Abstract
This chapter offers a cultural sociological reading of Searle’s social ontology and a case study from the War on Terror. A brief conceptual introduction is followed by a proposal for a more cultural understanding of Searle’s background that also includes representational elements. Such a conception might prove useful to explain complex institutional and societal changes. This understanding of the background will be substantiated by an empirical study of the symbolic impact of 9/11 and the Abu Ghraib scandal. First, it is argued that the growing legitimacy of torture after the terrorist attack is an effect of a specific narrative background pattern: the ticking bomb scenario. Second, it is shown how the visual properties of the Abu Ghraib images in relation to the cultural background of the United States triggered the prison scandal in 2004. The photographs documenting the abuse not only shocked the collective conscience but subverted the predominant ticking bomb narrative. Last but not least, it is argued that the Abu Ghraib scandal had an impact on legal and political decisions concerning the treatment of detainees in the War in Terror as well as on the torture debate and American popular culture. These effects cannot be regarded as direct consequences of the scandal, but have to be explained via changes in the cultural background.
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Notes
- 1.
This distinction is by no means self-evident; philosophers that refuse to make this distinction, for example, Hegel (in his introduction to the Phänomenologie des Geistes), end up with a very different notion of ontology and therefore also of social reality.
- 2.
I don’t want to indulge in the endless philosophical and sociological discussions on realism and constructivism. However, many cultural sociologists would insist that the distinction between basic and social facts is drawn by an observer and as such is intentionality relative. The findings of the sociology of knowledge and the science and technology studies in particular suggest a scientific “fabrication of facts” (Knorr-Cetina 2005) and provide compelling arguments for a fluid boundary between observer-independent and observer-relative facts – which does not deny the existence of “brute facts” at all. If the distinction between basic and social facts is indeed intentionality relative, then it is also dependent on a shifting cultural background. Kuhn’s concept of paradigm (1963), which is in fact very similar to Searle’s understanding of the background, conceptualizes a scientific background that enables “normal” scientific research. Scientific revolutions can be viewed as radical changes in the background of a discipline that not only lead to different theories but also to very different conceptions of basic facts.
- 3.
In my opinion, the infinite regress argument of Searle is still pretty convincing. Maybe, there isn’t an identifiable lowest layer of the background but background all the way down to the level of brain activities. Maybe, the infinite regress isn’t philosophically harmful, but rather telling about the indefinite nature of the mind – as suggested by the notion of the imaginary in Castoriadis’ work (1987).
- 4.
A movie on Pearl Harbor, released in the same year, actualized this cultural pattern and helped to portray 9/11 as attack on American soil that called for retribution. The flying suicide attacks on the Twin Towers also evoked images of the Kamikaze (suicide) pilots that attacked American forces during World War II.
- 5.
See, for example, Alter, Jonathan: Time to Think about Torture. It’s a New World, and Survival May well Require Old Techniques that Seemed out of the Question. In Newsweek, November 5, 2001.
- 6.
- 7.
One might argue that the popularity of the law-defying hero in American culture has something to do with motivational structures that favor a utilitarian-pragmatic approach over a Kantian-style ethics.
- 8.
The original show is still available on the website of the broadcasting company: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/27/60II/main614063.shtml, last access April 27, 2010.
- 9.
279 photographs and 19 videos along with the those images published later can be seen at http://www.salon.com/news/abu_ghraib/2006/03/14/introduction/index.html, last access April 27, 2010.
- 10.
Philip Smith argued in a chapter on the electric chair in the American penal discourse that the polluted message of the electric chair was “repeated in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal” by “the most notorious” photograph, “an eerily hooded, Inquisition-like figure standing on a box holding electric cables” (2008: 200).
- 11.
Mitchell, W.J.T.: Echoes of a Christian Symbol: Photo Reverberates with the Raw Power of Christ on Cross, June 27, 2004, Chicago Tribune.
- 12.
The Shame of Abu Ghraib: Voices of Revulsion, May 4, 2004, The New York Times; Pentagon too slow to decry shameful U.S. acts in Iraq, May 4, 2004, USA Today.
- 13.
Stevenson, Richard W.: Bush, on Arab TV, Denounces Abuse of Iraqi Captives, May 6, 2004, The New York Times.
- 14.
One month later, five American religious leaders from different faiths, including a Muslim, apologized for the abuses in an advertisement broadcast on the Arabic television networks Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya. Glassman, Mark: U.S. Religious Figures Offer Abuse Apology on Arab TV, June 11, 2004, The New York Times; Hedges, Chris: A Muslim in the Middle Hopes Against Hope, June 23, 2004, The New York Times.
- 15.
‘My Deepest Apology’ From Rumsfeld; ‘Nothing Less Than Tragic,’ Says Top General, May 8, 2004, The New York Times.
- 16.
Stolberg, Sheryl Gay: Prisoner Abuse Scandal Puts McCain in Spotlight Once Again, May 10, 2004, The New York Times.
- 17.
Hersh, Seymour: Torture at Abu Ghraib. American soldiers brutalized Iraqis. How far up does the responsibility go?, May 10; Chain of Command. How the Department of Defense mishandled the disaster at Abu Ghraib, May 17; The Gray Zone. How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib, May 24, 2004. In: The New Yorker.
- 18.
Greenhouse, Linda: Access to Courts, June 29, 2004, The New York Times.
- 19.
Rosen, Jeffrey: One eye on the principle, another on the people’s will, July 4, 2004, The New York Times.
- 20.
Shane, Scott: Terror and Presidential Power, Bush Takes a Step Back, July 12, 2006, The New York Times.
- 21.
Mahler, Jonathan: Why This Court Keeps Rebuking This President, June 15, 2008, The New York Times.
- 22.
Dworkin, Ronald: Why it Was a Great Victory, August 14, 2008, The New York Review of Books (55).
- 23.
Schmitt, Eric: Cheney Working to Block Legislation on Detainees, July 24, 2005, The New York Times.
- 24.
Binding the Hands of Torturers, October 8, 2005, The New York Times.
- 25.
Schmitt, Eric: President Back McCain On Abuse, December 16, 2005, The New York Times.
- 26.
Lagouranis, Anthony: Tortured Logic, February 28, 2006, The New York Times.
- 27.
Stanley, Alessandra: Beyond The News, Reminders Of the War, March 20, 2007, The New York Times.
- 28.
Stanley, Alessandra: After a Museum Is Bombed, the Real Trouble Begins, May 10, 2007, The New York Times.
- 29.
Green, Adam: Normalizing Torture, One Rollicking Hour At a Time, May 22, 2005, The New York Times.
- 30.
Mayer, Jane: Whatever It Takes, The Politics of the Man Behind “24”, February 19, 2007, The New Yorker.
- 31.
Wyatt, Edward: New Era In Politics, New Focus For “24”, January 8, 2009, The New York Times.
- 32.
Gary Levin: 24: Jack seeks pre-Season 7 “Redemption”, November 17, 2008, USA Today.
- 33.
Wyatt, Edward: New Era In Politics, New Focus For “24”, January 8, 2009, The New York Times.
- 34.
Theodore R. Schatzki offers an anti-causalist interpretation of social practices that rejects an autonomy of mind and culture on basis of their logical inseparability from practices (1996). In contrast, the strong program in cultural theory argues for a relative autonomy of culture as the very possibility of cultural explanations (Alexander and Smith 2001). I find the latter much more convincing and useful – at least for social scientists.
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Binder, W. (2013). Social Ontology, Cultural Sociology, and the War on Terror. In: Schmitz, M., Kobow, B., Schmid, H. (eds) The Background of Social Reality. Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5600-7_10
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