Would you torture someone if you were asked to? Probably.
The following lengthy post describes how I discovered startling and undisputed (at least up till now) facts about human nature that changed my life and how I view the world.
(Warning: the information in this post could do the same for you).
There is also an interesting link between IBM and Nazi tattoos at the end of the post.
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I remember sitting at my Great Aunt's Dinner table with a guest who had survived a concentration camp. They made a point of showing me his tattoo. I was too young to really understand the significance of it at the time.
This Aunt (who was really like a loving grandmother to me) was also adamant about not purchasing any German products of any type, ever. A huge portion of her family had been murdered in the Nazi concentration camps. She was one of the most loving people I knew and so her hatred of the Germans made all the more of an impression on me.
Long after I dropped out of Windsor, and got my BA (in literature) from Antioch, I returned to school at SUNY Purchase for no other reason than a love of learning. One of the classes I took changed my perspective on life forever.
The class was called "The Psychology of Morality". A large portion of the class was devoted to the study of the holocaust. A couple of worthwhile books (Daniel K, are you still adding books to the DB?) that came out of that class were "Man's Search For Meaning" by Viktor E. Frankl (http://tinyurl.com/659qx) and "Night" by Elie Weisel (http://tinyurl.com/5j4tl).
But by far the most influential portion of the class was devoted to Stanley Milgram's studies on obedience to Authority. I recommend reading about these studies as soon as you can if you aren't thoroughly familiar with them. (There's an excellent link at the end of this post)
Basically he established (and references are below) that about 65% of human beings will torture and kill strangers if responsibility for the act is deflected by an authority.
The experiments were highly controversial at the time and would not be allowed to be performed today. They were filmed, and we saw the films in our class. It was eerie to watch ordinary Americans become capable of torturing and killing strangers merely because an experimenter asked them to. Several of the participants actually suffered breakdowns over the conflict they endured during the experiment. Also fascinating was watching the 35% who refused to go along for the ride.
Basically this changed how I viewed the German people (not the Nazi authorities). The experimental results showed that we would have done the same in the same situation (and we actually have done, it turns out, many of the same kinds of things in Vietnam and now Iraq).
Take any 100 young Americans, have an authority figure ask them to torture and kill strangers and 65% of them will obey. I'll bet the 65% figure would be even greater in a war-like situation.
The Milgram study was done again and again in all kinds of different situations and the results were always consistent.
My take on this..and it is not pleasant...is that a majority of all the people you meet(and maybe even you or I) have the capacity to participate willingly in the torture and killing of our human brothers and sisters.
So for me this meant that the horrors of the holocaust had less to do with the German people or Tattoos and had more to do with intentions of Hitler and his gang and the ENVIRONMENTAL CONTEXT THEY CREATED.
We didn't know then about the ability of ordinary humans to act willingly against their own values. We do know now.
Therefore, I believe, we have a need to be eternally vigilant and informed about what we are up to as humans and to always look at what we are doing from an ethical point of view.
What people are being told to do, who is telling them to do those things, and why, are extremely important questions I believe we always need to be asking.
It has also become extremely important to me to question my own actions and motivations; to be more self-aware. And it has also become important for me to question those in authority who tell me to do things I am not comfortable with.
I suspect the 'adjust but don't conform' mantra applies to this.
And this is why I have created this blog. It is why I encourage all of you to post what you are passionate about or uncomfortable with wherever you can. We can, in my opinion, no longer comply with what is not ethical without complicity!
Milgram opened for me the Pandora's Box of our personal responsibility for what happens in our world. I can not close it.
It is why I respect anyone who expresses their indignance even when I feel their indignity crosses lines I am uncomfortable seeing crossed. To me their indignance is never personal but always IMPORTANT.
I would rather have people balk at accepting the status quo here even if I am uncomfortable with it BECAUSE THE PEOPLE WHO REACTED LIKE THAT IN THE FILMS I SAW WERE THE PEOPLE WHO REFUSED TO TORTURE AND KILL STRANGERS.
I remember one lanky guy with a cowboy hat replying after he was told to shock a stranger because "The experiment requires you to do so" that "the experiment could go and f*&K itself!" (or some words to that nature.) I chuckled at the time and was proud of his raw and ethical humanity. It's the same way I chuckle when I see passionate people anywhere 'go on a rant'.
Of course I also believe in balance (and courtesy and respect). I don't think we need to spend our entire waking hours being politically vigilant. If we can't laugh, love, play, enjoy each other's company, parent, work, listen to or play music, read, weep, commune with nature or our God or Gods, and learn from each other, then what's the point?
It seems that one of the best ways to resist acting in ways that betray our own values is to solicit and enjoy the support of others who feel the same way.
Some interesting links can be found below.
All the Best,
Peter McGovern 65-67
------------------------- The following comes from
http://www.stanleymilgram.com/milgram.html
He (Milgram) found, surprisingly, that 65% of his subjects, ordinary residents of New Haven, were willing to give apparently harmful electric shocks-up to 450 volts-to a pitifully protesting victim, simply because a scientific authority commanded them to, and in spite of the fact that the victim did not do anything to deserve such punishment. The victim was, in reality, a good actor who did not actually receive shocks, and this fact was revealed to the subjects at the end of the experiment. But, during the experiment itself, the experience was a powerfully real and gripping one for most participants.
The following is from
http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/articles/auschwitz.html
The infamous Auschwitz tattoo began as an IBM number.
In August 1943, a timber merchant from Bendzin, Poland, arrived at Auschwitz. He was among a group of 400 inmates, mostly Jews. First, a doctor examined him briefly to determine his fitness for work. His physical information was noted on a medical record. Second, his full prisoner registration was completed with all personal details. Third, his name was checked against the indices of the Political Section to see if he would be subjected to special punishment. Finally, he was registered in the Labor Assignment Office and assigned a characteristic five-digit IBM Hollerith number, 44673.
The five-digit Hollerith number was part of a custom punch card system devised by IBM to track prisoners in Nazi concentration camps, including the slave labor at Auschwitz.
The Polish timber merchant's punch card number would follow him from labor assignment to labor assignment as Hollerith systems tracked him and his availability for work, and reported the data to the central inmate file eventually kept at Department DII. Department DII of the SS Economics Administration in Oranienburg oversaw all camp slave labor assignments, utilizing elaborate IBM systems.
Later in the summer of 1943, the Polish timber merchant's same five-digit Hollerith number, 44673, was tattooed on his forearm. Eventually, during the summer of 1943, all non-Germans at Auschwitz were similarly tattooed.
Tattoos, however, quickly evolved at Auschwitz. Soon, they bore no further relation to Hollerith compatibility for one reason: the Hollerith number was designed to track a working inmate-not a dead one. Once the daily death rate at Auschwitz climbed, Hollerith-based numbering simply became outmoded. Soon, ad hoc numbering systems were inaugurated at Auschwitz. Various number ranges, often with letters attached, were assigned to prisoners in ascending sequence. Dr. Josef Mengele, who performed cruel experiments, tattooed his own distinct number series on "patients." Tattoo numbering schemes ultimately took on a chaotic incongruity all its own as an internal Auschwitz-specific identification system.
posted by pmcg @ 11:16 PM
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