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GRADUATE_OF_PAIN

                                                     December 3, 2009


   "He lay still and a terrible pleasure began to
   wake in him, spreading in a victorious glow of
   self-knowledge. _They did this to me but I have
   remained who I am.  I am tempered.  I am able.
   Inside myself there's an untouched man.  If
   they came back now, and did everything to me
   again, they would never reach the untouched
   man.  I have passed the exam I've been shirking
   all my life.  I'm a graduate of pain._"

               -- John le Carre'
                  "The Constant Gardener" (2001)
                  p 374, paperback ed.

           Do you believe in this
           stuff?  Does it grab
           you, or strike you as                 GLASS_KEY
           macho nonsense?

                It's a recurrent theme:
                "How much can you stand?"          It was popular even
                                                   before the present
                I suppose the question             day era when the
                is "how easy am I to               "civilized" world
                manipulate?" or, where             decided to once
                are the boundaries of              again review why
                autonomy and hence self.           torture is useless
                                                   as well as evil.


                        In some ways, it's a silly
                        ground to choose to ask the
                        question.

                            We might be better off if we
                            asked it from the other side:

                                  Stanley Milgram,
                                  "Obedience to Authority"


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