Robert Mapplethorpe, Dominick and Elliot, 1979, gelatin-silver print
This is at the heart of what Eisenman defines as “the Abu Ghraib effect” - sanitization of cruelty, by which things that should be unacceptable are turned into things that are tolerated; mediating the notorious Abu Ghraib images against the history of Western art and popular visual culture, Eisenman engagingly attempts to shows to us, his appalled readers, why such horrors are acceptable to the US public – he sees them reminding the viewer of other images, from pornography to action films, and this seems to neutralize their power.
PATHOS?
Sodoma, St Sebastian, 1531,
oil on canvas
Beyond this, Eisenman is at pains to explain that the Abu Ghraib effect is not simply a consequence of numbness or of a runaway consumer culture but rather that there is a powerful cultural force at work in American life, the idea of the “Pathos Formula” which derives from more general Western culture and aesthetics, whereby victims of horror are shown to actively collude or participate in their own subjection and destruction – for example, in the dreaming eyes of Saints in Renaissance paintings as they await death by torture (for example, Michelangelo’s “Dying Gaul”). Clearly, even if this is a monstrous warping of human experience, and makes us at first recoil from Eisenman’ argument, there is something true, persuasive and engaging about art as an articulation of deep opinions and prejudices – and perhaps indeed this is an elegant way for us to understand “normal” Americans’ assumptions about the world. As Eisenman concludes, “Art in Europe and the West most often functioned as a handmaiden for arrogance, power and violence.”
This line of argument is familiar. For example, in the aftermath of the first Iraq War, Lionello Puppi’s “Torment in Art: Pain, Violence and Martyrdom” (Rizzoli New York, 1991) reached similar conclusions: “behind the figurative culture of the West lies this constant acting out of a vendetta on innumerable countless victims; an unbroken interminable slaughter… all that will change is that executions will be withdrawn from the public domain, a dark curtain will fall.” Is it really useful to use Art to treat issues of violence and war, even if only a “dirty, hopeless and idiotic Imperial war”? In this, Eisenman seems secure – after all, “the Abu Ghraib prison photos emphasis on theatricality and display” remind us that “the torture scenes…were organized to be photographed.” Artifice and therefore Art seem explicitly involved.
OPTIMISIM and EVOLUTION
Edouard Manet,
The Mocking of Christ, 1865,
oil on canvas
In conclusion, this essay’s brilliance and narrow focus allows Eisenman to be bold and intriguing in his optimism. Painstakingly, in the section “Stages of Cruelty” he tentatively maps out a way to end the power of the Pathos Formula – to stop us seeing those who are forced to submit as willing collaborators – and part of the way to overcome the effect is perhaps simply by exposing it.
If people really think critically about what it is they are seeing when they look at the Abu Ghraib photographs, it will be impossible, suggests Eisenman, for them to merely tolerate or ignore what is clearly a violation of the most basic human rights. This is a brave stance, perhaps, and seems to point to a teleology, an evolution, of attitudes. One can certainly dare, along with the author, to hope. Certainly, “The Abu Ghraib Effect” provoked me to think more deeply and read more deeply, and will do the same for you. Simply by airing so many issues that so many of us find uncomfortable, Eisenman has done something very worthy in this book.
Stephen F. Eisenman 
Bold and disturbing, this is a brave and intriguing essay (turned into a sharply argued book) about how torture operates upon the American consciousness – and specifically, the way that the horrific abuses perpetrated against Iraqis by American troops at the Abu Ghraib prison have affected Americans. The simple and frightening conclusion is: torture hardly seems to matter at all to most Americans. “Torture and death are necessary to ensure…just rule.” Using a sometimes sophisticated but also clear philosophical vocabulary, Eisenman demonstrates that “normal” Americans, it seems, feel and felt no grave problem with the harm of “others”, of non-Americans or even people not of their class (inter-American lynching being a touchstone for many American intellectuals looking at Abu Ghraib). 
