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Book Review ~ The Lucifer EffectOA Review: The Lucifer Effect, Understanding How Good People Turn Evil by Philip Zimbardo, Random House, New York, 2007 My wife and I were privileged to be at the premier of "All God's Children" last year in Sarasota, Fl. Most of the MKs featured in the documentary were present and several shared with us how Zimbardo's The Lucifer Effect had helped them understand what they had gone through at Mamou many years before. After reading and reflecting on the book we were not only impressed with the parallels to their experience at Mamou but with the far reaching insights about the banality of evil itself that infects so many of the institutions in our modern life and the world around us. When this book was published Zimbardo, creator of the landmark 'Stanford Prison Experiment' (SPE), quickly became one of the nation's top forensic psychologists on torture cases. It didn't take long for his startling analysis of the shocking behavior of a few soldiers at Abu Ghraib to be discovered by the media and lawmakers. The SPE landmark research vividly described in this book turned on it's head the long standing idea that an evil event is usually caused by one or two "bad apples" in an otherwise "good barrel". "If you have eyes to see...", as Jesus might say, then this book is an eye opener. Anyone who reads it will never be able to think about evil in the same way again. This is Social Science at its' best. Testifying at several highly publicized trials of 'low level' operatives accused of torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Quantanamo, Zimbardo called on his own 'Stanford Prison Study' with normal, everyday students to show how the 'situation' and the 'system' of roles, rules and expectations set the stage and gave the 'permissive' push for otherwise good people to become unnecessarily sadistic and controlling. In court he traced the prison guards' orders, policies, expectations and tactics up through the ranks of the military to the highest levels of the Dept. of Defense to show how a covert culture of torture, brutality and sadism was condoned and encouraged at the same time it was being denied and legally rationalized to the American public. The highest levels of government literally believed that the'end' justified the 'means'. So the ideology started at the top and worked its way down. Obedience and compliance to the system kept it from being exposed. It was all done, as they say, for the 'larger good' and to keep America safe from their enemies who were "bad" people (the 'axis of evil') and did bad things to our "good" people. And of course it had to be kept secret to protect the 'higher' authorities in Washington from being 'misunderstood'. Otherwise the enemy might win, we were told. The goal was to "save" the country. Combine all this with the primacy of 'obedience' in army life and the anonymity of a far off Iraqi prison, and you can easily see how the depersonalizing, dehumanizing and sadistic behavior was easily justified. Sound familiar? Mamou comes immediately to mind. But in Mamou the MKs were the 'prisoners' and the low level CMA missionaries were the 'guards' in an authoritarian belief system to which they had pledged their obedience and to which they had given their hearts and minds. And of course it was essentially secretive and their orders were final. You combine that with a theology that perpetuates a rigid, bifurcated understanding of human nature (i.e. 'the Godly and the Ungodly', the 'sinful' and the 'saved', etc.) and you now have a context of broad social support and justification for creating: 'insiders' and 'outsiders'; the righteous and the unrighteous; who's good and who's bad; what's true and what's untrue. Such a theology and larger belief system precludes any 'new' truth or dissent from emerging. But the authorities must always define themselves on the side of the 'good' so the system doesn't 'crack' risking loss of control and power. It's essentially a "closed system". In response, what quickly comes to mind are Jesus words "...If you would be my disciples you will know the truth and the truth will set you free"...not make you obedient, righteous or controlling. The main problem with highly defined 'good/bad' ideologies is that if you're 'good', others, by definition, must be 'bad'- or at least in need of salvation. Then if these 'others' buy into your ideology they can become 'insiders' like you. Since the healthy children who had been shipped off to Mamou had not yet smothered their curiosity, playful risk-taking or emotional needs, the authoritarian parent surrogates at Mamou felt obliged to re-educate, (i.e. manipulate and 'save') them from their tendency to 'disobedient' childishness. As we know history is full of religious tyranny (i.e. crusades and inquisitions) as well as political or State sponsored tyranny. The CMA is a good example. In America at least, we can vote out political tyrants. We're stuck however with religious tyrants who, in the name of God, can perpetuate and protect their 'closed' systems for what seems like an eternity - and in the process cause otherwise 'good' people to do very evil things. Zimbardo quotes CP Snow from his book Either/Or: "When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find far more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have been committed in the name of rebellion". I think we can assume that the missionary adults at Mamou started off as otherwise 'good' people just like the soldiers at Abu Ghraib But the 'situation' and the 'system' in which they found themselves led them to do 'evil' things. They were subject to several levels of authority to which they had pledged unquestioning ('blind') obedience: 1) The 'literally' interpreted Bible: Church authorities could selectively pick verses that supported their 'child rearing' practices and claim them to be the final word of God on the subject (i.e. 'spare the rod and spoil the child'as an example). 2) Compliance to roles assigned by the CMA leadership: Being at Mamou was not the first choice for most of the faculty or house parents -neither were they trained or always suitable for those roles. But falling into the 'guard' role, ala Zimbardo's SPE, is a natural process when there are no corrective role models available and only an authoritarian ideology to guide you (remember the boys in "Lord of the Flies"). 3) The Social and Peer pressure in the Mamou leadership Staff: Inwardly and emotionally, even without professional training, some of the missionary staff must have known that adherence to this misguided principal that every child six or older had to be in Mamou was at the very least inappropriate and more likely downright damaging. But fear of becoming an outsider themselves led most to look the other way or deny what was happening before their very eyes. That 'situational' pressure must have been very powerful. 4) Obedience to God: This is one of the highest virtues of the CMA belief system. Any questioning or minority opinion was seen as a betrayal of God and the church itself. Nothing shuts down creative options or self reflection faster than the certainty of absolute authority. Again, combine these powerful forces with the remoteness of the school itself, the anonymity of the staffs' action, and the secrecy exercised to keep parents in the dark, made the darker side of the soul's emergence in dehumanizing behavior all but inevitable. We are born neither 'good' nor 'bad' nor are we 'blank slates' totally shaped by societal forces. Zimbardo and modern psychology make this very clear. We know that babies, toddlers and children are part of an inter-active matrix with their families, schools, communities and eventually the world. They actively shape and are shaped by each other in this interactive blend of emotions, relationships and events. It is the quality of the situation and the system in which they grow that mostly influences the way in which their potential for good or evil is managed. In our world there is a wide spectrum of these qualiltiess: 'effective to ineffective families; open to closed societies; excessive wealth to extreme poverty; ethical to corrupt governments; peaceful to warring organizations; quality medicine to voodoo; etc. These widely varied settings shape, even determine, the roles, expectations and the kinds of adaptive behavior that become part of anyone's character. Donald Winnicott, a famous English pediatrician turned child psychoanalyst, once said of small children, "In naughtiness is hope ...in compliance is despair". By 'naughtiness' he did not mean 'badness' but rather not always obeying parental commands. Health in a child he saw as self-assertiveness, curiosity, and freedom to feel and test the limits of his or her capacities. That requires an 'open', supportive, non-judgmental, safe space to play and grow. Even though it provided food and shelter Mamou was almost the antithesis of such an environment. There is much more in this book to commend it. His last chapters provide an interesting description of 'heroes' and whistleblowers who had the courage and the inner strength to stand up against the forces of conformity. Some of those heroes,
large and small, are in our midst right now...like the MKs fighting
to open doors to these 'closed'systems and to make sure these belief
'systems' and institutions cannot continue their evil ways. |