S J Lee
Inkling
Umm.... I like some of you answers, BUT the opening post seems to assume that we are talking about "civilised modern people with a secular humanist outlook / Judaeo-Christian worldview" - FIRST you need to ask yourself - IS this the sort of character we are talking about? EG, Genghis Khan's soldiers routinely slaughtered EVERYBODY in the cities they captured, if they had not surrendered immediately. No mercy. Not turture per se, but my point is many peoples in the past do not empathise with the others. EG, owners of slaves in the deep south USA etc
Similarly, many forms of capital punishment seem like "torture" today - burning at the stake, boiled in a cauldron, impaled (Vlad Dracul or Zulus) etc....pulled apart by horses (France up until 1750?), hung drawn and quartered, etc - and this is not "torture"!
I would suggest any combination of the following:
1 it is the common practice of the times / the people on the receiving end are not "full humans" If everyone else burns people as witches / lynches black people, you will probably go along with it yourself one way or another. It takes an exceptional person to say that something is wrong when all your neighbours think it is normal. Public hangings were normal until about 1850 - 1870?
1 a - you are brutalised / from a place/time where human life is cheap. A man being raped in a tough prison is "understandable" in a way it is not in a high school. Cannibalism sets in during a famine, not during a depression
2 you are making an example, to frighten / anger others. William of Normandy burned the south of England because he wanted Harold to feel obliged to come and fight at once.
3 - you are in a gang. Gangs of men sometimes do things that they would never do as individuals (this can be for better or worse). Someone else braks a window, and you want to look like a tough guy too...
4 - the belief that you will never be caught
5 - as punishment for something
6 - the belief that you are right. If you believe we have immortal souls, and someone is stealing people's afterlife by preaching blasphemy/heresy, killing the evildoer is not only acceptable but praiseworthy
7 - just following orders ( a more formal version of 3 above) (for societies / armies, not mere gangs)
8 - to get information. Usually unreliable UNLESS you have a quick way of verifying (eg, what is the code to unlock this phone?)
THEN ask yourself - which of the above qualifies?
Be VERY careful about a "hero" doing the torturing. Batman surprises and frightens his prisoners, hoping to F--- they crack instead of calling his bluff. See the Joker interrogation scene in the Dark Knight. In fiction, having heroes as rapists and torturers usually does not work. It can be done - eg, Bester's the Stars My Destination, but to me Thomas Covenant is just crap from the rape on. The people reading this probably cannot pull it off in fiction.
Similarly, many forms of capital punishment seem like "torture" today - burning at the stake, boiled in a cauldron, impaled (Vlad Dracul or Zulus) etc....pulled apart by horses (France up until 1750?), hung drawn and quartered, etc - and this is not "torture"!
I would suggest any combination of the following:
1 it is the common practice of the times / the people on the receiving end are not "full humans" If everyone else burns people as witches / lynches black people, you will probably go along with it yourself one way or another. It takes an exceptional person to say that something is wrong when all your neighbours think it is normal. Public hangings were normal until about 1850 - 1870?
1 a - you are brutalised / from a place/time where human life is cheap. A man being raped in a tough prison is "understandable" in a way it is not in a high school. Cannibalism sets in during a famine, not during a depression
2 you are making an example, to frighten / anger others. William of Normandy burned the south of England because he wanted Harold to feel obliged to come and fight at once.
3 - you are in a gang. Gangs of men sometimes do things that they would never do as individuals (this can be for better or worse). Someone else braks a window, and you want to look like a tough guy too...
4 - the belief that you will never be caught
5 - as punishment for something
6 - the belief that you are right. If you believe we have immortal souls, and someone is stealing people's afterlife by preaching blasphemy/heresy, killing the evildoer is not only acceptable but praiseworthy
7 - just following orders ( a more formal version of 3 above) (for societies / armies, not mere gangs)
8 - to get information. Usually unreliable UNLESS you have a quick way of verifying (eg, what is the code to unlock this phone?)
THEN ask yourself - which of the above qualifies?
Be VERY careful about a "hero" doing the torturing. Batman surprises and frightens his prisoners, hoping to F--- they crack instead of calling his bluff. See the Joker interrogation scene in the Dark Knight. In fiction, having heroes as rapists and torturers usually does not work. It can be done - eg, Bester's the Stars My Destination, but to me Thomas Covenant is just crap from the rape on. The people reading this probably cannot pull it off in fiction.