The Case for Torture, Article Critique Example

The article by Michael Levine is thought provoking and timed appropriately in the present world scenario. It stimulates one’s mind to rethink his or her priorities about the justification of employing torture for a good purpose. The world despite the tremendous achievements of technology and improvement in civilized patterns of human life is being held to ransom by a few blokes for selfish personal gains, be they out of religious fanaticism or political designs. To handle such renegades in society definitely needs a resolve for the civilized peace loving people on earth to shift their focus from the generally accepted norms of justice to a more primitive pattern.

Kings and monarchs in history blatantly employed any method to preserve their kingdom. In the process, the general public either suffered silently or enjoyed the good things in life under the benevolence of a good ruler. Torture was frequently employed as a means to throttle resistance or prevent any dastardly act within the kingdom which had a potential for damaging the general pattern of life.

Although the present human civilization thinks that it has outlived that bygone era and everybody is equal in the modern democracies, the society is still fraught with many inequalities and injustices which are practiced in a subtle, if not direct manner. These reflect in the overall picture of the world which a person evaluates at present through what he watches or hears in the media, or by the way one’s education and religious indoctrination has shaped his or her personality. Political beliefs and nationality are the other two factors which greatly influence one’s horizon and perspective on life.

Torture is therefore a double edged sword. It can achieve positive results but it can similarly hurt society by a backlash once it is justified for a short term purpose. Use of torture for handling terrorists to divulge secrets of a forthcoming disaster is therefore not the right approach. Like any disease, prevention is always better than the cure. Terrorism should also be handled likewise and human beings, who claim to be the most intelligent form of life on Earth, should use that very intelligence to learn from animals that torturing another fellow living being is most inappropriate. Animals just hurt other animals either due to competition for dominance or their prey for food, and not for deriving sadistic pleasure. Torture is no means for achieving anything fruitful. Methods and approaches should therefore be employed which detect persons who have a tendency for such activities and curb such incidents totally. Modern technological innovations should be directed towards the development of such tools and not arms and ammunition, which are the source and means made available by man himself to inflict damage to human life at a mass level.

The case for torture, as put forward by Levin is therefore not appropriate and a more civilized mode should be employed to prevent rather than seek justification of such primitive modes of human behavior to keep a check on problems like terrorism.

Works Cited

Levin, Michael, The Case for Torture, Article accessed online at:  http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/torture.html, Dec. 6, 2009