What's Wrong With This?
Last night I had a dream that had something to do with the Virginia primaries. Mostly that just tells me that I've been watching too much Daily Show and Colbert Report because I dont really watch the news or follow politics at all. Last night was the first time this year that both shows had their writers back... in all honesty, I wasn't that impressed. First of all I was disappointed that the Colbert Report didn't do the Word of the Day segment. I thought that had been cut specifically due to lack of writers, but they didnt bring it back yesterday. Hopefully they will soon.
Speaking of these shows, I think last week one of them had this Stanford professor on. He was there to promote his book The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. According to the author of the book his title comes from the story about how after God made man and told Lucifer to obey man, Lucifer stood up to God and showed him that man was not a perfect being and therefore should not be above him (the reason for tempting eve with the apple was to prove this). So according to this professor, in this Bible story, Lucifer was right to stand up to God and God was wrong to banish Lucifer just for not following what he says. The whole idea being that people shouldn't just blindly do what they are told to do, they should think about it and stand up for what is right and good. Then he went on to talk about a study he did at Stanford, and this is why I remember him. My college freshman psych teacher told us about this study... anyway, they took a group of good kids, and divided them so that some of the kids would be prisoners and the others would be the prison guards. The experiment was set to go for a while, at least a couple weeks, but they had to cut it short after only 5 days because the prison guards were becoming too abusive towards the prisoners to be able to continue it safely. Basically the guards got it in their head that they were better and could treat the prisoners (who were "lesser") anyway they wanted, despite the fact that no one had really done anything to deserve their role (being either the prisoner or guard). But it just shows how power can corrupt even good people. The professor also mentioned that very very few people will actually stop and think about what they are doing and stand up against what the think is wrong.
Which reminded me of another experiment my psych teacher told us about. This one took place in the 1950s or 60s. They set up the experiment like this: 2 people were involved. One person had to memorize a series of images or words, and the other person tested them to see how much they had rememberd. The person who was doing the testing was told to apply an electircal shock to the student whenever they got a question wrong. For each wrong question the voltage was increased slightly, but they were told that even at the highest limit, the voltage would not harm the other person. So as the experiment is going along the students are getting more questions wrong and therefore being electrocuted with a stronger dose and they start crying out that they are in pain and want to stop, but the people leading the experiment assure the tester that no harm will come to the student and all they are experiencing is minor discomfort. The truth of the experiment (which was revealed later on) was that the student was in on the whole thing, no real shock was being administered, but they were faking the pain they were in to see if any of the testers would actually stand up to the experimenters and stop it before they got to the end. But no one did. Every single tester went up to the highest voltage. Sometimes they would let the experimenters know that they didn't feel right about it, but they did it anyway.
So here are my thoughts on this: first of all, I hope that I would not fit into the norm for either of those experiments. I really hope that I have enough integrity to stand up for what I think is right and not just blindly follow what other people tell me is "ok." I think i've made decisions in life that support that. But I think religion is a tricky area when it comes to this type of thinking. How much are people just supposed to follow along with because "God says it's right?" (a person of religious authority could also be the one speaking on God's behalf...) And there are plenty of examples in history that show a big failing when this happens (the crusades come to mind). Really? is it ever ok to slaughter other people because they dont believe the same thing you do?
I think if we take religion out of it and just look at things in life from a moral perspective then we can see that it's good to do what's right for the sake of doing the right and good thing... not because someone else tells you to, and not because you are afraid of being punished (hell), or expecting a reward (heaven) for doing one thing or another. Right is Right and Might is just Might in my opinion (to allude back to my 10th grade Arthurian legend days... my english teacher would be so proud to know that I still remember that). But I think the idea that Might (authority) dictating what is Right to the masses often does just lead us into places I don't want to go.
Okay, enough of my rambling. I'm sure about 90% of that doesnt make sense, but I'm writing this post while I finish waiting for a cake to bake so I had a lot of time to kill. But now it's done so I'm going to wrap up.
Speaking of these shows, I think last week one of them had this Stanford professor on. He was there to promote his book The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. According to the author of the book his title comes from the story about how after God made man and told Lucifer to obey man, Lucifer stood up to God and showed him that man was not a perfect being and therefore should not be above him (the reason for tempting eve with the apple was to prove this). So according to this professor, in this Bible story, Lucifer was right to stand up to God and God was wrong to banish Lucifer just for not following what he says. The whole idea being that people shouldn't just blindly do what they are told to do, they should think about it and stand up for what is right and good. Then he went on to talk about a study he did at Stanford, and this is why I remember him. My college freshman psych teacher told us about this study... anyway, they took a group of good kids, and divided them so that some of the kids would be prisoners and the others would be the prison guards. The experiment was set to go for a while, at least a couple weeks, but they had to cut it short after only 5 days because the prison guards were becoming too abusive towards the prisoners to be able to continue it safely. Basically the guards got it in their head that they were better and could treat the prisoners (who were "lesser") anyway they wanted, despite the fact that no one had really done anything to deserve their role (being either the prisoner or guard). But it just shows how power can corrupt even good people. The professor also mentioned that very very few people will actually stop and think about what they are doing and stand up against what the think is wrong.
Which reminded me of another experiment my psych teacher told us about. This one took place in the 1950s or 60s. They set up the experiment like this: 2 people were involved. One person had to memorize a series of images or words, and the other person tested them to see how much they had rememberd. The person who was doing the testing was told to apply an electircal shock to the student whenever they got a question wrong. For each wrong question the voltage was increased slightly, but they were told that even at the highest limit, the voltage would not harm the other person. So as the experiment is going along the students are getting more questions wrong and therefore being electrocuted with a stronger dose and they start crying out that they are in pain and want to stop, but the people leading the experiment assure the tester that no harm will come to the student and all they are experiencing is minor discomfort. The truth of the experiment (which was revealed later on) was that the student was in on the whole thing, no real shock was being administered, but they were faking the pain they were in to see if any of the testers would actually stand up to the experimenters and stop it before they got to the end. But no one did. Every single tester went up to the highest voltage. Sometimes they would let the experimenters know that they didn't feel right about it, but they did it anyway.
So here are my thoughts on this: first of all, I hope that I would not fit into the norm for either of those experiments. I really hope that I have enough integrity to stand up for what I think is right and not just blindly follow what other people tell me is "ok." I think i've made decisions in life that support that. But I think religion is a tricky area when it comes to this type of thinking. How much are people just supposed to follow along with because "God says it's right?" (a person of religious authority could also be the one speaking on God's behalf...) And there are plenty of examples in history that show a big failing when this happens (the crusades come to mind). Really? is it ever ok to slaughter other people because they dont believe the same thing you do?
I think if we take religion out of it and just look at things in life from a moral perspective then we can see that it's good to do what's right for the sake of doing the right and good thing... not because someone else tells you to, and not because you are afraid of being punished (hell), or expecting a reward (heaven) for doing one thing or another. Right is Right and Might is just Might in my opinion (to allude back to my 10th grade Arthurian legend days... my english teacher would be so proud to know that I still remember that). But I think the idea that Might (authority) dictating what is Right to the masses often does just lead us into places I don't want to go.
Okay, enough of my rambling. I'm sure about 90% of that doesnt make sense, but I'm writing this post while I finish waiting for a cake to bake so I had a lot of time to kill. But now it's done so I'm going to wrap up.
Comments