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PARTISAN REVIEW
torture and killing signifies , unconsciously, the triumph over the
values and ideals of the enemy , over everything that makes him strong.
The defenselessness is interpreted as a sign of his weakness and un–
worthiness. Therefore it arouses no pity. Cruelty is carried out remorse–
lessly, according to regulations . In the witch-hunts of the Inquisition ,
this acting out of paranoid fears, which are to be defended against by a
paranoid counter-system (that of exorcism of the devil) , must have
played a decisive role.
"Tortute is the ghastliest experience a man can harbor within
himself" wrote Jean Amery in his essay, " On Torture ."
It
is interest–
ing that we are only inadequately informed- perhaps even totally
uninformed-of the intrapsychic constellations which produce such
gruesome behavior and such indelible experiences . One of the reasons
for this is the "normality" of this cruelty. Research on My Lai has
shown that participants in the massacre by no means consider them–
selves pathologically deviant members of their society , but instead
easily play the role of patriots in the service of their country . Millions of
their fellow countrymen , and people all over the world , follow this
interpretation without opposition . If by chance these soldiers or
officers became witnesses to the' 'love play' , of a real sadist, they would
put a stop to his actions and pass moral judgment on his behavior.
The cruelty worker who , in a concentration camp or a tortute
chamber, has the upper hand and cannot claim to act in self-defense or
out of fear, apparently is free of any pangs of conscience after the fact .
His conscience is intermittently silent, both duting the act and after his
retutn to normal life , perhaps because he is able to divest himselfofthat
part of his personality-his now multiple personality-with the same
ease with which he takes off his uniform. What Amery said of the
victim of tortute, that he must continue to live with the memory of a
terrible experience, apparently does not hold true for the torturer.
Nazi murderers reintegrated with ease into the society of the Federal
Republic and the German Democratic Republic , where they com–
mitted no crimes of passion or other acts of violence . Their conscience
adapted to the new situation and functioned once more .
Another thing about these bureaucrats ofcruelty is that the object
of their activity appears to be almost interchangeable .
It
seems to
matter little whether they are shipping scrap metal or murdering
thousands or millions of condemned enemies in their machines of
