Comments on: The roots of evil. Can they grow in you?

By: sam

sam — Sun, 13 May 2007 12:39:29 +0000

as far as deindividualizing the group goes..they are wearing uniforms. if only sunglasses throw the whole thing out of whack what could be suggested? you can have mob mentality whether its a group an awful lot of individuals or a race that feel they are owed something. i think that brutal behavior crosses all bounds. it when one feels justified that makes it easy. if the photo is meant to convey your whole idea behind a story it should be a photo of the solution rather than your idea of the problem

By: sam

sam — Sat, 12 May 2007 13:08:52 +0000

ben..i dont remember giving the ok to torture or murder what i meant was simply using excessive force, while using force, not hunting down people just to vent. loosing ones temper while subuing is where i was headed.but i did not mean to give the impression that i was condoning it, just explaining it.

By: sam

sam — Sat, 12 May 2007 12:55:45 +0000

no, i read the post and i thought the experiment was crap it has no bearing in the real world.i personaly dont even see how it could be real.its not as if college students would lie,especially during a period of social change as was the case at the time. i will say that once you see your hundreth or thousandth victim and you see the same villans with no regard to anyone. it becomes easy to go overboard. if you are the victim of violent crime you will see that your feelings,the trauma you have been through and your physical safety are a non issue.victims are forgotten.but the predators are looking for people that will accept them with open arms.most people are good but the bad ones feel justified in what they do and the good ones cant change them.i have lived in florida all my life lived through hurricanes,and fires. 3 years ago 3 hurricanes swept through central florida, the bridges were closed and the power out for three days yet we did not resort to the savagery i saw during katrina(i should also mention we never saw fema either).other areas besides downtown new orleans were affected yet the people that felt justified in their behavior were all simply given excuses and told how they were let down. bull. personal responsibility seems to be out of fashion.i suppose what im trying to say is rather than make excuses for criminal behavior more people should be held accountable for their own behavior.

By: deborahbyrd

deborahbyrd — Thu, 10 May 2007 19:22:03 +0000

If any of you are interested in reading a really chilling novel about good and evil, try Blindness by Jose Saramago. It’s about a world where suddenly everyone goes blind. Some people just struggle along, some try to help each other, but others descend into truly animal behavior: victimizing others.

Not exactly an enjoyable read. But - I have to admit - although I read it a year ago, I’m still thinking about it …

By: lindsay

lindsay — Thu, 10 May 2007 16:41:28 +0000

To add to Ben’s comment, it’s perhaps more important that the guards be de-individualized (see photo with regulation sunglasses). It makes the guards feel less like themselves and more like a group - a group that collectively agrees their behavior is justifiable.

By: Ben Z.

Ben Z. — Thu, 10 May 2007 16:31:56 +0000

I’m looking at Sam’s comments, and I have to ask: Sam, did you even read the post? How could guards torturing prisoners be due to murderers and rapists trying to justify their actions if it happens to innocent college kids guarding innocent college kids? Did their constant justifications for ordering pizza and not finishing their homework drive the mock-guards to torture them? No. It’s putting armed people in charge of unarmed, de-individualized people that causes the problem.

Your entire comment is justifications and excuses for people who torture, murder, and rape. When a person becomes a bigger monster than the murderers and rapists they are guarding, they are exactly that: a bigger monster than a murderer or rapist - and you are trying to justify and excuse it.

Yes, you’re absolutely right that being a career law enforcer is difficult, but that does NOT justify prison guards torturing and murdering people. If having a stressful, unappreciated job justifies torture and murder, then any rapist or murderer who worked for the postal service, DMV or public school system should be released.

People get upset with the police for using excessive force because they are allowed the tools of force ONLY in exchange for trusting that they will use it discriminately. We get more mad a bankers that embezzle than CEOs for the same reason. I don’t think it matters what drives a person to criminally violent behavior. A guard who mis-uses their position is doubly criminal, first for their criminal behavior, and second for violating the public trust of their position. Anybody (prison guard or not) who tortures people (inmates or not) deserves to be incarcerated and treated just like a violent criminal who tortures people, since that’s what they are.

Don’t excuse criminally violent behavior - there is no justifiable excuse, especially for individuals we pay to be trained for the prevention of criminal violence.

-Ben Z.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Wed, 09 May 2007 20:34:54 +0000

I truly believe that we are a product of our environment to a certain extent. However, we are also an intelligent species and should be aware that we can control certain things. And no one truly wants to be evil, to yell at our kids, to kick our dog. So, when we (hopefully) realize that things are negative, we need to instill some changes. This could be changing jobs, moving to the country, scaling down your lifestyle, whatever it takes. Life is way too short and if we are smart, we will surround ourselves with happy, hopeful people and things. Live, love and laugh..often.

By: sam

sam — Tue, 08 May 2007 20:32:02 +0000

well first, its not peer pressure, its hearing the criminals express their ability to justify the crime, you would be suprised to learn that anyone can justify their behavior even rape and murder. then you must daily control monsters that outnumber you, you simply learn that only monsters scare monsters. second the state of florida has a sizable female workforce in mens prisons. and one of the women i worked with would get as indignant and fed up as i did at some of the violent behavior that these (misguided innocent men)would exhibit.women play a much larger part in law enforcement than apparently most people realise.and i dont know about those students but as a career law enforcement, is stressful and unappreciated and the irony is the public that blasts the police for excessive force is most likely to put themselves in positions where they believe they are being helpful or open minded yet the group they are speaking up for is most likely viewing them as the easiest to victimize

By: deborahbyrd

deborahbyrd — Tue, 08 May 2007 16:28:55 +0000

Certainly dark and light live inside us all.

And yet we do have the freedom to choose whether we empower the dark, or empower the light. That’s our task in life, isn’t it?

What’s scary about what you’re saying here is that “situations” cause people to commit evil deeds. There seems to be a kind of “peer pressure” in which evils deeds can begin to feel normal. And in a world with a population of 6.5 billion - headed toward 9 billion by 2050 - more and more we’re subjected to peer pressure of various kinds … simply because we all have so many fellow humans surrounding us. More people = more peer pressure? Will that mean more evil in the world?

I wonder if the reverse can work as well … a sort of situational “doing of good.” It seems like it should work both ways.

By: lindsay

lindsay — Tue, 08 May 2007 15:54:00 +0000

Yes, all the mock prison guards were men. What’s so interesting about Abu Ghraib is that women were also (famously) involved in the torture and abuse. Evil, apparently, does not discriminate based on gender. Also, the participants of the study were extensively interviewed and background checked for physical and mental health. Zimbardo says that some of them were hippies.

I do believe that we all have the potential for evil, just as much as we have the potential for good. Situations where evil happens are not normal, everyday situations in which you’re guided by your normal morals and emotions. I think we’ve all had the experience of being in sort of an enclosed environment in which we act differently than our normal selves. It would be hard to imagine a situation in which you would say that you’d commit an evil deed, but if the situation leaned that way you wouldn’t necessarily see yourself as doing evil.

There’s an interesting quote from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago:

“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”