Once again on Lost last night we saw that torture works as a means of extracting reliable information.
Experts in information gathering repeatedly tells us that torture is not a way to gather reliable information, and yet TV shows like 24 and Lost continue to show it as a way of finding out the truth.
In last night's episode, the truth that was found out was so outrageous, no one believed it anyway ... but it was actually the truth.
I love Lost, so I'm not turning against the show because of this facet of it, but it does continually annoy me that they insist on glorifying the usefulness of torture.
So, this is only about death in an indirect way, but this video and this argument are very compelling, and I want to share.
You've probably heard this argument in one form or another before, but the way torture is shown on television is not accurate. On television, torture always works, which isn't true to life. And one of the problems this causes is that actual military recruits, when they come to training, think they can use torture to coerce suspects—because they saw Jack Bauer from 24, or another television character, do it.
Here's a video from Human Rights First that lays out the case beautifully:
I don't watch24, so it's pretty easy for me to condemn the show ... but I am a huge Lost fan, which is also mentioned in the video. And this video has got me to thinking, there is a lot of torture in that show, both with Sayid, who was an actual torturer in the Iraqi Republican Army, and with other characters. (Think Locke with Miles last season.) And I'm a little conflicted about how I feel about all of that. Actually, I'm not so much conflicted as I feel a little gross about it, and I'd like to pretend I don't. Especially since, if you watch this video, Lost producer Carlton Cuse, weasels out of any real responsibility for what they're showing on screen. He's basically saying, it's TV, it's not real life, it doesn't matter. That's a cop out, and I don't like it. Damn! My guiltless pleasure just became a guilty pleasure.
