Five Theses on Torture

In Idelber Avelar’s The Five Theses on Torture, the author expands upon the relationship between torture and language. As the topic for my essay, I automatically thought back to Elaine Scarry’s argument on how torture shapes one’s language, self and world. In the end, the torturer is really the physical entity of a voice which is the key component in torturing the victim who is just a physical entity. In Page Dubois’ text, the victim is of course not merely a physical entity but a physical entity with which contains alethia or the truth that remains hidden until uncovered.  The relationship between language and torture continues to play a prominent theme not just in The Five Theses on Torture but in other works as well. In Death and the Maiden, Dr. Miranda’s voice tortures Paulina for years even after the physical torture has ended. Language plays a vital role in all torture. Especially since torture entails a pain so overwhelming that it compels the victim to scream and lose all ability to utilize language as a possible means to escape the torture or make sense of it. Paulina even goes so far as to remember specific dialogues she has with Dr. Miranda, again emphasizing the power of language and voice with regards to torture. 

Response to Five Theses on Torture

            In his fourth thesis, Avelar criticizes Dorfman’s film version of Death and the Maiden.  He states that the film takes the presupposition of the sameness of confession and truth: “The film is dedicated to imagining a scene of truth, as nothing other than a scene of confession.”  Indeed, we are meant to believe that Miranda’s final confession is the real truth and that all of his alibis and excuses are merely lies meant to distract us.  Paulina keeps pushing Miranda until he confesses to what she wants to hear and what she believes is the truth.  This parallels the Greek thought about torture and slaves that we read in DuBois’ text – how the ancient Athenians took the confession of slaves under torture as a truth that could not be false.  Paulina puts Miranda through basanos she creates to uncover the alethia she believes is within.  Indeed, Paulina is so convinced of Miranda’s guilt that when her husband, Gerardo, asks her what she will do if Miranda is innocent and has nothing to confess, she replies “then we’re all fucked.”  Paulina does not care whether or not Miranda’s confession is the truth for him or not, she merely wants it to be the truth for her.  When he confesses, she is satisfied that she has now uncovered the alethia that was there all along, waiting to be found.  Like DuBois describes, she is confident that basanos always leads to the truth, which is revealed through the confession of the one under torture.

Response to Five Theses on Torture

The Five Theses on Torture by Idelber Avelar focuses on the representation of torture by names, the connection between torture and the voice of those who are involved, understanding the narratives of the victims of torture, the relationship between torture and confession, and torture and truth. The first thesis about the naming of torturous "events" was incredibly interesting to me. I've never thought about the importance of naming in relation to torture in the sense that a name like Apartheid implies that it was a singular event of racism and that now that it is over, large-scale racism is over. While this realization made me uncomfortable, I do see the logic in that Apartheid is taught as history instead of an example of an ongoing issue. We've talked about the importance of a name and language in relation to torture throughout the class, but all of it has been more individualistic or the opposite, very broad, but this was interesting because names like Apartheid and the Holocaust are so embedded into education. However, I wish the author had proposed a solution to this issue. I can understand the author's point about why the naming of a series of torture makes it into a singular event which has negative events, but I can't imagine how else society could cohesively discuss the series without a name.

Five Theses on Torture

Avelar's Second Thesis delves back into the analysis of the relationship between Torture and Voice. It brings us back to the works of Elaine Scarry and her thoughts about torture and language, self, and world. For this analysis we're focusing mainly on the relationship between torture and language. It goes into explain that inevitably the torturer is only a voice and the tortured is only a body.

More in depth, to me this means that the torturer has the power and the muscle to enforce this power yet they do not need this muscle. Passed a certain point, their voice becomes the only instrument they need to show their dominance over the tortured and to in turn once again torture them. Their voice becomes a constant reminder of what they have already gone through. This can be seen in Death and The Maiden. His voice in inevitably how she recognizes her torturer years later. The tortured on the other hand, no longer have their voice. They are just a body that is having to endure and feel the pain that the torturer is choosing to trust upon them. They have no voice to express their protests of the pain infliction. They don’t even have a voice to express how much it hurts because there is no one there to even listen. They are just an alienated body. 

Response to Five Theses on Torture

In "Five Theses on Torture", Idelbar Abelar, among other arguments, makes a case for the connection between torture and truth by synthesizing several notable works on the matter. One very interesting point that Abelar illuminates in Dubois’ work ‘Torture and Truth’, is an elaboration on the concept of alêtheia. Since this refers to truth that must be draw from elsewhere, a person must first be reduced to something inferior, through the means of basanos, before a secret truth can be revealed. And women and slaves, as argued here, are merely containers of alêtheia, which they themselves have no access to. I found it a little disturbing how in Lycurgus, Leocrates’ slaves were used as bartering tools to blackmail Leocrates into revealing the truth. Leocrates’ refusal to grant permission for his slaves to be tortured, something that would have inevitably resulted in the spilling of the truth, effectively criminalized him. In Greek democracy, it was up to the jurisdiction of the slave’s master over whether or not he could be tortured, and the only circumstances in which a slave’s opinion was legally relied upon was under torture, relying solely on truth obtained via basanos. Also, the connection between the slave and master is not absolute, as a free man can be reduced to a slave, or the equivalent, through torture.            

Five Theses On Torture - Idelber Avelar

Avelar borrows one of the main points from Foucault's argument in "Discipline and Punish". Avelar claims that the "modern apparatus [of torture] maintains the equation between truth and punishment but now withdraws if from the public sphere, in fact making the latter into the site of a possible struggle against torture, given that the confined space has been technologized and rationalized to the point where the torturer is granted a power that cannot be threatened." The claim that the transformation of torture from the public to the private sphere has given the torturer an undeniable power is intriguing to me. It makes sense, since the main motivation of the transition into the private sphere was the threat of the audience gaining more power than the torturer because of sheer mass. In the readings we've done, it has yet to be proven that torture can be overthrown in the private sphere. In The Wall, Death and the Maiden, The Crucible, and The Trial, the torturer is never overthrown. While their power might be challenged, it is never overthrown, and I wonder under what circumstances the torturer could lose power. The technology and rationalization that Avelar refers to is the "discipline" that Foucault mentions, which exercises power through routine and aims to modify and conform subjects. However, "discipline" according to Foucault does not always involve an "obscene exhibition" of torture's power, which Avelar claims is necessary.

Response to Five Theses on Torture

One point in Five Theses on Torture which really struck me as significant was when Idelber Avelar mentions the legacies of dictatorships.  Normally, when we think about the "legacy" of something or someone, it tends to be in a positive and nearly heroic light; however, it is definitely brought to a negative connotation when associated with dictatorship.  Specifically, the legacies of dictatorships mainly deals with the lexical and linguistic effects a dictatorship has upon the society.  Avelar's point is very similar to what we discovered in A Lexicon of Terror in the sense that language carries heavy ramifications which make progressing from a dictatorship especially difficult, such as the transition after Nazi Germany with Hitler in power or in Argentina with the various military-backed dictators who unlawfully corrupted the government and society.  As words become associated with terror, confession, or torture, these words become "haunted" in a sense, and keeping these words in a society's vocabulary only detracts from its ability to eventually progress.  Even minor subtleties in language can carry certain connotations with them which makes usage of specific words or phrases have a negative or pessimistic association with it.  Language holds a great impact upon society, and any damage caused to lexicon will hurt society as well.