Globally, no single issue resonates today as much as torture or allegations thereof. Under the current rubric of the war on terror, the governments of the United States and other democratic nations that have long decried human rights abuses have sought to alter the tone, tenor, and definition of the term. From where does the basis for this new paradigm derive? How might it affect a nation's moral and official authority in the eyes of its citizenry and the world? When, if ever, can torture be an accepted practice? What are the psychological and physical aftereffects of such physical and mental violence on the victim, the practitioner, and the populations in whose name torture is committed?

The essays gathered in On Torture, a special issue of South Central Review, explore these questions in a philosophical and empirical light. They discuss the definitions of torture, examine the logical underpinnings of the practice as a means of control and of extracting information, assay the manner in which such actions are taken and how they are officially depicted, and offer an overview of government-sanctioned torture in the modern era.

In surveying the realities of torture, the contributors unearth commonalities in the creation of torturers during the Algerian War, the systematic abuses that enabled Germany's Nazi regime to function, the dehumanizing manner with which the Israeli Defense Forces allegedly treat Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, and the American public's acquiescence to the new norm after the September 11 terror attacks. They reveal the parallels between the institutionalization of torture within nations and the glorification of war and violence in artistic endeavorsthroughout the ages and explain how internalizing and accepting torture usurps individual freedom and subverts humanity.

"Critically analyzes and revitalizes agrarian philosophy by tracing its evolution."

Today, most historians, philosophers, political theorists, and scholars of rural America take a dim view of the agrarian ideal that farmers and farming occupy a special moral and political status in society. Agrarian rhetoric is generally seen as special pleading on the part of farmers seeking protection from labor reform and environmental regulation while continuing to receive direct payments and subsidies from the public till.

Agrarianism should not be viewed as a set of immutable claims about farming and political order, but as a tradition of moral and political philosophy that has evolved and deepened over the centuries. Agrarian naturalism--the belief that culture and conduct are conditioned by nature because they are of a piece with nature--becomes pragmatic naturalism, giving way to a new set of puzzles about how we are to understand the rural landscape and our responsibilities for its use. The agrarian idea that personality and sociability are integrated with the material transformation of the landscape can serve as the basis for a new, pragmatically grounded ethic of natural resources and rural development.

The essays in this volume critically analyze and revitalize agrarian philosophy by tracing its evolution in the classical American philosophy of key figures such as Franklin, Jefferson, Emerson, Thoreau, Dewey, and Royce. Three chapters address the belief that farming peoples develop moral virtue and a taste for democracy as it evolved in the American context, and four examine how a reconstitution of agrarian themes might invigorate our nation's thinking on environment, food, and rural development policy.

"The Agrarian Roots of Pragmatism" will be of broad interest to scholars of American philosophy, rural history, history of ideas, geography, and agricultural or natural resource policy.

The spread of new information and communications technologies during the past two decades has helped reshape civic associations, political communities, and global relations. In the midst of the information revolution, we find that the speed of this technology-driven change has outpaced our understanding of its social and ethical effects. The moral dimensions of this new technology and its effects on social bonds need to be questioned and scrutinized: Should the Internet be understood as a new form of public space and a source of public good? What are we to make of hackers? Does the Internet strengthen or weaken community? In The Internet in Public Life, essayists confront these and other important questions. This timely and necessary volume makes clear the need for a broader conversation about the effects of the Internet, and the questions raised by these seven essays highlight some of the most pressing issues at hand.