Byrd's Chicks

Reflection on Preventing Evil

"We all like to think that the line between good and evil is impermeable"

Philip Zimbardo
http://www.everydayheroism.org/pubs/banality_of_heroism.pdf

I was surfing the news today, and stumbled across an article about Stanley Milgram's experiment on obedience:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/12/19/milgram.experiment.obedience/index.html

It caught my eye for a number of reasons. First, I remember studying his experiment in Psych 101 many years ago, and next, I have a personal need to understand how perfectly ordinary people can do horrifically evil things, particularly in groups. Analogously, I am deeply interested in the flip side of the coin - what cause perfectly ordinary people to do heroic things in the face of immense adversity.

For those of you not familiar with it, Milgram ran an experiment in the 60's, in which he used a fake shock machine, a "teacher," "student" and an "experimenter". The teacher was told by the experimentor (an authority figure) that he or she had to teach the student to memorize a pair of words, and the punishment for a wrong answer was a shock from the machine.
(The machine was fake, but the "teacher" was unaware of this). The "teacher" was told by the expermenter or she had to teach the student to memorize a pair of words. When the student erred, the "teacher" administered what he/she thought was an electric shock. As the "student" continued to fail, the shocks got "higher. The machine didn't really generate shocks, but as the teacher administered higher shocks, a soundtrack would play screams, and eventually, as the bogus shock got higher, the "student" went silent. If the teacher asked not to continue, the experimenter stated, "The experiment requires that you go on," 65% of the teachers continued to the maximal "voltage" even after the "student" went silent.

It was one of the first scientific tests of how easy it is for an average nice person to inflict pain when responding to an authority figure.

Philip Zimbardo a professor emeritus of psychology at Stanford University set up and participated in a subsequent experiment, the Stanford Experiment, examining the nature of "evil" in humans. He basically set up a "prison" comprised of students being both the inmates and the guards. His "experiment" degenerated rapidly, and was cut short as participants began brutalizing each other.

He's got an interesting site at: http://www.lucifereffect.com/

At any rate, there are REALLY interesting pages at his site: Instructions on "how to dehumanize a group of peoples", and several on how to avoid bad influences that seem to provoke the worst in humans. I particularly like his "Ten Step" program for not falling prey to the factors that spawn evil behaviour, particularly in groups.

http://www.lucifereffect.com/guide_tenstep.htm

What is curious to me was the parallels one can make with a healthy buddhist practice: Here are my takes on a few of his Ten Steps, which I've paraphrased:

Step 1: Learn to admit mistakes to yourself and others. - In my book, this is learning to not cling to the illusion of being right, and not clinging to the notion that any one person or group can be one hundred percent right all the time.

Step 2: - Be mindful - anyone whose read any of the most basic of Buddhist philosophy will recognize this fundamental Buddhist advice.

Step 3: Understand that "I am responsible". To me, while it it is important to not cling to the ego, it is important to recognize that blindly following authority or the mainstream does not absolve us of our acts. The Kalama sutra details that pretty succinctly, I believe.

Step 5: Value being accepted by a group, but value your independence to act morally more. The need to fit in is amazingly powerful - and primal. But it is vitally important to not sacrifice personal morality and integrity just to "fit in".

The story of the first rift in the sangha, comes to mind.

"If you can find no trustworthy companion
With whom to walk, both virtuous and steadfast,
Then, as a king who leaves a vanquished kingdom,
Walk like a tusker in the woods alone.
Better it is to walk alone:
There is no fellowship with fools. "
The Life of the Buddha by Bhikkhu Nanamoli, p.113

I particularly liked Step 8 - Don't sacrifice civil or personal liberties for a promise of security. I agree strongly with it, but am puzzling out any correlatives in the Buddhist tradition.

Anyway, anyone concerned about preventing evil in the world by fortifying themselves with an understanding of some of its causes would be well served checking out his site. He also is doing research on what factors spawn heroes, and he discusses how to build this in oneself and in one's community.

May we all be find courage to of act with kindness and justice towards all,
Kris

Posted by chicks at January 2, 2009 06:38 PM