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.