[...]Situational Sources of Evil – Part III « The Situationist[...]…

I understand this series was about teaching others to torture and how far the average normal person would go but I could see so many correlations in how I was brought up to think about the world and to be as loyal as one could be. The consequences of disloyalty were severe. My mother was effective with handing out pain. An engineer with a clean upstanding position in the community was able and willing to tear the flesh of her own children. She did it for no other cause than her own. Her actions are different from the subjects here because as you pointed out sadists were weeded out of certain programs because they weren’t able to get the desired results since they loved torture so much. My mother is certainly a sadist.

Part of the series mentioned that one must know the person he will torture to know what works “best” for the desired result. My mother knew there was one thing that would make me crumble and she’d bring out that tool and I’d do whatever it took to make her not use it. Reading this article I see how she switched up on torture techniques, some for one result and some for another but not enough to kill me. This lets me know just how controlled I was and allows me to feel like less of a little b*tch for crumbling. She knew what to do and how to do it because she knew me and my tolerance for this or that act.

When I finally separated my personal experience and focused on HOW the instructor was able to manipulate I was able to see the article for what it is. I was able to see that it wasn’t giving an excuse for those who torture but explaining how it is you can get a relatively normal person to go to the extreme. This understanding is hard to come to when you see in your head a past full of painful memories. What I appreciate most is the ending where it says to assert personal authority and know what the steps are others will take for control. Knowledge and self respect will take a person far. Without it we are sitting ducks for hunters.

I apologize if this was a jumbled comment. It was rather difficult to concentrate. I still hesitate to push the submit comment button but I’m going to in hopes something on this comment actually makes sense.

Austin of Sundrip