One more mark everyday like a prisoner counting down the days until he can escape his eternal torture, one more cut was added to alleviate an endless pain. That is how it began at first anyway. As the days went by my best friend Patrick, someone whose courage and ability to act without fear of others approval I envied, started to mark on his flesh an attempt to ease his mind from the pain he was put through. It was a typical bus ride, children letting out a deafening sound that not even the mythical sirens could replicate, and children wailing as if they had just been taken away from their families, nothing out of the unusual. That is until I inspected my friend. It was one of those days that could be compared to the sun taking revenge on …show more content…
the icebergs for what it did to the Titanic, which was peculiar because my friend was sporting a heavy black sweater. "Aren't you warm?" I asked him. "Yes," he replied. "So take off the sweater". "I can't". "Why not?" I inquired, and as I did, he reluctantly rolled up his left sleeve, took off a wrist band he was wearing, and showed me why he was wearing it.
Red snake like marks covered his wrists. "Are you alright"? "Yeah, don't worry about it," he murmured as to keep anyone else from hearing and raising their own suspicions. During art class Patrick explained to me exactly what he was doing to himself. He told me how his father, the apartment complex's most notorious pot smoker, had started to become abusive. His father would beat him until it left marks that his father was satisfied with, belittle him, break his possessions, and punish him for not doing everything perfectly. As a matter of fact, I never met the man, but for what he did to my best friend, he goes to the top of my hypothetical hit list. "Patrick you have to stop cutting yourself," I whisper to him so that no one outside of a one foot radius would hear. "I can't, inflicting pain on anything or anyone makes me feel better, even when I do it to …show more content…
myself". That's when I came up with a solution that could possibly save him from hurting himself or doing something that he would regret. "When you get angry take it out on me, hit me as hard as you need to relieve yourself of whatever anger you feel," and while he was reluctant at first to cause any amount of harm to me he went along with what I told him to do after telling him to not be afraid. It worked for a short while, he would hit me in the arm, which kept him from damaging his own arm while making me more durable when it came to being hit, all around it helped both of us. However, this solution of transferring the pain didn't work for long, as soon he started cutting himself again, once a day, twice a day, even during class he started to cut himself.
An extreme feeling of anger and sorrow overtook myself as I told Patrick that I had to tell somebody. I couldn't stand by, essentially just watching it happen as if it was a movie, while my best friend progressed through suicidal tendencies. He became worried when I brought up the thought of telling an adult and enforced the idea that I couldn't tell anyone, and because I always do what I am told I followed his instructions. One of his attempts was prevented because his dad came home early, and another was foiled when the rope snapped. Then when he left at the end of seventh grade, for me to never say hello again, I thought that I was responsible for the death of my best
friend. Despite thinking that I was responsible for his death I learned recently that he didn't pass away. He is still alive and doing better than what he was when he left, however very little of that could be attributed to me. He fought a battle that made me feel like a mere bystander. Even as a bystander though I felt the impact that this had on his life and my life views changed according to what happened to him. No longer did I think that doing the right thing is what I am asked, but doing the right thing is doing something that no one else would; If only I had come to this revelation before it deeply affected him.
In the article, “The Torture Myth,” Anne Applebaum explores the controversial topic of torture practices, focused primarily in The United States. The article was published on January 12, 2005, inspired by the dramatic increase of tensions between terrorist organizations and The United States. Applebaum explores three equality titillating concepts within the article. Applebaum's questions the actual effectiveness of using torture as a means of obtaining valuable information in urgent times. Applebaum explores the ways in which she feels that the United States’ torture policy ultimately produces negative effects upon the country. Applebaum's final question is if torture is not optimally successful, why so much of society believes it works efficiently.
When Hitler and the Nazi Party first entered power, they proposed strict and unimaginably radical policies. Their goal as the dominant political power was to create a “pure” German society. The idea of a “pure” German society stemmed from the idea that certain racial groups and ethnicities were undesirable and inferior. With that in mind, they sought to completely eliminate, through annihilation tactics, Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, biracial children, handicapped citizens, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and any other individual(s) who opposed their radical ideologies. However, the most questionable part of these tactics was how and why the Nazis chose them. Of the many ways dictators and corrupt governments had tortured their citizens in the past, why was Hitler determined that the Einsatzgruppen, ghettos, and concentration camps were going to be the methods of choice to mass murder the Jewish people. Robert Payne notes in his book The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler that Hitler was not satisfied with a gruesome murder of the Jewish race. He preferred them to die in agony and complete humiliation. Methods of mass murder such as killing squads (the Einsatzgruppen), ghettos, and concentration camps proved themselves as the perfect final solution. These tactics would exterminate Jews at an increasing rate while removing them of their respectable status.
I had mixed feelings one time when my friend, Gracie’s, twin sister was depressed. Her name is Meghan and she is 15 years old. She was depressed because her mom, Cathy, and her step dad had just split up. Meghan and her step dad were really close, so their breakup was not that easy for her. She had attempted suicide a few times for this reason. I should have said something that could have prevented her from trying to attempt suicide again. I learned that a friend is worth more than a secret.
“It was wicked of you to hit me... on the breast and on the head and face... but
In “The Case For Torture” an article written by Michael Levin, he attempts to justify the use of torture as a means of saving lives. Throughout the article, Levin gives the reader many hypothetical examples in which he believes torture is the only method of resolution. Though I agree with Levin, to some degree, his essay relies heavily on the fears of people and exploits them to convince people into thinking pain is the only way. In certain aspects, I could agree entirely with Levin, but when one reads deeper into the article, many fallacies become apparent. These fallacies detract from the articles academic standing and arguably renders the entire case futile. Levin’s strategy of playing with the fears of people is genius, but, with more creditable details of the issue the article would have sustained the scrutiny of more educated individuals. The addition of more concrete information, would have given people something to cling to, inherently improving the articles creditability.
As I stated before, there are many things that have changed in the past few months. I think this biggest thing that has changed is my feelings towards myself. I have always been pretty confident in my abilities, and myself but I never really had the motivation to do the things that I knew I was capable of. After the incident occurred I asked myself what could I do to change the way my life is headed. I really didn’t have answers. I decided to go home to Jupiter and talk to my parents. I am pretty close with them and I definitely value their opinion. I figured that since they were older and more experienced they could give me some insight on what they have learned. We talked a lot about my past behavior and how a lot of my friends drink. We also talked about how college and drinking kind of go hand and hand in a lot of people’s minds. My parents gave me some ideas on how I could change my life and my choices. We agreed that it would be a good idea to talk to my friends and tell them about how I was feeling. I was kind of unsure about how to approach this with my friends. I felt kind of uneasy about telling some of my friends. We talk mostly about girls, sports etc…….I didn’t think that they would understand what I was going through. As it turns out, my friends were kind of going through the same thing. My best friend John told me that after this incident he started thinking about some of the thi...
... the permanent scar he had left on Christine. “Life structure comes into question; usually a time of crisis in the meaning, direction, and value of each person’s life; neglected parts of the self (talents, desires, aspirations) seek expression” (Ashford, 2013). This awareness will lead him to a change of choices, values, and seek to become a better person. Some may disagree but I believe when it comes down to life or death, the genuine caring of others is revealed.
Emperor Constantine converted The Roman Empire to Christianity. Soon after this conversion the church and the government began to persecute the Pagans, or as the Christians called them, Heretics. In Spain the inquisition lasted longer than any other inquisition. Pagans were brutally tortured and in most cases killed. People where not being given religious freedom anywhere in the Roman Empire. Even after the Roman Empire fell lots of the places that had been part of the Empire stayed Christian. For example The Church of England still exist today. In the early 1600’s The Puritans escaped religious persecution and moved to America, but with time they persecuted the Natives for their religious views.
In Death and the Maiden, Ariel Dorfman captures the brutal nature of torture, demonstrating the complexity and ambiguity of what constitutes human rights. Paulina’s rights are violated and is therefore forced to exist within a sense of moral ambiguity, in which she believes justice is at the cost of Roberto’s human rights. The “grayness” of Paulina’s morality demonstrates that the notion of human rights is both subjective and equivocal. Paulina’s decision to violate the rights of Roberto—specifically the right for any individual to not be subjected to cruelty or torture— reflects Paulina’s favoring of her own set of moral principles. Through Paulina’s shift from being a victim to a torturer and her need to seek justice, we see how Article 7
Room 101 is, according to Orwell, “...the worst thing in the world.” (p.233) It is a torture room within the Ministry of Love, in which the Party puts their prisoner into a chair and have them experience his or her own worst fear, nightmare or phobia in order to break down the resistance within them. In 1984’s society, the Party takes prisoners convicted of thoughtcrime or rebellion and use their fears against them. Manipulation through fear has always been a popular use in controlling society and interrogations. By subjecting a person to his or her greatest fears, the torturer can tap into the terror of that person's mind and psychologically break that person. What is symbolically interesting about the Party’s torture room is the number they
In the academic journal Loran Nordgren, PHD professor of Management and Organization at the University of Kellogg School of Management and Co-director of Human Ecology lab at Northwest, aims to advance, extend, and examine psychological theory through field research. Nordgren wrote the academic journal called "What Constitutes Torture?" where Loran informs psychologist about the four different experiments where professionals determined if specific types of interrogation tactics would be considered torture. The article analyzes the four different types of torture, solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, exposure to cold temperatures, and real versus simulated pain. The journal also illustrates the legal standards which help regulate specific
“The psychological impact of torture” presents this argument that although psychological evaluations are given to those with PTSD, that the attention is not specified enough to the victim which leaves them shortchanged in recovery and long term treatment. Right away, a similarity can be seen with other articles being that the article defines torture as per the United Nations Convention against Torture. Unlike the other articles, this article explains the process by a psychologist examines a patient. However, like the other articles, the authors assert “trauma, anxiety, depression, and…psychological” (2013, p. 102) problems arise long-term post torture. The process of asylum is discussed, the diagnosis process, the psychological problems post-torture,
Beaten, broken, burned, bruised, tortured. Torture is defined as a “deliberate, systematic, or wanton infliction of physical and mental suffering by one or more persons acting alone or on the orders of an authority to force another person to yield information, make a confession, etc” (Torture). Throughout history, torture has been used for extreme punishment or unreasonably hateful oppression but more recently torture has been used to force the weaker willed into talking. Torture is an extraneous way to get any information or a needed confession from a suspect and it has very terrible effects on those who do the torturing and those who have suffered/are suffering through tortured. Even though some people believe that using “enhanced interrogation”, or torture, techniques to get some potentially critical information and/or confessions, the negative effects on both the tortured and torturer are far too great to risk. Having to argue over destroying, harming, and beating a person is completely ridiculous though it has been around for a long time.
...story so I do not get in trouble. I have learned in the past that when having a talk with my parents that seriously someone has died. I deny what happened to be strong, but generally it just tears me up even more. These two perspectives give different ideas as to why I acted certain way when these events happened.
About two years ago, the most sorrowful thing that has ever happened to me took place. It was my older brother 's death. I still remember the moment the phone rang, and somebody was telling me that my brother had an accident and was taken to the hospital, and he was not conscious as well. I was speechless at that moment and debating whether I should tell my mom or not because she was sitting right next to me. Anyway , my mom felt that something bad has happened to my brother ; she saw it in my face and immediately began questioning me about every single word that was said in the phone conversation .As a matter of fact , I had no choice but to tell her about what happened. I told her that my brother was involved in a small auto accident , and he was in the hospital