Goldberg & Sipowicz

After I said what I had to say about Jonah Goldberg's "Sipowicz Rule" defense of torture and related species of excuse making, I got this very germane e-mail:

On behalf of my father who created the character Sipowicz, and my close friend Bill Clark, whose own work as a detective is the basis for many of the stories on the show, I felt compelled to write a little something regarding Goldberg's reference to Sipowicz's techniques in his feeble attempt to defend military torture, feel free to agree or disagree as you will.

First of all, the interrogation techniques on NYPD Blue are not a prescription for real-life law enforcement, they are a set piece within the context of a drama that examines the good and bad of law-enforcement and the trade-offs which occur in the effort to maintain order in a chaotic world. Part of what makes NYPD Blue more than the average procedural police show is that it forces its audience to come face to face with the devil's agreement we have with our law enforcement: that we want cops, soldiers, etc to do whatever they have to do to keep us safe, but we want it done behind closed doors. The general distrust and division that exists between law enforcement and
civilians in our culture is borne from this agreement, but it is also crucial to our idea of order--one that is maintained out of sight. This is not to say that the only reason what occurred with Graner, England and the bunch is wrong only because we saw it, but that as a culture we are also culpable because in a certain way, we too gave them the okay as much as Rumsfeld or Gonzalez, we just didn't want to know about it.

Second of all, much of what makes Sipowicz as a character so compelling is that we see the toll his constant exposure to violence takes on his personal life. Sipowicz was a drunk, he wasn't around much for his first son, he isn't a role model, he is a full-blooded human being who has learned a certain way to live while immersed in violence and sadness.

Lastly, whatever violence takes place in police interrogations in New York City occurs in a very different context than military prisons. The culture is infinitely different in very significant ways. The perps Sipowicz smacks around or threatens have grown up in the American culture of violence. Often, men who have been beaten their whole lives only understand such violence. It is a way to communicate, to gain trust, even to make them feel at home. A good cop understands this. This isn't to excuse police violence, but there is much more going on psychologically in such threats than in the barbaric torture Goldberg is trying to defend. American criminals understand such threats far differently than Arab prisoners. Because of this common ground between American criminals and cops, the exchange of violence takes place on an entirely different terrain.

I basically agree with this. I'm not sure about "society"'s culpability for the administration's torture policy; I don't think the average citizen is responsible for decisions made in secret that contradict and blaspheme the government's officially humanitarian rhetoric. But the reader's comments about the unspoken and unspeakable agreement between civilians and domestic law enforcement are eminently valid---the social contract rests on a rather dark foundation.

Philosophical interest aside, the real reason I wanted to post this was that it demonstrates what a contemptible valet de pouvoir and intellectual sophomore Jonah Goldberg really is: Appropriating a work of fiction he doesn't understand and isn't entitled to appropriate, purely in order to give a too-cute defense of the indefensible.