Changes

The fifth season of “24,” the phenomenally successful Fox [[television]] series, premiered on January 15. Composed of 24 one-hour episodes, the show chronicles the workday of the fictitious L.A.-based Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) as it desperately attempts to thwart a catastrophic terrorist attack. (In season four, they stopped a stolen [[nuclear weapon]] from exploding above a major U.S. city.) The “[[real]]-time” [[nature]] of the series confers a strong [[sense]] of urgency, emphasized by the ticking of a digital clock and accentuated with hand-held camera shots and [[split]]-screens showing the concurrent actions of various characters. Even the commercial breaks contribute to this sense of urgency: Before a commercial, we see an on-[[screen ]] digital clock signalling it is “7:46.” When the [[action ]] resumes, the digital clock reads “7:51.” The length of the break in our, the spectators’, real [[time ]] is exactly equivalent to the [[temporal ]] gap in the on-screen [[narrative]], as if the events nonetheless <i>go on</i> as we watch commercials. This makes it seem like the ongoing action is so pressing, spilling over into the real time of the [[spectator]], that even commercial breaks cannot interupt it.

CTU agents act in a shadowy [[space ]] [[outside ]] the [[law]], doing things that “simply have to be done” in [[order ]] to save [[society ]] from the [[terror]]ist [[threat]]. This includes not only torturing terrorists when they are caught, but torturing CTU members or their closest relatives when they are suspected of terrorist [[links]]. In the fourth season, among those tortured were the secretary of defense’s son-in-law and his own son (both with the secretary’s [[full ]] [[knowledge ]] and support), as well as a [[female ]] member of CTU, wrongly suspected of passing information to the terrorists. (After the [[torture]], when new data confirms her innocence, she is asked to [[return ]] to [[work]]. And since this is an [[emergency]] and every person is needed, she accepts!) The CTU agents not only treat terrorist suspects in this way — after all, they are dealing with the “[[ticking bomb]]” [[situation ]] evoked by [[Alan Dershowitz]] to justify torture in his book, <i>Why [[Terrorism ]] Works</i> — they also treat themselves as expendable, ready to lay down their colleagues’ or their own lives if this will [[help ]] prevent the terrorist act.

Special [[Agent ]] Jack Bauer, played by Kiefer Sutherland, embodies this attitude at its purest. Without qualms, he [[torture]]s [[others ]] and allows his superiors to put his [[life ]] on the line. At the end of the fourth season, he agrees to be turned over to the [[People’s Republic of China]] as a scapegoat for a CTU covert operation that killed a Chinese diplomat. Although he [[knows ]] he will be tortured and imprisoned for life, he promises not to say anything that would hurt U.S. interests. The end of the fourth season leaves Jack in a paradigmatic situation: When he is informed by the ex-president of the [[United States]], his close ally, that someone in the [[government ]] ordered his death (delivering him to the wily Chinese torturers is considered too much of a security risk), his two closest friends in CTU organize his fake death. He then [[disappears ]] into nowhere, anonymous, officially non-existing.

In the “[[war on terror]],” it is not only the terrorists but the CTU agents who become what [[philosopher]] [[Giorgio Agamben]] calls <i>[[homini sacer]]</i> — those who can be killed with impunity since, in the eyes of the [[law]], their lives no longer count. While the agents continue to act on behalf of a [[legal]] [[power]], their [[acts ]] are no longer covered and constrained by the [[law]] — they operate in an [[empty space]] within the [[domain ]] of the [[law]].

It is here that we [[encounter ]] the series’ fundamental [[ideological]] [[lie]]: In spite of this thoroughly ruthless attitude of [[self]]-[[instrument]]alization, the CTU agents, especially Jack, remain “warm human beings,” caught in the usual emotional dilemmas of “normal” [[people]]. They [[love ]] their wives and [[children]], they suffer [[jealousy ]] — but at a moment’s notice they are ready to [[sacrifice]] their loved ones for their mission. They are something like the [[psychological ]] equivalent of [[decaffeinated coffee]], doing all the horrible things the situation necessitates, yet without paying the [[subjective ]] price for it.

Consequently, “[[24]]” cannot be simply dismissed as a pop [[cultural ]] justification for the problematic methods of the [[United States]] in its [[war on terror]]. More is at stake. [[Recall ]] the lesson of Franics Ford Coppola’s <i>[[Apocalypse Now]]</i>: The [[figure ]] of Kurtz is not a reminder of some barbaric [[past]], but the necessary outcome of modern [[West]]ern [[power]]. Kurtz was a perfect soldier — as such, through his [[over-identification]] with the [[military]] [[power]] [[system]], he turned into the [[excess]] that the system had to eliminate in an operation that itself imitated the ruthlessness of Kurtz, what it was ostensibly fighting against.

This is the dilemma for those in [[power]]: How to obtain Kurtz without Kurtz’s [[pathology]]? How to get people to do the necessary dirty job without turning [[them ]] into monsters? [[SS]] chief [[Heinrich Himmler]] faced the same dilemma. When confronted with the task of liquidating the [[Jews]] of [[Europe]], [[Himmler]] adopted the heroic attitude of “Somebody has to do the dirty job, so let’s do it!” It is easy to do a noble [[thing ]] for one’s country, up to sacrificing one’s life for it. It is much more difficult to commit a <i>crime</i> for one’s country.

In <i>Eichmann in Jerusalem</i>, [[Hannah Arendt]] provided a precise description of how the [[Nazi]] executioners endured the horrible acts they performed. Most of them were not simply [[evil]]; they were well aware that their actions brought [[humiliation]], [[suffering]] and [[death]] to their [[victim]]s. Their way out of this predicament was that, “instead of saying: What horrible things I did to people!, the murderers would be able to say: What horrible things I had to watch in the pursuance of my duties, how heavily the task weighed upon my shoulders!” In this way, they were able to turn around the [[logic ]] of resisting temptation: Their “[[ethical]]” effort was directed toward the task of resisting the temptation not to [[murder]], torture and humiliate. Thus, the very violation of [[spontaneous]] [[ethical]] [[instinct]]s of pity and compassion was turned into the proof of ethical grandeur: Doing one’s [[duty]] meant assuming the heavy burden of inflicting [[pain]] on others.<

Therein also resides the lie of “[[24]]”: The presumption that it is not only possible to retain human dignity in accomplishing acts of [[terror]], but that when an honest person accomplishes such acts as a heavy [[duty]], this confers on him an additional [[tragic]]-[[ethic]] grandeur. But what if such a [[distance]] <i>is</i> possible? What if we <i>do</i> have people who commit terrible acts as part of their job, while, in private, they remain loving husbands, [[good ]] [[parents ]] and caring friends? As [[Arendt]] knew, far from redeeming them, the very fact that they are able to retain their normality while committing such acts is the ultimate confirmation of their [[moral ]] catastrophe.

So what [[about ]] the popular and seemingly convincing reply to all these worries and hair-[[splitting ]] distinctions regarding [[torture]]: “What’s all the fuss about? The [[United States]] is just openly admitting, at least tacitly, not only what it has been doing all the time, but what all [[other ]] states have been doing all the time. If anything, we have less [[hypocrisy]] now.” To this, one should retort with a simple counter-question: “If this is the only thing that the statements from the U.S. government mean, <i>why, then, are they admitting this</i>? Why don’t they just silently go on doing it, as they did before?”

What is inherent to [[human]] [[speech]] is the [[irreducible]] [[gap]] between the [[enunciated]] [[content]] and its [[act]] of [[enunciation]]: “You say this, but why are you telling me it openly now?” For example, we all [[know ]] that a polite way to say that we found a colleague’s talk stupid and boring is to say, “<i>That</i> was very interesting.” If instead we openly told our colleague, “That was boring and stupid,” he would be fully justified to be surprised. The act of [[public]]ly reporting on something is never neutral — it affects the reported content itself.

The same goes for the [[recent ]] open admission of [[torture]]: When we hear [[Dick Cheney]] make [[obscene ]] statements about the [[necessity ]] of [[torture]], we should ask: “Why are you saying it publicly?” That is, the question we must raise is: What is there about this [[statement ]] that made you enunciate it? Thus, what is truly problematic about “[[24]]” is not the [[message ]] it conveys, but the fact that this message is so openly stated. It is a sad indication of the deep [[change ]] in our [[ethical]] and [[political]] standards.

* [[Jack Bauer and the Ethics of Urgency]]. ''In These [[Times]]''. January 27, 2006. <http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2481/>. Also listed on ''[[Lacan]].com''. <http://www.lacan.com/zizbauer.htm>