Five Theses on Torture Response

A very interesting distinction that I found in Five Theses on torture is the distinction between the truth of torture and the authority of speaking that testimony on torture needs to have. The truth of torture occurring in South American countries is not something that is contested, it is accepted as truth, however someone testifying that they were tortured or commenting the acts of torture are required to provide a proof authority for their discussion on torture. So I found it very interesting that although the general idea of torture being used is accepted as a general truth, someone wanting to discuss their torture has to prove something first. The statement of general torture has truth associated with it, but the specifics of it automatically inspire doubt.

                The second point that I found interesting was the idea that how acts of torture are named changes how it is viewed. The name Apartheid and the Holocaust imply singular, completed events that are in the past, instead of being descriptors of specific types of events. To use Holocaust is a “allegory” for an event, relating an event back to what Germans did to the Jewish people, but to use it as holocaust is a “metaphor” that instead suggests that such events are not in the past but that similar events could be continuing to happen elsewhere. Such distinction, although small, I find to be incredibly interesting in how such a small difference as the capitulation of a latter can change how a word is thought about in common use.