Evil not so banal, says disturbing new probe. Paris (AFP) - What prompts ordinary people to commit acts of evil?
The question has been debated by philosophers, moralists, historians and scientists for centuries. One idea that carries much weight today is this: you, me -- almost anyone -- is capable of carrying out atrocities if ordered to do so. Commanded by an authoritarian figure, and wishing to conform, we could bulldoze homes, burn books, separate parents from children or even slaughter them, and our much-prized conscience would not as much as flicker. Called the "banality of evil," the theory has been proffered as an explanation for why ordinary, educated Germans took part in the Jewish genocide of World War II.
Contrary to Belief, Not Everyone Will Blindly Follow Orders (Op-Ed) David Funder, a psychology professor at the University of California, Riverside, is president of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.
He contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Would you obey commands to shock an innocent person to death? Would almost anybody? For years, many people, including some psychologists, have taken the answers to these questions to be "yes," based on experiments conducted by the late Stanley Milgram during the 1960s. But even though most psychologists now know better, misunderstandings persist about what Milgram's studies really said about human obedience and the power of the situation — and that needs to change. Even Better Than the Real Thing - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - 01/05/10.
The Stanford Prison Experiment: A Simulation Study of the Psychology of Imprisonment. Recognizing Propaganda/Bias - Theresa McAbee. Guide to Critical Thinking.