I was analogizing “torture” with “gun”, not “crime” or “shooting”. Torture was a tool that the church had on hand and was prepared to use, and Galileo’s knowledge of their threat to use torture was what led him to recant. (It was the forcing of his recanting that was the “crime” in my analogy.)
It might be more precise to say that what the church had on hand was an institutionalized practice of torture, but using “torture” to refer to the practice (rather than a particular act) seems within the bounds of accuracy in poetry.
That’s a bit contrived—imagine if a presidential candidate mentions how his will was broken by torture in Vietnam, and afterward it’s revealed that all that happened was that he was told he might be tortured, so he spilled the beans immediately. I wouldn’t expect his poll numbers to go up.
imagine if a presidential candidate mentions how his will was broken by torture in Vietnam, and afterward it’s revealed that all that happened was that he was told he might be tortured, so he spilled the beans immediately. I wouldn’t expect his poll numbers to go up.
I would still say that torture was used to break his will. To say this would be accurate, if not precise (because I’m not specifying whether I mean a particular act or an institutionalized practice). Whether his will proved too easy to break to satisfy the electorate is another matter.
I was analogizing “torture” with “gun”, not “crime” or “shooting”. Torture was a tool that the church had on hand and was prepared to use, and Galileo’s knowledge of their threat to use torture was what led him to recant. (It was the forcing of his recanting that was the “crime” in my analogy.)
It might be more precise to say that what the church had on hand was an institutionalized practice of torture, but using “torture” to refer to the practice (rather than a particular act) seems within the bounds of accuracy in poetry.
That’s a bit contrived—imagine if a presidential candidate mentions how his will was broken by torture in Vietnam, and afterward it’s revealed that all that happened was that he was told he might be tortured, so he spilled the beans immediately. I wouldn’t expect his poll numbers to go up.
I would still say that torture was used to break his will. To say this would be accurate, if not precise (because I’m not specifying whether I mean a particular act or an institutionalized practice). Whether his will proved too easy to break to satisfy the electorate is another matter.