"The Lucifer Effect": on the capacity of normal people to become evil

[cantdog]

Hero is like history.

If you're living it right, it will be other people, afterward, who assign the hero label. The minute you start casting yourself in the role, you're in trouble. History, as a presence in the room, during cusps of decision, could conceivably be a spur to moderation and wisdom, but too much consciousness that what you are doing will be history can be paralyzing.

That consciousness is discernible in the tapes made in the Nixon era. Nixon overconsidered things, seeing his decisions in a sort of mirror maze of reflected images, because History would judge, History would take note. It confused him and made him dither. Kissinger reacted another way to that witness, by insisting on secrecy. Nothing must be written down that was black. He knew what he needed, in his view, to do, and he also knew it was wrong. History had to be hoodwinked.

Ethical decisions are individually made, and there are already plenty enough factors to consider without sweating whether or not you are being a hero, or what history will think of you.

 

[The_Fool]

Perhaps sometimes the "heros" are the guys (or gals) who frag atrociously bad ossifers?

Bad ones tend to frag themselves without any assistance needed.

 

[cantdog]

Good ones, too, sometimes. I knew one such.

 

[Lee Chambers]

Hero is like history.

If you're living it right, it will be other people, afterward, who assign the hero label. The minute you start casting yourself in the role, you're in trouble. History, as a presence in the room, during cusps of decision, could conceivably be a spur to moderation and wisdom, but too much consciousness that what you are doing will be history can be paralyzing.

That consciousness is discernible in the tapes made in the Nixon era. Nixon overconsidered things, seeing his decisions in a sort of mirror maze of reflected images, because History would judge, History would take note. It confused him and made him dither. Kissinger reacted another way to that witness, by insisting on secrecy. Nothing must be written down that was black. He knew what he needed, in his view, to do, and he also knew it was wrong. History had to be hoodwinked.

Ethical decisions are individually made, and there are already plenty enough factors to consider without sweating whether or not you are being a hero, or what history will think of you.

Once again, this is a matter of semantics and how we define the word "hero". And again, the hero spoken of in the article isn't the hero that history is going to remember. It isn't even the hero that history would ever take notice of.

The words "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing" is what I feel is being invoked here, in the sense that the heroes that the researcher is looking for are those who refuse to do nothing when they see something happening that they feel is wrong.

 

[Lalah]

By "hero" the author meant "a normal person willing to step up and do the right thing when there could and most likely will be consequences." I think that yes, it would be great if people were raised to have a willingness to do just that.

What scare me in all this, what really make me afraid for the human race, is not that people can be goaded into doing "evil", but that people are willing to sit there and let that evil be done to them.

Take the Stanford prison case for example; what the hell where the prisoners thinking going along with the abuse? It's not the jailers doing these things to them, it's each prisoner doing it to himself. Oh, so if you disobey he'll make you do push-ups? Well just don't do the damn push-ups. He won't bring you food if you don't? Fine, stop eating then until they begs you to eat.

If I was one of these prisoners and assuming I didn't just decide to walk out, I would never have gone along with their games no matter what they tried.

Why are most humans sheep?

 

[rgraham666]

Having thought about this, what the article is saying is that people need to take responsibility for their actions.

This is something that human nature and human organizations mitigate against. As individuals we generally don't like taking responsibility and organizations dislike people that do.

And as long as that is the case, evil will continue to be done by even the best of us.

 

[shereads]

Once again, this is a matter of semantics and how we define the word "hero". And again, the hero spoken of in the article isn't the hero that history is going to remember. It isn't even the hero that history would ever take notice of.

You're right. Does anyone know the identity of the Andersen employee who brought the company's corruption to light? Did any of us stop to think, at the time, what that person risked by coming forward? Whistle blowers are heroic in an underused sense of the word: uncelebrated, unremembered, lucky if they can remain anonymous.

Nobody likes a tattletale.

Like you, I don't think this article is encouraging gung-ho heroism. I think it's suggesting that real heroism involves acting without the expectation that our actions will be viewed as heroic by others, now or in the future. "History will absolve me" isn't heroic; it's self-serving.

The words "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing" is what I feel is being invoked here, in the sense that the heroes that the researcher is looking for are those who refuse to do nothing when they see something happening that they feel is wrong.

What you said.

 

[shereads]

Hero is like history.

Nixon overconsidered things, seeing his decisions in a sort of mirror maze of reflected images, because History would judge, History would take note. It confused him and made him dither. Kissinger reacted another way to that witness, by insisting on secrecy. Nothing must be written down that was black. He knew what he needed, in his view, to do, and he also knew it was wrong. History had to be hoodwinked.

"Kissinger {in his Nixon eulogy) seemed to be saying that History will not have to absolve Nixon, because he has already done it himself in a massive act of will and crazed arrogance that already ranks him supreme, along with other Nietzschean supermen like Hitler, Jesus, Bismarck and the Emperor Hirohito. These revisionists have catapulted Nixon to the status of an American Caesar, claiming that when the definitive history of the 20th century is written, no other president will come close to Nixon in stature. 'He will dwarf FDR and Truman,' according to one scholar from Duke University.

"It was all gibberish, of course. Nixon was no more a Saint than he was a Great President. He was more like Sammy Glick than Winston Churchill."

~ Hunter Thompson


[/threadjack]

 

[Varian P]

The notion of the "ordinary" person doing horrific things when there is a confluence of particular circumstances is a subject of perpetual fascination for me, one which I explore over and over in my fiction, but have a hard time philosophizing or debating.

However, if anyone's interested, there's a fantastic fictional German film, Das Experiment, based on the Stanford prison experiment.

 

[shereads]

The notion of the "ordinary" person doing horrific things when there is a confluence of particular circumstances is a subject of perpetual fascination for me, one which I explore over and over in my fiction, but have a hard time philosophizing or debating.

However, if anyone's interested, there's a fantastic fictional German film, Das Experiment, based on the Stanford prison experiment.

Thanks for the movie suggestion. I probably won't be able to watch it - even fictitious depictions of torture, psychological torture included, disturb me in ways I'm not sure I want to think about too much. (I left the theater during Pulp Fiction; I can't watch Braveheart because I know there's a scene of drawing-and-quartering at the end.)

I can read theories of why we do what we do; I can glance at snapshots like the ones from Abu Gharaib, and see the photographic record of Nazi concentration camps. But being confronted with a realistic film or literary depiction of torturers in action gives me nightmares. I especially avoid situations where a movie audience might be laughing or applauding one character's viciousness and another's terror, as they did with Pulp Fiction. That's worrisome...I used to wonder if I'd been a victim of torture in a previous life, but now I wonder if my visceral response to even cartoonish depictions means I wasn't the victim, but the perpetrator.

[threadjack]

I must add "confluence" to my list of words that should be porn words. It looks and sounds so...liquid.

[/threadjack]

 

[lesbiaphrodite]

See film now on DVD "Ghosts of Abu Ghraib," and it will blow your mind to see what 'ordinary' people are capable of when given license to do anything they feel like doing to prisoners.