My Respect for Christopher Hitchens Just Went Up Quite a Bit
By Daniel Miessler on July 2nd, 2008: Tagged as Philosophy | War
One of my favorite writers is Christopher Hitchens. I came to know him through his latest book on religion, titled “God Is Not Great“. His writing in that book is purely spectacular; I’ve never seen anyone with such a firm mastery of English.
Anyway, Hitchens is a character. He recently attained his American citizenship and is, and think this is fair to say, a hardcore anti-fundamentalist. Given current world events this usually materializes as an anti-Islamist.
So one of his main arguments has been the fact that there’s a line between extreme interrogation and torture. Specifically he has argued that waterboarding, which is the act of forcible simulated drowning, is not torture. He has had many critics on this point and he finally agreed to solve the matter.
He agreed to be waterboarded. And he now agrees that it’s torture.
From the Guardian article:
The “official lie” about waterboarding, Hitchens says, is that it “simulates the feeling of drowning”. In fact, “you are drowning - or rather, being drowned”.
He rehearses the intellectual arguments, both for (”It’s nothing compared to what they do to us”) and against (”It opens a door that can’t be closed”). But the Hitch’s thoroughly empirical conclusion is simple. As Vanity Fair’s title puts it: “Believe me, it’s torture.”
I respect this change of heart tremendously, especially given what he was willing to do to convince both him and himself of the correctness of his position.
This is how I like to debate as well. Be forceful in your arguments, but be willing to throw it all away if you encounter better information. As I’ve always said, being wrong at the end of the argument is much more important to me than having my before and after positions match each other.
So, yes, three cheers for Christopher Hitchens.:
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As much as I’m impressed by his willingness to test his own ideas empirically, I still have a hard time grasping the fact that “is waterboarding torture” is even a debate. When you forcibly inflict pain on someone to get information, that’s torture, regardless of whether it’s justifiable or not.
All Hitchens call really claim though is that he experienced the inhalation of water, since he 1) consented to the ordeal, 2) had a “safe signal” to indicate when he wanted it to end, 3) was not detained and held against his will, 4) was only subjected to the exercise once (at least, that’s what the article implied), and 5) wasn’t considered an enemy combatant by his “torturers”, which, I would venture, weighed in his favor.
Still, impressive that he wanted to put his ideas to the test. It’s more than, well, pretty much anyone else can say.
Comment by ncloud — 7/2/2008 @ 3:33 pm
I agree with ncloud. It should be CLEAR that waterboarding is torture.
I’d be interested in seeing a debate between Hitchens and someone who has gone through the procedure and asserts that it is NOT torture. Hitchens is a masterful debater, but if the other person holds to their claim that the procedure is NOT torture, then the only conclusion that Hitchens can come to (assuming that he holds to his position that it is torture - and grants that the other person is not lying) is that a procedure that a reasonable person (though perhaps not all reasonable people) would perceive as torture IS torture.
Furthermore, as ncloud correctly points out, the procedure that Hitchens (and other reporters and military personnel) underwent falls short of duplicating the conditions under which “enemies” undergo waterboarding.
Comment by Carl M — 7/2/2008 @ 8:54 pm
True, I know it’s torture and I didn’t even have to have it done to me. Fair enough.
All I’m saying is that I admire his ability to test his own model and change his mind.
Comment by Daniel Miessler — 7/2/2008 @ 8:59 pm
The incredible thing is that the video does not LOOK much like torture. It looks like a VERY weak version of what we’ve seen portrayed as waterboarding in the media, and even THIS version of waterboarding was apparently extraordinarily stressful. The video is at the following link:
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/video/2008/hitchens_video200808
Comment by Carl M — 7/2/2008 @ 9:04 pm