torture

is a 'natural slavery,' a 'living death,' a kind of 'anti-life.' it inverts, at the highest level of intensity, the very principle of human dignity in social relations.

Philosopher David Sussman defines torture in its elemental 'two-ness' and diabolical intimacy for the Case Western J of International Law. 'For torture to occur,' the antagonist must be 'standing in a particular kind of relationship with one another, and understand that the other understands this as well.' This perverse relationship is a 'natural slavery,'10 a 'living death,' a kind of 'anti-life.' For Sussman, torture inverts, at the highest level of intensity, the very principle of human dignity in social relations.11

is anti-liberal in that it constitutes a self-betrayal of the victim whereby it forces him 'into the position of colluding against himself through his own affects and emotions, so that he experiences himself simultaneously powerless and yet actively complicit in his own violation.

David Sussman argues that torture leads to the self-betrayal of the victim because it forces him 'into the position of colluding against himself through his own affects and emotions, so that he experiences himself simultaneously powerless and yet actively complicit in his own violation' (Sussman, 2005:4). By forcing the victim to turn against himself, torture goes beyond the simple violation of the victims' dignity and perverts it in an incomparable way (Sussman, 2005: 4).

David SussmanThinkers

David Sussman