I entitled my previous post "Good and Evil," because that's the subject I really wanted to discuss. Instead, I realized that the post was getting rather long after I'd written up the two psychology experiments, so I decided to split it into two posts.
I think that Zimbardo's and Milgram's experiments demonstrate a couple of important points. The most obvious conclusion is that good people will do bad things under certain conditions, but the experiments contain rudimentary notions of unhealthy deference to authority and apathy of the subjects in both experiments after their part in it was over.
Both of these subtleties are most clear in Milgram's experiment. When the "teacher" expressed a desire to quit shocking the "learner," the so-called supervising scientist simply said "Please continue," and many times, that was enough to get the teacher to keep going. The remaining three verbal prods, in order of increasing pressure, were "The experiment requires that you continue," "It is absolutely essential that you continue," and "You have no other choice, you must go on." The scientist never intimidated, never threatened the subject; just simply expressed that he/she needed to continue the experiment. And for 65% of the subject population, that was enough prodding to ostensibly kill another human being with electrical shocks.
And while 35% of the subjects put a premature stop to the test, none of them tried to get the experiment as a whole shut down. There were no calls to the Psychology Department Chairman, no letters of complaint to the University, no news stories about the cruel experiment that Milgram was performing.
I'd like to think that I would be one of the 35% who put a premature stop to the test. There was one variant in which the learner mentions his heart condition in passing, and I'd like to think that if I had been the subject of that test, I wouldn't have shocked him at all, out of consideration for his heart condition.
But statistically speaking, I would probably be one of the folks applying shocks to the end. And I don't think that anyone refused to shock him because of his heart condition, so I doubt that I would distinguish myself there, either. After all, there is nothing setting me apart from everyone else.
The implication of these experiments on human behavior is profound. They make it very clear that the reason I have not committed any crimes is not because of any moral superiority on my part, but rather because I have not been in circumstances that would prompt me to commit crimes. I've never been placed into authority with no accountability (as the guards in the Zimbardo experiment and the guards at Abu Gharib were, according to Zimbardo); I've never been asked to do something so contrary to my morality (as the subjects of the Milgram experiment were). I've lived a very dull but safe and stable life. If I had been brought up in an unsafe, unstable place, things would be very different for me. I can see myself ending up as a murderer, a drug addict, or even a terrorist depending on the scenario.
It's not a stretch to take away from this the message that circumstances profoundly shape people's lives. If you were born to an indigent family in a poverty-stricken country that had been bombed into the stone age and had its natural resources exploited by the United States, you'd better believe you'd grow up chanting "Death to America!" Who wouldn't be pissed that some other country was prospering off the ill-gotten gains they acquired by taking advantage of you?
It's for reasons like this that many people regard the United States as the cause of its own problems with terrorism. Our foreign policy has created many of the world's political hotspots.
But the take-home message is that in order to cut down on the amount of evil in the world, we need to understand the circumstances that lead people to commit evil acts, and then work on preventing those circumstances from befalling others. For example, if people steal because they don't have enough food, then it seems obvious that ensuring that they had enough food would cut down on stealing. If people get caught in the spiral of poverty and end up committing crimes, then it would make sense to provide adequate educational opportunities, physical and mental health facilities, and activities that would help them get out of that cycle.
Wouldn't it be nice to give would-be muderers, drug addicts, and terrorists the opportunity to become law-abiding, happy, fulfilled citizens instead? We can do that by altering the circumstances surrounding their lives.
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3 comments:
The sentiment of the final paragraph is the primary reason I am getting into education. I was raised in a suburban community with little to no poverty, where "people of color" were those recently returned from the beach. I did well in school, despite never trying very hard. I could have done better, but good enough was good enough for me. People who struggled in school and in life got little sympathy from me. I figured they were either lazy or stupid, and probably quite a bit of both. It's hard for me to put a finger on exactly when my world view matured. I don't remember when I realized how gigantic my head-start had been. As far as my standing in the culture goes, I am standing on the shoulders of giants, or at least upon those of the equally fortunate. Now when I see the poor and downtrodden, the drugged-out and the criminal, I see flaws in the system, not in the individual. Yes, we have a modicum of free will, but that can only get you so far. You also have to play the hand you're dealt, and while a few lucky ones will make the right choice while standing in the right place at the right time, many will never get that chance.
I read once of a statistical thought experiment of haves and have-nots. Gather together an impossibly equal group of people, each with the same knowledge, intelligence, determination, etc. Then give them some investment opportunities and allow them to take their chances. Even these clones will fall victim to the mathematics of chance. Some will win, some will lose, based on nothing more than chance. Then give them another series of investments. Those who were the winners of the first round will be slightly more free with their money than the losers, and they will all be operating under the same set of logic. They will each be making the best decision for themselves at the time. Yet as generation piles on generation, again based purely on the consequences of statistics, some of them will become haves and some have-nots. Those on a perpetual losing streak will see their identical neighbors and wonder what the difference is. They may harbor resentment for the lucky ones. In a more realistic world they may turn to drugs or religious zealotry for comfort. They may resort to violence or crime. Meanwhile, those that beat the odds begin to feel superior. Perhaps they have been chosen by some higher power. Surely they must be entitled to their constant windfalls.
A once homogeneous group is now divided in a striated caste system- and they owe it all to chance. Up until now, I have been one of the lucky ones. It's time for me to give back.
Tony, I admire you for deciding to make a difference in this world through teaching!
And this is why I was a conscientious objector during Vietnam and a discourager of enlistment today. The military had no use for individual ethics, only group ethics.
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