Modern torture?

Methods of dealing with crimes and criminals have changed in Western societies over the past few centuries. A fair trial and humane imprisonment are taken for granted today. Torture and punishments as public spectacles – it is hoped – are banned from our societies. We usually look down on those barbarian times, pleased with ourselves and our accomplishments. Things have evidently changed but perhaps not quite as much as we tend to think. At least, this is how Foucault views it. He begins Discipline and Punish with a shocking but accurate description of the public drawing and quartering of a Frenchman after his botched attempt to assassinate Louis XV. Foucault sees many forces at work which changed the old practice, the evolving human being, prone to perform good-hearted deeds, not being one of them. Foucault argues that there were good practical reasons to keep prisoners alive: they could be used in colonies and trade; they could be used as infiltrators or informers. Who better to fill those roles than prisoners released early for showing a willingness to be rehabilitated? As for rehabilitation itself: what was formerly achieved through torture is now achieved with the help of psychologists who probe into the prisoners’ minds with a rigour which can be seen as another form of torture. (Schwarz, Daniel R.: James Joyce: The Dead. Boston and New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1994: 153-4)