Marty Seligman's Defense on Torture

Via Andrew Sullivan, Jane Mayer elaborates on her criticisms of Marty Seligman, the psychologist who she believes helped the U.S. Government develop torture techniques. Many of her questions are good and we'd like to see him answer them, too.

However, her claim that his denial [full text here] made no effort to explain what he thought he was doing speaking in front of the miliatry folks doesn't seem right to us.

In his statement, he says:

My topic was how American troops and American personnel could use what is known about learned helplessness and related findings to resist torture and evade successful interrogation by their captors.

Now you can argue that this is disingenuous, and perhaps Mayer has evidence to that effect. But you can't say Seligman hasn't offered an explanation.

I admit to a certain Beliefnet defensiveness about Seligman because so much of what he's worked on over the years has been about helping people pull dignity and optimism out of dispair. If it turns out that he did indeed help the torturers it will be a very sad and disgusting outcome. If it turns that he didn't, then a man who has helped many people would have been unfairly tarnished.