The Toxicity of Torture: The Cultural Structure of US Political Discourse of Waterboarding

Rosso, Jared Del

doi:10.1093/sf/sou060

Cited by 10 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…But liberal critics and watchdogs of state violence often do not condemn its use out of hand. Instead they typically insist that governments adhere to international humanitarian law when deploying deadly force (Del Rosso, 2014), in this case adhering to the norms of precision and proportionality. Consequently, NGOs and other civil society actors that hope to police state violence do not prevent its use, so much as moderate it or alter the forms by which it is employed (Rejali, 2007; Weizman, 2011).…”

Section: Humanitized Violence In Comparative Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such disproportionate military attacks are prohibited under international humanitarian law. These appeals to international humanitarian law and ideals of proportionality are, first and foremost, not a challenge to a government's prerogative to exercise violence when and where it wants, but rather they are pleas that state violence should be more fully rationalized (see Del Rosso, 2014). Additionally, humanitarian organizations are not asking questions about how the United States' 2003 invasion of Iraq helped create the Islamic State in the first place.…”

Section: Humanitized Violence and Its Humanitarian Critics/proponentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Humanitized violence: Targeted killings and civilian deaths in the US war against the Islamic State

Bonds

2018

Current Sociology

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Based on a qualitative content analysis of human rights reports, US military statements, and newspaper accounts, this article describes the ascendency of ‘humanitized violence,’ which characterizes airstrikes in the US war against the Islamic State (2014–2017). This hyper-rationalized violence utilizes precision weaponry, technical and administrative procedures to limit civilian deaths, and calculations to achieve goals in ‘proportionality.’ This method of violence is further accompanied by a discourse of precision, care, legality, and regret. The article further shows that leading nongovernmental critics of this violence largely accept its logic. Consequently, rather than offering opposition, humanitarian NGOs instead reinforce the humanitization of violence by calling on governments to be more precise and to exercise more care when striking enemy targets. Noting the high numbers of civilian deaths that can accompany humanitized violence, along with the US government’s continued capacity for total war, the author cautions that its rise does not necessarily portend a more peaceful future.

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Section: Humanitized Violence In Comparative Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Humanitized Violence and Its Humanitarian Critics/proponentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Humanitized violence: Targeted killings and civilian deaths in the US war against the Islamic State

Bonds

2018

Current Sociology

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“…Critics use interpretive acknowledgment to affirm that an allegation constitutes cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment, or torture, rather than something more general and less potent: “abuse,” “humiliation,” or “mistreatment.” Critics cite legal or political precedents for labeling contested techniques, such as waterboarding or stress positions, torture (Physicians for Human Rights ). They may offer disadvantageous comparisons , citing historical memories of torture to discredit contemporary practices (Del Rosso ; Rejali ). Disadvantageous comparisons imply that contested techniques are not merely coercive or harsh and certainly not legitimate and “enhanced.” Rather, they are comparable to the historically condemned tortures committed by repugnant regimes, such as the Nazis .…”

Section: Torture Culture and Denialmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Its Own Kind of Torture”: Denial, Acknowledgment, and the Debate About Force Feeding at Guantánamo Bay

Rosso

2017

Sociological Forum

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Social science research has revealed how U.S. political and media elites, as well as U.S. citizens, downplayed and denied allegations of torture during the country's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. This research effectively applies and extends Stanley Cohen's (2001) typology of the rhetoric of denial. We lack, however, a typology of the rhetoric of acknowledgment. In this article, I synthesize studies of discourse of torture to develop just such a typology. I propose three rhetorical forms of acknowledgment, which parallel Cohen's forms of denial. Literal or factual acknowledgment includes claims to convince audiences that alleged incidents indeed occurred. Interpretive acknowledgment consists of claims to affirm that those allegations constitute serious human rights violations, such as cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or torture. Implicatory acknowledgment includes efforts to delegitimize torture. I then illustrate the use of the rhetoric of acknowledgment through a qualitative content analysis of newspaper coverage of force feeding at the United States' detention center at Guant anamo Bay, Cuba. This case allows me to extend our understanding of the rhetoric of denial and acknowledgment by revealing ways in which discourse around force feeding deviates from that around the United States' use of "enhanced interrogation" and torture.

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“…One solution to Bbetter distinguish among problems^, Del Rosso argues, is to Bdiversify our analytic vocabulary, so we may better account for the myriad of things that are part and parcel of social problems activities.^He advocates pushing beyond the 'merely' discursive to include ethnographic observation of social problems claimsmaking and 'chains' (see also Ibarra and Adorjan 2018, and Christensen, this issue). Included in this is the physical materiality relevant to claims makers, which produces the contexts they draw from when articulating concerns about social problems (Del Rosso uses the example of U.S. torture (see also Rosso 2011Rosso , 2014). He writes: Bsocial problems theorists must be the most nimble of constructionists, recognizing the panoply of instruments and materials that claims-makers employ.Ŝ ignificantly, he acknowledges that this more eclectic incorporation of material conditions relevant to claimsmakers is still not amenable to assessments of validity by analysts (i.e., which claims and chains are more 'correct', factually or morally, than others).…”

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confidence: 99%

Social Constructionism Now More Than Ever: Following the Hermeneutic Money Trail in a Post-Truth World

Adorjan

2019

Am Soc

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In the summer of 2017, at the annual meetings of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, I had the great privilege of organizing two very special critical dialogue sessions centered on both the origins of social constructionism, as well as future directions. The year marked the 40th anniversary of the publication of Spector and Kitsuse's (1977) landmark Constructing Social Problems (herein CSP). This special issue of The American Sociologist presents some of the key papers presented at these sessions, which included many well-seasoned experts who have contributed to constructionism since the publication of CSP, including Malcolm Spector himself, as well as several relatively junior scholars who are at the vanguard of new directions and advancesboth empirical and theoreticalof constructionism going forward.Since the conference took place in Montreal, a particularly apt Leonard Cohen quote came to my mind (who grew up in Montreal and remains closely affiliated with it), which I decided to recite while opening the first session, which I chaired. The lines come from Cohen's song The Future, off the album of the same name:Things are gonna slide / slide in all directions Won't be nothing / nothing you can measure anymore The blizzard / the blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold And it's overturned the order of the soul

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The Toxicity of Torture: The Cultural Structure of US Political Discourse of Waterboarding

Cited by 10 publications

References 18 publications

Humanitized violence: Targeted killings and civilian deaths in the US war against the Islamic State

Humanitized violence: Targeted killings and civilian deaths in the US war against the Islamic State

“Its Own Kind of Torture”: Denial, Acknowledgment, and the Debate About Force Feeding at Guantánamo Bay

Social Constructionism Now More Than Ever: Following the Hermeneutic Money Trail in a Post-Truth World

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