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Angels or Apes? An Inquiry into the Nature of Modern Sadism and the Optional Extinction of Our Species
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140 STEVE ALMOND Back in , when the Reagan Revolution was still in full swing, an Arizona Senator by the name of John McCain decided to uncork a little of that famous conservative wit. Addressing a crowd in our nation’s capital, he allegedly told the following joke: Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, “Where is that marvelous ape?” Twelve years later, McCain regaled fellow Republicans with another wisecrack . “Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?” he asked. “Because her father is Janet Reno.” Chelsea Clinton was eighteen years old at the time. More recently, he entertained a crowd by singing the refrain “bomb bomb Iran” to the tune of the Beach Boys’ sunny hit “Barbara Ann.” And just this month (I am writing in July of ), McCain responded to a reporter’s question about illegal U.S. cigarette exports to Iran by quipping, “Maybe that’s a way of killing them.” The McCain team has not denied he made any of these comments. While noting that the candidate has done and said things in the past that “he regrets,” spokesman Brian Rodgers observed that the American people “want somebody who’s authentic and this kind of stuff is a good example of McCain being McCain.” My point is not to criticize McCain for having a lousy sense of humor. I’ve laughed at enough potty humor over the years to keep a couple of lesser cable channels in business. No, what amazes me about all this is that McCain can make jokes that clearly indulge in sadistic fantasies—rape, bombing foreigners, sexual humiliation—and not run any sort of political risk. Angels or Apes? An Inquiry into the Nature of Modern Sadism and the Optional Extinction of Our Species CH032.qxd 7/15/09 7:53 AM Page 140 ANGELS OR APES? 141 The public expression of sadism, in other words, the pleasure of inflicting pain on others (or imagining it) has become entirely acceptable in the America of . You can run for the highest office in the land as a registered Sadist. Never mind an apology, just get yourself a press agent. The American tradition of regeneration through violence has been around since the war that granted us independence. It’s what made the federal army’s systematic destruction of the Native Americans so gratifying. So it shouldn’t shock anyone that the American populace managed to render the airborne murders of September, , not as an occasion for mourning and reflection, but an opportunity to reawaken our heroic killing spirit. This is why, within months of that attack, you saw people cheering with great vigor for events in which thousands of people—innocent or otherwise—were killed. Which is to say, for the two subsequent wars. Those were publicly sanctioned acts of sadism, carried out in defense of the homeland. Less frequently discussed were the capture and imprisonment of thousands of suspects who continue to be tortured. By tortured, I mean that American citizens beat their bodies until they are on the verge of death, hook them to overhead manacles, sexually humiliate them, force them to defecate themselves, and prevent them from sleeping— blaring noises, strobe lights, John McCain comedy routines—until they go mad. Most famously, these American citizens pour water down the throats of suspects and into their lungs, which is to say they are drowned, but not to death. These acts are carried out on a military base in Guantánamo Bay and in Iraq prisons and in various black sites in Egypt and elsewhere. Most Americans are only vaguely aware of these sadistic behaviors, which are disavowed, for the most part, by the politicians who order them to be carried out. They are rarely written about by the free press whose job it is to cover the affairs of state. This is not to say that Americans are unfamiliar with the mechanics of sadism, because many of our most popular films and television shows include scenes of simulated sadism. (Many of our most popular sporting events and reality TV programs contain actual sadism.) What makes all of this even more interesting at the current historical moment is the blurring of the line between entertainment and government policy. Note this snippet from Jane...