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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Suma who wrote (42947)	5/8/2004 5:40:37 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793719

I think Zimbardo is wrong. He's an anti-war leftist, Dr. Id posted a message from him on FADG. He says the US started the war in Iraq based on lies with a hidden agenda and so forth. He's one of those people who "knows" that "Bush lied." Not sure whether he thinks it's all about the Joooos and/or the Neocons and/or oil and/or capitalism and/or Bushs' corporate buddies, but he "knows" the truth. He's a whacko. His research "proves" that we're all capable of evil. Well, sorry, but in that situation, I know for a fact that I wouldn't have gone along with it, if only because I am a loose cannon and don't kowtow to authority. More importantly, I have an internal locus of control. Many do. Many don't, it's true, but the ones who do are sufficient to disprove the experiment. People with internal loci of control don't conform when conforming violates their personal integrity. People with external loci of control conform because they don't have a strong sense of personal integrity. The man who ratted out the scumbags in Abu Ghraib had some personal integrity, it remains to be seen how much. Whistleblowers have internal loci of control. Erich Fromm thought the experiment was unscientific and conducted in such a way as to prove Zimbardo's hypothesis. I agree with Fromm. That's not the way real scientists conduct experiments. After this experiment, Zimbardo never did any significant research, he became an administrator. It got him tenure, so he got what he needed.

To: Suma who wrote (42947)	5/8/2004 5:48:26 PM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 793719

The conclusion of Mr. Zimbardo's article was salient for me. Did you read the same piece that I did? His conclusion was that such treatment is inevitable in war so what happened is no one's fault but Bush's for starting that war. The title of the piece was about parallels between the Iraqi prisoners and SPE. Well, there was no war going on at SPE. He says that the "guards" there behaved as they did out of boredom. There was no mention of war or enemy. The conclusion he drew about war inevitably causing the Iraqi prisoner mistreatment didn't even relate to the title of the piece let alone being justified by it. You found his conclusion well drawn because war labels and dehumanizes the enemy. But, while he mentioned labeling and dehumanizing in the context of war, he never established a cause and effect relationship between then let alone their inevitability. In fact, he started with a case of such behavior that had nothing to do with war. I agree with you about the perniciousness of labeling and dehumanizing and how that enables such behaviors. It's one of my favorite hobby horses here on SI where it is a constant undercurrent. I agree with him that the war was needless, set the conditions for the prisoner abuse, and will likely have long-lasting negative consequences. But the piece itself was a rant, a disconnected rant, establishing nothing.