As to why human beings resort to torturing others is a question that has been left largely unanswered by criminologists and like social scientists world over. The present work strives to provide a definitive answer, albeit within the confines of the author’s own capacities and experiences. -/- Though presented as a ‘Sri Lankan’ study conforming to the grounded theory method, this book takes pains to both accommodate and analyze regional as well as global instances of torture toward inducing causal conclusions (...) on the generic phenomenon that it has now evolved into. -/- While its inquiry into torture’s inciting factors appears ‘specific’ to the island-nation, that undertaken in respect of the predisposition to torture is undoubtedly of much wider relevance, even global. Offering an in-depth understanding of the mindsets borne by ‘conditioned’ police torturers, it also proceeds to reveal those of potential layman perpetrators, thereby rendering the resort to cruelty more an innate trait than an acquired habit. Several naturally occurring mental-formations are thus identified and presented as specific ‘amalgams’ that precipitate and perpetuate torture, which at all times is deemed a volitional departure from morality. -/- This writing constitutes essential reading for those engaged in whatever noble initiatives bent on truly freeing this world from torture. (shrink)

This book extract contributes to the literature by inter alia (1) identifying societal justification as incentivizing torture, (2) disclosing man’s innate cruelty and habitual recourse to elective disassociation as facilitating its unperturbed discharge and (3) deeming moral realization its universal panacea.