

Keeping a prisoner locked up in an isolated cell 24 hours a day, not allowing them to see friends and family, restricting their diet to the bear minimum, it&#39;s all torture. But it&#39;s also all nescessary.

If, in addition to standard methods, we also add some "surrealist inspired" elements to the cell, I fail to see who suddenly its such a "moral" dillemma.

[repeater138]

That has got to be one of the most useless statements ever made on this board.

Of course fascism seeks to "reinforces and reproduces its own specific kind of political and economic organization". Every ideology seeks to "reinforces and reproduces its own specific kind of political and economic organization", that&#39;s the whole fucking point.

So the hell what?

So you claimed the definition of fascism is, "a specific kind of political and economic organization". That definition does not include the realization that it is also about ideas, for instance, the ones which you are espousing.

Quite literally your use of this partial definition of fascism is used to deny the validity of my criticisms, which are based upon a broader understanding of fascism.

Let me spell it out to you:

I said your ideas were fascist. You said, no they&#39;re not because fascism is, wait for it, "a specific kind of political and economic organization". You didn&#39;t say they weren&#39;t fascist because there was no connection to the ideas of fascism and your ideas. You said that fascism is effectively not an idea, rather it is, "a specific kind of political and economic organization".

Interesting.

When I point out the mistakes in your logic all of a sudden it is "obvious", and I&#39;m stupid for pointing it out. Nice.

Anyway...

Fascism is absolutely majoritarian, but majoritarian in accordance with what the state defines as a majority, that is, as I said, who counts as The People and who doesn&#39;t. As to the actual workings of the system, we&#39;re not really talking about that, we&#39;re talking about the ideology of it. Fascism works with a majority in a very similar way to "Democracy", in so far as the so-called ruling majority of a democracy, like the US, is simply a passive bunch who give an elite license to rule through their passivity. In the US this is signified through periodic elections, in fascism, there are no elections of any significance. Nonetheless, the same class rules. And it is legitimized by a majoritarian ideology, whether this is signified via elections, or via racial and national identity. There was no doubt that the majority in Germany were "Aryans". That was the basis for the entire ideological process of fascism there, and differentiating that majority from the non-legitimate peoples was a main facet of the brutality of fascism.

Fascism is absolutist in only one sense, that is all ideology and truth must serve the state. This is itself a relativistic claim, in so much as it refuses to recognize that truth exists as a universal concept, objectively seperated from its usefulness or any single subjectivity, whether it be an individual, a nation, or a state. Thereby, what is true for the Aryan race and its state is not equally true for the non-aryan races. This is relativism, that something can be true for one group of people, but not for another. Truth is not at all about this. To the extent that differences exist, truth is radically indifferent to difference.

I&#39;m not particulary interested in parrying definitions of fascism. Again, you want to know what you&#39;re talking about, read what fascists have to say about it. The newest definition on the web, or wherever, is not necessarilly of any interest. And I would add that simply because your preferred definition doesn&#39;t explicitly reference the aspects of fascism that I have discussed, doesn&#39;t mean that my definition is wrong, especially because a specific word is missing. Besides your definition is descriptive of what fascists have done, not of what fascism is, and thereby is a superficial definition.

Keep defending torture. Now you sound like Dershowitz, insisting that torture is going to happen anyway so we need to make it legal and regulated.

[BurnTheOliveTree]

Yes yes, torture the fascists, they&#39;re not real humans with lives and feelings and mothers. Go communists, the proletariat torturing squad.

-Alex

[repeater138]

:lol:

The irony of this thread is almost unbearable.

[LSD]

So you claimed the definition of fascism is, "a specific kind of political and economic organization". That definition does not include the realization that it is also about ideas,

Well, of course fascism is about ideas. Every "-ism" is about ideas. But that doesn&#39;t mean that fascism is any less specific.

The ideas of fascism are those ideas which are related to the aforementioned specific organizational model, not any which seem "authoritarian" or "oppressive".

Fascism describes only a very small minority of states and social movements in history. It does not, as too many on the left seem to think, refer to any "bad" government.

George Bush is not "fascist", Stalin was not "fascist", and the act of torture is not fascist&#33;


for instance, the ones which you are espousing.

Again, you&#39;re using "fascist" as if it were a synonym for "bad".

Torture is no more fascist than it is republican. Indeed, there has yet to be a state on earth that has not used torture at one point or another, fascist or otherwise. To assert that endorsing torture makes one a fascist is to assert that every government in history has been secretly "fascist", a thoroughly ludicrous position.

If you want to critisize the use of psychological torture, that&#39;s one thing. If you find it "distasteful" or "immoral", fine. But this "fascism" diversion is utterly without point.

Anyone who&#39;s studied the field could tell you instantly that your position is nonsense and, frankly, I suspect that even you realize that it makes no sense.

Again, admit that you used the word "fascist" in its broadest possible meaning (i.e., as a synonym for "authoritarian") and move on.


Fascism is absolutely majoritarian, but majoritarian in accordance with what the state defines as a majority

Then it&#39;s not majoritarian, is it?

By your argument, any political system could be considered "majoritarian". Even feudalism would be "actually majoritarian" if you only consider the aristocracy.

Basically you&#39;re draining the word of any meaning and, what&#39;s more, you are dangerously close to asserting a political parity between fascism and democracy. By treating "majoritarianism" as if it were a maleable entity, you make the nihilist error of rejecting all authority, even democratic.


Fascism is absolutist in only one sense, that is all ideology and truth must serve the state.

That would be the absolutist core of fascism, yes. But there are more absolutes than that.

Fascism asserts the absolute value of traditional cultural norms. The "sanctity" of the family, the "honesty" of "hard work", the "glory" of patriotism, etc... it has no room for modernity or liberalism and certainly does not endorse a relativist framework.

Sure, practical fascism will often bend these values to serve the immediate needs of the state, but that&#39;s true of any system. In terms of fascist ideas, however, they are definitively rigid in their approach to morality and values.

After all, fascism is a regressive ideology at heart. Economically as a reaction to mittelstand marginalization, but also politically as a reaction to growing anti-enlightenment romanticism.

The fascist sees modernity as "too grey". Fascism offers order, stability, and a clear set of absolutes.


Thereby, what is true for the Aryan race and its state is not equally true for the non-aryan races.

And you wouldn&#39;t consider racism an absolute fact in Nazi Germany?

Besides, "Aryanism" is not an attribute of fascism, but of Naziism. Fascism is neither nescessarily racist or antisemitic. In Italy, for instance, what was true for one citizen was basically true for another.

And what does any of this have to do with torture? You&#39;ve drifted so far off the line that I doubt you can eve see it anymore.

Whether fascism is "relativist" or "absolutist" in its approach to morality seems to have very little bearing on this discussion. As communists, we are assumed to not have any position on "morality" whatsoever&#33;

As materialists, we should approach questions of policy from a strictly rationalist perspective. If it is nescessary to subject an individual to a degree of psychological distress to ensure the defeat of fascism, that is what must be done.

And, honestly, what is the alternative? It&#39;s not like the bourgoeoisie is going to be "playing fair". If we are defeated, we&#39;re all going to be tortured ...and worse.

One of your supporters on this issue asserted in another thread that it&#39;s actually better to be executed than to be tortured. Apparently there&#39;s nothing wrong with a despotic state murdering its political dissidents, but subjecting a fascist to a bit of modern art is "crossing the line". :rolleyes:

But for all the moral indignation here and elsewhere, I&#39;m yet to see a single rational argument for torture cannot be tolerated under certain circumstances.

I&#39;m not contending that we should torture everyone left and right without any oversight or transparency. But in the midst of boody conflict, when the survival of the revolution is on the line, it is nescessary to be utilitarian.

"Morals" count for shit on the battlefield.


I&#39;m not particulary interested in parrying definitions of fascism.

Then you shouldn&#39;t have brought it up&#33;


Keep defending torture. Now you sound like Dershowitz, insisting that torture is going to happen anyway so we need to make it legal and regulated.

And you&#39;re sounding like Ghandi, insisting that we can "reason with" and "convince" our military enemies.

I don&#39;t like the idea of psychological torture, but I dislike it a hell of a lot less than losing a revolution. If you can come up with a workably alternative, I&#39;m willing to consider it, but if all you&#39;ve got is your moral indignation, I&#39;m not interested.


Yes yes, torture the fascists, they&#39;re not real humans with lives and feelings and mothers.

Don&#39;t be ridiculous.

Torture only works against human beings. Animal don&#39;t have any information to give us. Psychological torture is not about sadism or retribution, it&#39;s about information gathering.

A process which is going to happen no matter what. What typically happens now is that military torture is just not called as such and we are all meant to pretend that there actually is a difference between torture and "hostile interrogation".

If you want to keep playing that game, go ahead. Keep deluding yourself that revolution will be bloodless and clean, that we&#39;ll all be pure moral angels and our interrogations will all look like Law & Order episodes, you know, where the cops are all friendly and within the bounds of legality.

Real war is about the ugliest business there is and people get hurt. A lot of the time they get hurt bad. And when you are fighting a war, and your friends and comrades among those being hurt, you&#39;re damn right you&#39;re going to do everything you can to stop it.

And yeah, that includes hurting the enemy, it includes hurting them bad. It may even include locking them up in a green room and making them look at Dali paintings.

Is that "horrible" is it "wrong"? I don&#39;t know. I do know, however, that if that&#39;s what it takes to defeat capitalism, I&#39;d gladly do it myself.

Revolution needs to be democratic, but it also needs to be cold. Emotion doesn&#39;t win wars, but it sure can lose them.

Maybe you should go post in the "communism is love" thread. It may be more to your liking. :rolleyes:

[BurnTheOliveTree]

Sure LSD, moral absence is the key to victory. I&#39;m just a mindless utopian, wishing that we might show some humanity instead of blindly going after revolution irrespective of consequences. Your logic is flawless.

-Alex