Ovid’s Theseus and the Minotaur, since its historical founding, has appeared, and been connected, numerous sources. These sources range from political propaganda, cultural norms, sociological structures, and psychological behaviors. Such sources can, indeed, be connected to the treatment of prisoners of war in either military, civilian, or government, situations. Military regimes has historically been well associated with the torture of inmates or prisoners, with such methods being considered inhumane, cruel, and/or unusual.
However, one such method, waterboarding, has become a political highlight of the modern era, due to its legalization. Waterboarding is an act of pseudo-drowning a subject with water, or a water-like substance, in a manner that disables breathing and the ability for the brain to properly respond. In addition, the method is primarily a psychological torture, rather than a physical, so the subject may be subjected to continuous rounds of torture without haste or hindrance. The debate of said torture method is: Should waterboarding be ethically authorized or unauthorized for use by the government, military, or individual civilians.
Various released records of the use of waterboarding have stated the positive/negative effects, along with the necessity of the use. With these cases, along with other reports, such as medical, therapeutic, and even classified, the use of waterboarding has been proven as an unethical, inconsistent, and unnecessary form of information gathering technique, and should henceforth be banned from practice. According to Ovid’s Metamorphosis, the myth of the Theseus begins with the factual conflict between Athens and Crete.
As portrayed in the myth, Crete is the dominating faction of the known world, and reigns over the subjugated Athens region. King Minos, ruler of Crete, is known as an arrogant, cruel governor. As the story goes, he attempted to trick the Greek god Poseidon by not up his prized bull, which was originally required by the god, but instead a lesser bull. After realizing Minos’s deception, the god persuaded Minos’s wife, Pasiphae, in a spell that warped her mind into being in lust for the prized bull. After being impregnated, a beastly abomination was conceived.
This beast is described to have a distorted combination of an upper bull and lower male body. Minos was ashamed, disgusted, and enraged at this child’s birth. He had the world’s most well-accomplished architect and physicist to construct a massive, complex labyrinth, or maze, to house as the beast’s permanent prison. The name given to the beast completed the two links of its being, with Minos, his king father, and Taurus, the bull. The Minotaur was left in squalor, darkness, and complete solitary containment.
Its meal’s consisted of the human virgin subjects that were taken as prisoners from Athens. Theseus, the half god, hero of Athens, and son of King of Athens, Aegeus, is sent off to Crete to strike down the Minotaur, save the captives, and end the tyrannical propaganda of Crete’s domination over Athens that the Minotaur was symbolized as. After being aided into the maze by the Minos’s daughter, Ariadne, whom was smitten with the hero, and the creator of the maze, Daedalus, Theseus managed to track down the beast, whom was distracted and surrounded by the remains of the previous prisoners.
Theseus swiftly cut down the beast, leaving its body alone in the pool of its blood. After navigating his way back out of the labyrinth, Theseus traveled out of Crete with the remaining virgin prisoners and Minos’s daughter. Theseus, after abandoning Ariadne on a deserted island, he sailed into Athens to greet his father. However, due to a mistake of the color of which sail to fly, King Aegeus believed Theseus to be dead, and, in a fit of grief, he flung himself off to his dead from a cliff to the sea. Within the text of the myth, the analysis of certain extracts reveal the onnection between waterboarding tortures of prisoners. In the first example, Minos explains he “planned to confide” the Minotaur by locking him up “within intricate complexity. ” Prisoners, at the basic level, are often housed within a fortified complex or lodging that provides basic survival and human needs. Sunlight, exercise, and even limited human communication and/or connection are provided for prisoners as basic rights. As prisoners become more infamous, dangerous, or simply high profile, the level of basic treatment tends to lower substantially.
For example, Soviet prisoners of war were fed less than 2000 calories per day, were subjected to heinous, unethical experiments, were given meager, if not deplorable living conditions, and were commonly susceptible to outbreaks of typhoid and dysentery (https://www. ushmm. org/wic/en/ article. php? Moduleld=10007183). However, due to the Geneva Convention’s policy of POW treatment, prisoners were expected to have a set standard of care. Nevertheless, confiding prisoners to secure housing, solitude, and minimum care was still allowed.
In another quote, “the beast, half bull, half man” is described to be “fed him twice on attic blood” from the Athenian captives “chosen each nine years. ” While this minor exert is vague in comparison to waterboarding, it actually is quite close in relation. The Minotaur, forced into solitary confinement, is forced into feeding on its own half species. The “attic blood” relates to “dry drowning”, which is causes by a lack of oxygen but not because of a large amount of liquid intake and this would only happen in an extremely long and prolonged session.
Dry drowning is the effect that humans undergo when subjected to waterboarding. In addition every time the Minotaur is forced fed of the blood of his half species, his brain could treat the act as psychological torture, in which would correspond directly to the purpose of waterboarding. The final excerpt from the myth shows how “grief overpowered” King Aegeus “and he cast himself headlong into the sea. ” With this action, Aegeus finally gave into the psychological torture of his son not returning, and he allowed his body to be destroyed by the waters bellow.
This relates to victims after prolonged torture from waterboarding, and its long term effects on the body, brain, and behavior. With the willpower, physical body, and psyche in broken, suicide or simply allowing continuous torture can occur. These texts show just how similar the treatment of the Minotaur and Aegeus’s mentality can be compared to prisoners of war and waterboarding victims. The Minotaur is typically portrayed as a brutish, vile monstrosity whose sole purpose is to kill anything that is unfortunately faced against it.
However, one could argue that the Minotaur is actually the direct result of several years of physical, and psychological, abuse. The propaganda of being faced against the ‘infamous Minotaur’ is merely a ruse used by Minos to create pandemonium and fear within the subjugated societies of Crete. Athens is affected by the Minotaur’s presence, even though it is against the will of the beast. Prisoners of war are forced occasionally to the point of revealing secrets that can affect their native land, organizations, or countries. These prisoners are labelled as traitors, and are abandoned, due to their actions.
The Minotaur and these prisoners are similar in this sense, considering their forced actions, due to prolonged torture, can result in problematic incidents to others. Prisoners who undergo waterboarding are psychologically tortured, which is the same as the Minotaur’s forced blood diet. As previously stated, the Minotaur could receive dry drowning from the forced consumption of human blood, which can mimic the forced inhalation of liquid from waterboarding. Neither action shows outward abuse or damage, due to the type of torture both the Minotaur and prisoners of war undergo.
Instead, each action has the possibility to warp the behavior and conscious thought of the individual. This explains why prisoners reveal information, and the Minotaur’s progressive rise to a more animalistic behavior. Waterboarding is a form of water torture where a cloth is placed over face and water is poured into it at a 20-30 degree angle. This gives the illusion of drowning. Captor will, after a few seconds of pouring water, will “rescue” the victim by removing the cloth and allowing air to circulate.
During the process for President Bush’s attorney general, Michael Mukasey was interviewed on the topic of waterboarding. He, along with Washington D. C. , seemed to not know enough about the method to even claim it as torture. However, its use in history is not necessarily modern. Its use was first documented in the 14th century, according to Ed Peters, a historian at the University of Pennsylvania. It was known variously as “water torture,” the “water cure” or tormenta de toca. The use of water to derive a confession for a crime was considered “a normal incident of law,” and was compared to cross-examination.
The “water cure” was used by professionals that required a doctor’s presence during interrogations. Even more unknown is that are in fact, two types of waterboarding. One type involves pumping water directly into the stomach. According to Darius Rejali, a professor at Reed College in Oregon, this type creates intense pain within the victim. The other technique — the one more widely used today — involves choking the victim by filling their throat with a steady stream of water — a sort of “slow-motion drowning” that was perfected by Dutch traders in the 17th century (http://www. pr. org/2007/11/03/15886834/ waterboarding-a-tortured-history). Waterboarding, during the Enlightment period, was considered banned, and thus the practice all but disappeared. However, during the 20th century, waterboarding became used more often, especially during WWII. Unfortunately, waterboarding is a difficult subject of debate, due to the lack of information released by governments of the usage or even acknowledge of the torture method.
Nevertheless, the debate has been split between politicians on the ethical use of waterboarding for interrogation, at least in recent years. Donald Trump, Republican presidential nominee, has openly supported the use of waterboarding. “I’d bring back waterboarding,” Mr. Trump said, “and I’d bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding. ” While Trump is known for his controversial opinions, his statement is indirectly supported by the CIA, whom was criticized for its waterboarding interrogation program.
However, ex-military and liberals debate against this by stating the damages and controversial cases involving terrorists or prisoners. Overall, the sides are split between the acceptability of waterboarding, due to the policies that state waterboarding is not a method of torture, and the call for the ban of waterboarding, due to the biological and psychological fact it is considered torture. Question of whether waterboarding is necessary, ethical, and not torture needs to be decided.
