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111 Comments
- johnhummel, on 02/28/2008, -3/+31I heard this gentleman speak in a podcast not too long ago - Fresh Air from NPR, if I remember right, and the implications were just sad. It's interesting how a place like Abu Ghraib, a bunch of soldiers were basically set up for failure by:
1. Not trained in how to handle prisoners
2. Not given any oversight by their commanders
3. Encouraged to "get results"
And somehow, it was all of the lowest soldier's fault when things went bad - instead of the leaders who should known better, leaders who should have known we have Geneva conventions laid out in pretty clear terms to this ***** doesn't happen any more. Sadly, any person given a position of power over another - without a clear mandate of what "is" and "is not" acceptable, can devolve into a monster.
Look at some parents who abuse their children. Or the recent Michael Vick who was shocked to find "Wait - you're not suppose to treat animals like this?" This is why we have checks and balances. It's why Illinois passed a law saying that *all* interrogations must be taped and included as evidence to the court when a person is charged with a crime - it protects the accused, and it protects the police by always keeping that reminder in their mind "I'm being watched, I need to be good".
It's not that people are "inherently evil" - at least, I don't believe so. But I think it's too easy that a person without any restrictions, can *become* evil if they don't already have a strong moral center - and even then, absolute power corrupts, as they say. - littlesigh, on 02/28/2008, -1/+24Having spent twenty years in the military and now having a Masters in psychology I can tell you that Dr. Zimbardo is spot on in his assessment of the structure of life in the military and the complications that arise when reservist/guard personnel are mixed with regular troops. The reservists cooks at my location during Desert Storm were threatening to spit in the food if they didn't go home early. Who knows perhaps I ate my fill of someones spit.
- n8f8, on 02/28/2008, -1/+21IF you read this with the mentality of "how could they" then you are missing the point. The point is any one of us could fall into the Gharib prison guard role and behaviors given the right circumstances.
- stukdog, on 02/28/2008, -3/+23Warning: Those photos, while educational, are NSFW. A lot of male nudity.
- parax, on 02/28/2008, -12/+27I completely disagree. Good people don't turn evil in extraordinary circumstances. Extraordinary circumstances reveal a person's true character. If, under pressure, the things you do are immoral, you're an immoral person. Immoral people use these studies to justify their behavior, like a supernatural force compelled their behavior. They can't just admit they're weren't a good person to begin with.
- Prototek, on 02/28/2008, -1/+15Torture = SFW. Penis = NSFW
- SuperCow1127, on 02/28/2008, -0/+14"People are always personally accountable for their behavior. "
"Understanding the reason for someone's behavior is not the same as excusing it."
Hooray reading comprehension! - SuperCow1127, on 02/28/2008, -0/+11You should read the end of page two. The implication is that almost everyone has in them the potential to be evil, and that it takes very remarkable character to go against the grain and be good when pressured to be evil. It's not so much that people who do horrible things are really just horrible people, unless you mean that nearly every one of us is truly bad natured. The ones who do good when all their peers do wrong are the ones with unusually strong internal morality, and a self-confidence that allows them to go against social pressures.
- PleaseJustDie, on 02/28/2008, -0/+10I used to be a prison guard and we were actually encouraged to do exactly that. I remember one of my instructors was talking about when he worked in a federal prison he would stop at the gate, get out and make a motion like he was putting his soul on the gate and when he left he would stop and pick it up again. It was a kind of physical way to prepare himself mentally for what he's about to deal with and then shed the day's ills when he gets off so he can go home to his family at night.
- hasslinthehoff, on 02/28/2008, -1/+10These pictures just make me sad... it's a dark time for our country.
- leexy, on 02/28/2008, -0/+9I'm fairly confident most Iraqis and people in the region feel the same way.
- WriterSD, on 02/28/2008, -1/+10I saw his interview on Colbert. Interesting man and an interesting book!
- pianomahnn, on 02/28/2008, -2/+10Yes, because no one at work has EVER seen a penis.
Obnoxious oversensitive people. Blah. - SuperVepr308, on 02/28/2008, -0/+8I hope you meant "kill some time"
- Haohmaru, on 02/28/2008, -2/+10I agree. Not doing evil things doesn't make you a good person, it could simply mean you're un-motivated or haven't been given the opportunity. Good people are those who actively do good things even at great expense to themselves. Seemingly good people will kill their innocent fellow man when it means their own self preservation.
- Dr0x, on 02/28/2008, -1/+8I'm currently working on my B.S. in Psychology and I agree Zimbardo is right on the ball. This is almost like a real life reenactment of his Stanford study, which had some scary results in itself.
- waspbr, on 02/28/2008, -1/+8I beg to differ, a cat is not a rational being, in principle reason and logic should prevent people from crossing certain lines.
For every argument there is a set of premises that inductively/deductively evolve into a conclusion. Like, whether it is moral or immoral to do something.
the people from the prison only attacked the inmates and didn't attack the other because in their thought process the prisoners were not people, it is very easy to regard the enemy as inhuman in a war/conflict, we are always the good guys and the enemy is a bunch of evil-doers that should be vanquished. - Trigeno, on 02/28/2008, -2/+8-2pts you missed the point of the article.
- jgzman, on 02/28/2008, -1/+6Was just going to make this observation.....
- fancyj, on 02/28/2008, -0/+5There have been a lot of experiments that can be considered unethical.
- pianomahnn, on 02/28/2008, -0/+5You = obnoxious complainer
- inactive, on 02/28/2008, -6/+11People keep tossing around the terms, 'good' and 'evil' without realizing that they don't really apply. I was over at a friend's house last spring and his cat came in through an open window with a bluejay in its mouth. The jay was all messed-up, but still alive and the cat gave him the bird in that way cats do. Was the cat evil? I maintain that the cat was just being a cat. We've all got a lot of unevolved animal in us. Some people are so domesticated that they aren't aware of its presence until some drastic occurrence places us in a position where those buried impulses start to surface and become more apparent. A lot of people in our culture are effectively shut-ins anymore and this all seems unthinkable to them, but it's a reality of life when the animal wakes up.
- pianomahnn, on 02/28/2008, -1/+6As soldiers, they should have been aware of the Geneva conventions for their own safety and well being against foreign armies. Ignorance is bliss?
- baudbwoy, on 02/28/2008, -0/+5yeh I would say these experiments where unethical, I think we need to know in order to avoid things like that. As long as there are no lasting affects i find it useful
- baudbwoy, on 02/28/2008, -0/+5i disagree, Abu Ghraib is NOT a SEMI organized detainment camp. What makes it SEMI. the parallels are there, deaths at the hands of the detainers torture etc, yes its not at the level of what the Nazis achieved but the underlying structure is there, and we do not completely know the entire storey, these are but a few pics and statements from just a few of the many incidents. Sure there were no gas chambers, but there were scientific experimentation (physiological), no mass graves but there were graves. The Germans were left unchecked and there crimes against humanity escalated through this. The same was happening at ABU GHRAIB.
- pauldy, on 02/28/2008, -0/+5I've been reading up on him and he is just peddling his warez. He stumbled on a phenomenon in the 70s that made people think he was a visionary and he has been coasting on it ever since. His latest is a book that rehashes 30+ year old research and attempts to tie it into present day events. Now he claims to be focusing on the heroic side, the whistle blower, whatever. The hard and more interesting part of extending his original work would have been examining the intent and exploring why people make moral compromises in order to achieve goals. Something tells me he won't be exploring this any time soon.
- waspbr, on 02/28/2008, -0/+5the atrocities are just as bad, only the proportions are different
- sholt, on 02/28/2008, -1/+6Be careful, when assessing another's morality - you have the benefit of isolation and perspective that they may not.
The whole point of his theory is that the circumstances only explain why these events occur and how people can fall into the circumstances which enable them to participate. Never does it absolve the personal responsibility of the people in those situations. Understanding why and how these things occur is an essential first step to preventing it from happening again. - inactive, on 02/28/2008, -0/+4Humans aren't rational beings, either. We all have a little Lord of the Flies under the surface waiting for the right circumstances to bring it out. We all have a little reptilian brain left over from our pre-mammalian existence and it mediates our view of the world. When we're in an extremely domesticated environment that's not a huge issue, but in circumstances like this almost nobody retains much of their "humanity."
- ModernDayDarwin, on 02/28/2008, -0/+3I did a very large study on the Standford case in my Social Psych course during undergrad. There is an amazing similarity about what happened at Stanford and Abu Ghraib. It's quite sad really that something known so long ago wasn't "checked and balanced" so to speak.
- CitizenKing, on 02/28/2008, -1/+4I read about a psychological theory which had the hypothesis that the Nazi guards of the concentration camps developed a sort of professional schizophrenia, splitting their personality between their work and their private life.
- gamercubed, on 02/28/2008, -0/+3Totally agree, John. When I first heard about Zimbardo's work (on Colbert), I honestly wasn't that impressed because the idea of unchecked power having a corrupting influence is not new. Whenever you give someone power over another without any restrictions or oversight, it's human nature to want to exploit that power for personal gain/satisfaction. Not that everyone will, but like you said, it's not unusual if the person in power doesn't already have the character and willpower to impose checks on himself. It's why dictatorships don't work, and why our own politicians tend to sacrifice their noble "public servant" intentions after working in Washington for too long. Checks and balances are critical in any situation where one group of people has authority over another.
- simpleid, on 02/28/2008, -0/+3YES, digg actually IS a popularity contest, and it's even ADVERTISED as such. maybe you have some delusions as to how digg works, did you think the top stories magically appeared some how? dupes must be expected to occur, just because YOU have seen something, does not mean 1,000 other people have.
- inactive, on 11/13/2008, -0/+3We should have a day with no law... everyone is free to do whatever without being held accountable for their actions in the future. Then we'll see how f'ed up humans really are
- tommyredcoat, on 02/28/2008, -0/+3"See you next time, until then, I'm Phillip Zimbardo."
- dengzhi, on 02/28/2008, -1/+4remember everyone is good in their own eyes. Bush thinks Osama is the devil and Osama thinks Bush is the devil. No one knowingly does evil (unless they are a real freak). Most people in the west may think Osama is evil, but in his eyes he's doing good and he might be a hero to others. Bush thinks hes right and ridding the world of evil. But now even to most Americans Bush is just evil.Everyone is good in their own eyes.
- Thuktun, on 02/28/2008, -0/+3I think this is the modern extension of,
smiting unbelievers = holy, body parts involved in natural processes = not so much - zen4444, on 02/29/2008, -0/+3Wow this is a tough nut to crack. I agree with both of waspbr's and RRjackson's assertions to some degree. I know that Socrates blamed all evil on ignorance, that if a person were truly enlightened and knowledgeable they would never do an irrational act. So a point to waspbr. Yet Jesus and many other theologians would say that all sin is due to our corrupt human nature, (and strangely, according to RR's argument so would Darwin). So do we operate with free will 100% of the time, and are then only limited by our understanding of the world to dictate our actions; or is there an animal inside all of us waiting to emerge given certain circumstance? I can't help but think that both apply, and to various degrees in different individuals. Humanity is a strange and murky thing, I wonder if we will ever truly know ourselves.
- johnhummel, on 02/28/2008, -0/+3Being aware is one thing - I'm sure all of the soldiers were "aware" of the geneva conventions.. However, there is a reason why there is oversight. Just saying "OK, I promise not to hit someone" isn't enough. We have checks and witnesses and management for a reason, so at some point in the chain those who are trained to understand can go "Wait a second - this isn't going in the right direction. Stop it now."
Cops all know you shouldn't beat confessions out of people - but without the knowledge of a video record that could be used against *them*, there are those that would act badly. Not a majority, I would like to hope - but as stories have shown, even one case is bad enough.
In the Harvard study, I'm sure those people knew that they weren't suppose to strip their "prisoners" and make them perform sex acts on each other. But without supervision (or, as I mentioned, someone with very strong internal morals who isn't afraid to speak out), without that voice of "Hey- this is not heading a good direction", both educated and ignorant people can go bad. - squelched, on 02/28/2008, -2/+5i refuse to support the US troops and the establishment. ***** THEM
- Haohmaru, on 02/28/2008, -0/+2Your correct in that we need to be careful in assessing anothers morality, but it's a person's resultant actions that are being called into question. While one can claim "circumstances" these are almost always skewed in the mind of the perpetrator.
And what I mean by "actively do good things", that encompasses great and small. You may not be feeding the starving children of Africa, but if you're not flipping people off on the highway (even when someone is cutting you off) you're no longer part of the problem, but part of the solution. With this sort of mind-set, when you are are pressed "to do evil" you'll be far more likely to resist. - Dr0x, on 02/28/2008, -1/+3Damn you got to it before me. People have the right to be mad at this situation. However I am much more upset with the situation the guards were put in and the lack of supervision than I am with the guards themselves.
- ST0N3, on 02/28/2008, -0/+2isn't zimbardo that guy who did all these experiments on people that were totally unethical?
- ProjectGSX, on 02/28/2008, -0/+2We know why people turn evil:
Violent video games.
Amirite? - LazyLiberal, on 02/28/2008, -3/+5ted.com is an awesome site if you want to kill sometime and learn something.
- PhilMoskowitz, on 02/28/2008, -0/+2dude
- SuperCow1127, on 02/29/2008, -0/+2What are you even trying to say?
- CivicTV, on 08/14/2009, -0/+2RTFA
- CivicTV, on 08/14/2009, -0/+2There's that word again, 'heavy'. Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the earth's gravitational pull?
- baudbwoy, on 02/28/2008, -0/+2i don't forgive the Nazis, thats scary because the affects of their reign of terror is still felt and even today they continue the quest for the super race and superiority. Some Germans like all other peoples may indeed be nice people but forgiving them of their atrocities NEVER, I'm not Jewish nor 6' tall with blond hair and blues so how I look at it is after the Jews it would have certainly been the blacks. People are indeed different from animals, we have choice, we choose to do the things we do barring any chemical imbalances. I hear you on that people are followers but they are followers because our society makes them followers, people do not realise that they can choose and so the crimes such like that of Nazi German will indeed happen again but on what I believe will be an even greater scale, why because people do not learn and that ease in killing people is even greater today with our technological advancement. Being followers is not an excuse, I have had to follower my leaders before and have always questioned ever order, "is this moral right in my eyes and the eyes of god and what is generally thought of as good"? "is this hurting some who does not deserve it:? w"why does this person deserve to be harmed"?. We all have it in us to ass the right questions but we are thought not to as but to blindly follow because our "leader" can lead us away from fear. Look at the cops they men and women are complete and illogical followers, without any question and strong moral fibre they may not believe they are above the law but defiantly above the people who they oversee and thus inflict great pain on these citizens because the are in the belief that can and the citizens deserve.
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