The Plaid Adder's torture piece - sad optimism

[tomreedtoon]

It was sad to read the Plaid Adder's piece about the torture of Iraqis. She even quoted the Stanford Prison Experiment and didn't really understand what it meant.

She never learned the lesson that most of us learned at about eight years old; people are intrinsically evil and cruel. The only thing that keeps them from being that way are moral codes and law, and those don't always work. I'll guess that she never read "Lord of the Flies" either.

[kiahzero]

1. People are intrinsically neither evil nor cruel.

If there exists something that can properly be called "human nature," it is the simple fact that mankind has the potential to do both great good and great evil.

[opihimoimoi]

2. If I remember its not all people...... in America, it was about 60% and in

Europe..about 80 %

Come, time to crank up the rack

[kiahzero]

3. SPE didn't have a large enough sample,

but it was just about everyone in that particular experiment.

Milgram's work is relevant, but not directly applicable: the person being "shocked" was not dehumanized before the experiment, as the "prisoners" were in the SPE.

[opihimoimoi]

4. Well said, but at least the Milford thingy gave us an inkling of the human

mind in this context/situation and the reactions.

[eridani]

9. Another thing about Milgram

There was another set of experiments, in which there was one person planted among the subjects to strenuously object, no matter what everyone else did. That stopped or mitigated the torture behavior.

[Plaid Adder]

5. In fact, I have read *Lord of the Flies.*

*Lord of the Flies* is fiction. It's convincing fiction, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily accurate.

As for optimism, if you can find anything in that piece that was optimistic then bless your heart. I certainly don't see anything hopeful about this situation.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[Karenina]

6. PA, YOU are simply

THE BEST!!!! :loveya:

[chiburb]

7. Isn't she?

And another great article too!

[Demeter]

8. Plaid Adder for Secretary of State!

Why is this country so bad at using the talented citizens? Why do we have the likes of the Bush regime in charge? Probably due to that 60% of wishy-washy, go along to get along in our population, and their masters, trying to make the rest of us in the same mold. It's like organized sports--the lemming mentality. I see no hope in this world for mankind, especially now that women are following in the male pattern idiocies (which are so much more destructive than the traditional female idiocies).

[2Design]

11. thanks for that great piece of writing plaid adder

There was another experiement done in High school that a college prof taped from TV ...many years ago... she showed it to us in Communication class at NCSU in Raleigh. This was one where they decided their was a IN group and and OUT group. The IN group had blue star to wear. It started as a demonstration to the students of how hilter built up his youth corps.

Over the next weeks, the experiment became as Miligram and Stanford, out of control. The IN group was very aggressive and did unkind acts to others who were in the OUT group. Finally one girl broke the experiment by not being willing to go along.....and effectively becoming a whistle blower....and we have seen what happens to them and their careers...

Bush seems to do that to everyone. I continually wonder what he has on everyone. Greenspan.....Bush put his arm around him in the early months of being president.....people commented and said Greenspan would not take kindly.... shortly after Bush said they had had a good talk. Since then Greenspan has been Bush puppet. There are lots of incidents of this...

Anyway, Plaid adder the milgram experiment I had studied in another self study part of my BA. It was part of understanding Balance in conflicts, opposites and polarities.

It really does show that any of us, given the same circumstances, could be those soldiers in the pictures. Many do that behavior in corporations. The space shuttle blow ups were part of that cover up and change what was fact. The fall guy never seems to be the authoritarian.... it always seems to be the person who did not stand up. Yet the whistleblowers are called not loyal. All the people who have come out on Bush administration have been called disgruntled.

Standing up and following your true beliefs takes a lot of courage and the ability to stand alone, very alone. The ostracized person from a group is many times the person who did not go along.

The human yearning to belong sometimes overpowers peoples sense of right and wrong. The need to do a good job and receive praise.

I cried today for our country. I am ashamed of our president and minions. I am reminded of the dysfunctional abusive family and how when someone tries to tell the truth, they are not believed. We have a cocaine, alcholic running this country and a lot of enablers who are willing to support the illusion. When children are abused, incest, wife or husband beating, many times there is a person in that family who is the alcholic or addict. This behavior is what is happening in our country at this time. The reactions, the minimizing of the photos, the minimizing of the actions.

The incest survivor who is not believed, because there was not intercourse. Therefore there was not a problem. She was was asked to "jerk him off". She said NO. It is incest.

This incident and the war and the killing and the calling the IRaq enemies and combatants, and insugents...objectifies the people so they don't have to think of them as people. If they were in this country as the English did come....we rose up and fought the English to gain our freedom.... is that any different than what the iraqiis are doing....

There is a great article on alternet.org about how we created these people going back to carter and support of building up afganistan against the russians.....and it talks about a new book.... bad muslim, good muslim....

[belle]

10. That wasn't even the general conclusion from that experiment...

If anything, it was that people are generally very susceptible to messages from "authority." which is discouraging in its own way. but the data from that emphasized that did not, to my mind, support that people were intrinsically 'evil and cruel.' weak and confused, more often.

but if anything, i'd say the reason a lot of people react in such a knee-jerk way to "authority" messages is because they were specifically trained from childhood to do so (see alice miller). It's the sort of thinking that doubts human nature and instead wants to rely on punitive "moral codes" that creates more real-life Stanfords, in my opinion.

yeah, we need laws, sure; there's no point in wearing rose-colored glasses. but jesus, if you think people are intrinisically *bad,* then for fuck's sake do *anything* except put yourself in a position of authority over them! go join a monastery in the wildnerness or something and commune with nature or God or something, seriously. there are many good things about humanity. it's so important to remember that! look at the nihilism of George Bush! look where his "moral codes" have gotten us!