How Good People Turn Evil
This is a subject that fascinates me – how even “good” people can do very very bad things . . . The article and interview is from Wired.com science/discoveries and you can read the entire article and view a videotape by clicking on the blue type.
TED 2008: How Good People Turn Evil, From Stanford to Abu Ghraib
By Kim Zetter 02.28.08 | 12:00 AM
MONTEREY, California — Psychologist Philip Zimbardo has seen good people turn evil, and he thinks he knows why. Zimbardo will speak Thursday afternoon at the TED conference, where he plans to illustrate his points by showing a three-minute video, obtained by Wired.com, that features many previously unseen photographs from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (disturbing content).
In March 2006, Salon.com published 279 photos and 19 videos from Abu Ghraib, one of the most extensive documentations to date of abuse in the notorious prison. Zimbardo claims, however, that many images in his video — which he obtained while serving as an expert witness for an Abu Ghraib defendant — have never before been published.
The Abu Ghraib prison made international headlines in 2004 when photographs of military personnel abusing Iraqi prisoners were published around the world. Seven soldiers were convicted in courts martial and two, including Specialist Lynndie England, were sentenced to prison.
Zimbardo conducted a now-famous experiment at Stanford University in 1971, involving students who posed as prisoners and guards. Five days into the experiment, Zimbardo halted the study when the student guards began abusing the prisoners, forcing them to strip naked and simulate sex acts.
His book, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, explores how a “perfect storm” of conditions can make ordinary people commit horrendous acts.
He spoke with Wired.com about what Abu Ghraib and his prison study can teach us about evil and why heroes are, by nature, social deviants.
Wired: Your work suggests that we all have the capacity for evil, and that it’s simply environmental influences that tip the balance from good to bad. Doesn’t that absolve people from taking responsibility for their choices?
Philip Zimbardo: No. People are always personally accountable for their behavior. If they kill, they are accountable. However, what I’m saying is that if the killing can be shown to be a product of the influence of a powerful situation within a powerful system, then it’s as if they are experiencing diminished capacity and have lost their free will or their full reasoning capacity.
Situations can be sufficiently powerful to undercut empathy, altruism, morality and to get ordinary people, even good people, to be seduced into doing really bad things — but only in that situation.
Understanding the reason for someone’s behavior is not the same as excusing it. Understanding why somebody did something — where that why has to do with situational influences — leads to a totally different way of dealing with evil. It leads to developing prevention strategies to change those evil-generating situations, rather than the current strategy, which is to change the person.
You can read the rest of the article and view the video HERE.
Keystone Cops
As you all have seen from US Crime tapes, this news story could happen anywhere, but it happened in Kuwait. I would love to see a video of this!
Kuwait Times, 21 Feb 2008
Drunken Man
The operations room received an anonymous call reporting that a drunken man had been dancing in the streets of Fehaheel and terrifying passersby. A police patrol rushed to the scene and managed to arrest the suspect, who initially resisted arrest.
However, after being cuffed and forced into the patrol vehicle for just a couple of seconds, he managed to step out and ran for dear life while police were busy putting some gear into the vehicle’s trunk. A wild goose chase ensued with police hot on his trail, while the man returned to the spot where the vehicle was parked, got in, stepped on the gas and sped to his freedom again. Police later tracked the vehicle that was dumped in a deserted area in Jleeb. A manhunt has been launched to arrest this man.
I commend the writer on the correct use of the plural “passersby.” Bravo.
Your challenge: how many cliche’s did this staff writer use to write this article?
5,000 Real Estate Deeds Missing
The Kuwait Times website seems to be down so I can’t link directly to them, but this is at the top of the crime news on yesterday’s page 5:
5,000 Real Estate Deeds Missing
Kuwait: An owner of a real estate office registered a complaint with the Khaitan police claiming that 5,000 real estate deeds were stolen from his office’s locked-up drawers. However, both the owner and the police were baffled because the thieves could have carried off furniture and other valuable items, but preferred to steal the deeds instead. The case was handed over to special detectives who immediately launched an investigation.
This seems to me like the deeds were the target of the break-in. Aren’t deeds registered somewhere? So like even if these paper copies are stolen, can’t they be replaced? What would somebody gain by stealing these deeds? Can they claim the properties? Can they claim the properties were transferred to them? Can they hid transfers that someone doesn’t want disclosed? This sounds like a great mystery to me!
Dubai Rape Case Update (Two)
In another tiny little article, but high up on page 3 of the Kuwait Times is:
UAE Court Upholds Verdict in Rape Case
Dubai: An appeals court in the United Arab Emirates yesterday upheld 15 year jail terms handed down against two Emiratis convicted of raping a French-Swiss teenager, and AFP journalist said. The judge in Dubai took just a few seconds to announce his ruling after proceedings opened. The defense wanted the sentences pronounced on December 12 to be quashed, and a lawyer for the two men told AFP after Sunday’s ruling that a further appeal would be lodged with the supreme court. Prosecutors had demanded the maximum punishment, which could have meant the death penalty. A third defendant is being tried in a juvenile court. One of the men who raped the European teenager was HIV-positive, but has since been found to be clear of the sexually transmittable disease. The boy’s mother, Veronique Robert, launched a media campaign to publicize the case and gather support for her demand that the UAE recognize homosexual rape in its legal system and set up institutions to treat AIDs sufferers. She protested against the original verdict, saying that “15 years is nothing for someone who knew he had AIDs.”
Comment: Did you read this sentence?:
One of the men who raped the European teenager was HIV-positive, but has since been found to be clear of the sexually transmittable disease.
Can you tell me who has been found to be clear of the disease? One of the men? The teenager?
Comment 2: Bravo, UAE judges!
Corrupt Officials Beware
I don’t usually type out the whole article from the Kuwait Times, but because this one is so small, and buried way down on the page, I am making an exception and typing in the whole thing:
Responding to recent stories published by Al-Rai concerning alleged violations and corruption cases committed by ministers and MPs, HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Nassar Al-Mohammed noted that HH the Amir had instructed them to enforce the law to everybody. “And you can start with enforcing it on me,” the prime minister added.
Sheikh Nassar pointed out that the law would be enforced on everybody, be them (sic) (they) senior or minor officials. He added that he had instructed all concerned law-enforcement authorities to treat everyone equally with no exceptions at all.
Comment: WOOOO HOOOOOOOOO, HH Prime Minister Sheikh Nassar Al-Mohammed and BIG WOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOO to HH the Emir! If I knew how to make red letters, this would be a big RED letter day! WOOOOO HOOOOO law enforcement!
Just Bad English
I am adding a new catagory today called Just Bad English.
No, I am not going to troll your blogs looking for grammar mistakes or misspellings or unusual use of English. I have noticed that I am blogging in English, and that many of the Kuwaiti bloggers are blogging in their second language – that is tough enough without the Language Police lurking in the background, and that’s not my point, nor my interest.
If, however, you are writing for a newspaper, you are held to a higher standard, even if English is not your native tongue.
So tell me, in this article from the Arab Times Kuwait Crime News, how many people were arrested? What were they arrested for?
Meanwhile, a team of securitymen has launched a surprise inspection campaign in Ahmadi resulting in the arrest of two Kuwaitis wanted by law for various criminal charges and 105 jobless expatriates. The arrested individuals were referred to the concerned authorities.
I have another complaint. In the Kuwait Times, we often read of the police “suspecting” a car and pulling it over, or
“suspecting” some individuals and chasing them.
We don’t use “suspecting” that way.
There is suspicious behavior. People are suspected OF something – you can’t just look at a car and “suspect” it, you have to suspect it OF something – erratic driving? What made the police suspicious?
examples of good usage:
Police suspected him of being under the influence of drugs, and pulled him over.
He looked nervous, and police suspected him of being an illegal resident, so they asked to see his papers.
Police received a tip that a brothel was operating in Farwaniya, and based on that suspicion, raided the apartment, breaking down two iron doors in the process which gave the occupants enough time to escape through a hidden hatch in the back of the apartment.
A sharp eyes policeman spotted the car, which appeared to be one stolen a few nights previously. Suspicious that the driver was not the legal owner, they stopped him and interrogated him, and demanded to see his registration and residency papers.
(I made up all the above. Any resemblance to a case you may know is purely coincidental.)
I have also noticed that almost every suspect gives up his drug accomplices, pimp, fellow thieves, smugglers and drug stash after interrogation. I suspect Kuwait police have some extensive experience in encouraging these confessions. Most of these confessions seem to result in other valid arrests. Sometimes, I can believe, these confessions are made by people who are very very afraid. On the other hand, sometimes a confession elicited by fear of a lot of pain might be totally false.
How do you know the difference? What if someone experiences a lot of pain and confesses to a crime they did NOT commit? This means that an innocent man suffers and the one who committed the crime skates. This happens in every country in the world. (That is just a rant, not a language criticism, just a general question in my mind; how do we protect the innocent?)
Parking Hall of Shame
Just four spots away was a legitimate spot, but no! This guy has to leave his rear end half out into the driving lane so that he could be right by the door. I am guessing he only parked there because all the handicapped spots were already taken (by able bodied people.)
The other day I heard a woman say that it is OK to park in a handicapped spot if no one else has taken it because it means that no handicapped person needs it.
What ignorance!
What happens when someone with a leg injury comes looking for that spot? Someone with asthma? Someone old, with joint problems? People who park in a handicapped spot have NO HEART!
New Kuwait Traffic Fines
A new e-mail flying around Kuwait gives the new traffic fines. At first, I thought this was a joke, but it looks pretty serious. Will someone please explain why a Jordanian car would get such a stiff fine?
And I remember a lot of discussion about penalties for talking on a mobile phone while driving, but when did the law pass? Was there any announcement? And babies in the front seat, not allowed, when did that change? All of this is amazing to me, I am still wondering if it is a hoax?
Do you think the police will really enforce these laws?
Is This News?
Today in the Arab Times I see this announcement:
Ministry monitoring Internet networks to block porn sites
KUWAIT : The Ministry of Communications is monitoring Internet networks to block porn websites and clamp down illegal Internet telephony, Al Seyassah daily quoted the Director of Telephones Monitoring Department at the Ministry of Communications Eng Nasser Al Khandari as saying. The department is also monitoring various areas for such illegal telephone service providers.
Is this news? One time, I was looking for tablecloths, and the site was blocked for inappropriate content. It seems to me that the Ministry of Communication has an ongoing battle, trying to block content providers. As for illegal telephony . . . it appears they are cracking down mostly on large scale telephone service providers, not on the individual VOIP phones. VOIP users complain from time to time about “listeners” and about echos, but I think this is more a result of poor connections than any local actions. Am I wrong?
Which ministry is it that will be/is monitoring bloggers?
One Week, Four Cuts
Doesn’t anyone else find it very strange that in one week, the internet connection cables would be cut in four different places? The Egyptians have announced that no, it was not fishing boats or any other boats anchoring that cut the cable there by accident, the area is a “no-go” zone, is under sattelite observation, and no ships were in the area.
I just think that four in one week goes beyond co-incidence.
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