As a media studies major, part of what I studied was the impact media have on our culture and our way of thinking. Despite everything that I’ve learned, I did not expect to read this in a recent New York Times op-ed by Bob Herbert, describing Jane Mayer’s new book, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals:

To get a sense of the heights of madness scaled in this anything-goes atmosphere, consider a brainstorming meeting held by military officials at Guantánamo. Ms. Mayer said the meeting was called to come up with ways to crack through the resistance of detainees.

“One source of ideas,” she wrote, “was the popular television show ‘24.’ On that show as Ms. Mayer noted, “torture always worked. It saved America on a weekly basis.”

I felt as if I was in Never-Never Land as I read: “In conversation with British human rights lawyer Philippe Sands, the top military lawyer in Guantánamo, Diane Beaver, said quite earnestly that Jack Bauer ‘gave people lots of ideas’ as they sought for interrogation models.”
(source)

It horrifies me that not only are we torturing people at Guantánamo, but our tactics come from a fictional television show. It works on TV, so it must work in real life, right?

Our society becomes desensitized by the violent images all around us. A significant proportion of Americans believe that torture is acceptible under certain circumstances. How did we get to that point? We can’t blame the media alone, but when Jack Bauer tortures people to save America, it doesn’t help. How do we resist the violence that our culture often glorifies? The best answer I have is creating enough nonviolent forces in our culture to counteract the violence. Many things in my life have led me to believe in nonviolence. I expose myself to quite a bit of media with messages I oppose, but I manage to maintain my values. By living our lives based on principles of nonviolence, we take at least a small step in opposition to our culture of violence.