Countless adjectives have been used to describe the findings of the Senate CIA torture report, released Dec. 9. Those include "heinous," "stunning" and "gruesome," to name a few. But are Americans truly repulsed by the actions of our government?
Dr. Steven Reisner, a leading psychologist and ethics advisor, joined HuffPost Live interview Thursday to discuss the topic.
"It is often the case that when people are frightened, they override their sense of what's right and what's wrong. And Americans have been frightened. They've been taught to be frightened by the administration," Reisner told host Alyona Minkovski. "So we've lost our sense of ethics, and we've lost our sense of what's moral."
Some have shrugged off the terrible details — humiliation of all kinds, even sexual — as necessary in the face of terrorism. Others point to data that torture, in reality, is not very effective as a tool for interrogating witnesses.
"If there isn't revulsion, we have to start by teaching revulsion," Reisner said. "We have to start with children, we have to start in our schools, we have to start educating the American people that there are things we should be nauseated by. We should be horrified by some of the details."
Watch more with Reisner above, and catch the full HuffPost Live conversation here.
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