Guardian
Clare Carlisle
Clare Carlisle
Does contemporary society give rise to conditions more
conducive to evil than in the past?
November 5, 2012
So far in this series I've considered evil as if it were an
individual matter – a question of personal virtue, or the lack of it. In
emphasising the relationship between sin and freedom, Christian philosophers
such as Augustine seem to assume
that if we look hard enough at the human condition we will gain insight into
evil. This attitude implies that evil has nothing to do with history or culture
– as if the fall is
the only historical event that matters, at least as far as evil is concerned.
In the 20th century, a series
of scientific experiments on the psychology of evil told a very different
story. Among the most infamous of these are the experiments at Yale and Stanford universities conducted in the 1970s by
Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo. Both Milgram and Zimbardo found that,
under certain conditions, well-educated and apparently ordinary university
students were capable of immense cruelty. Under the instructions of an
authority-figure, Milgram's students were prepared to administer painful
electric shocks as a penalty for poor memory: two-thirds of them increased the
voltage to lethal levels as their "subjects" cried in agony. These
results demonstrated how dangerous and immoral obedience can be. In his
experiment, Zimbardo created a prison environment in the psychology department
at Stanford, assigning roles of guard and prisoner to his group of
undergraduates. Within a few days guards were treating prisoners with such
cruelty and contempt that the experiment had to be terminated early.
Reflecting on his Stanford
prison experiment in
2004, Zimbardo wrote eloquently about the conditions that make good
people do evil things. The prison, he suggested, is an institution set apart
from normal society in which brutality can be legitimised. Wearing uniforms and
sunglasses, identifying prisoners by numbers and guards by official titles and
removing clocks and blocking natural light all helped to dehumanise and
deindividualise the participants. In this "totally authoritarian
situation", says Zimbardo, most of the guards became sadistic, while many
of the prisoners "showed signs of emotional breakdown". Perhaps most
interestingly, Zimbardo found that he himself, in the role of prison
superintendent, rapidly underwent a transformation: "I began to talk, walk
and act like a rigid institutional authority figure more concerned about the
security of "my prison" than the needs of the young men entrusted to
my care as a psychological researcher."
Although Zimbardo insists that "there were no lasting
negative consequences of this powerful experience", his conclusions raise
ethical questions about scientific experimentation itself. Does the laboratory,
like the prison, provide a special kind of environment in which pain can be
inflicted with approval? Do the white coats and the impersonal manner of
recording results dehumanise both scientists and their subjects?
These questions point to a larger philosophical issue. Does
contemporary society give rise to conditions more conducive to evil than in the
past? Do science and technology, in particular, dehumanise us? Modern
technology has certainly created forms of communication that allow people to
remain more safely anonymous. Take the internet, for example; it's right here.
In recent years the malevolent online behaviour of internet trolls and
vitriolic commentators, hiding behind their pseudonyms, has become a
much-discussed cultural phenomenon. Maybe it's quite natural that we have a
delicious taste of freedom and power when given the opportunity to go
undercover – like Stevenson's Jekyll-turned-Hyde as he runs gleefully through
the night to the wrong side of town, stamping on children as he goes. But in
such circumstances are we really in control? Milgram's electrocutors thought
they were in control, and so did Philip Zimbardo. It turned out, of course,
that they too were part of the experiment.
As usual, Plato has something
to contribute to this debate. In the Republic Socrates'
pupil Glaucon recounts the story of a shepherd,Gyges, who fell into the earth during an
earthquake and found a ring that made him invisible. "Having made this
discovery," says Glaucon, "he managed to get himself included in the
party that was to report to the king, and when he arrived he seduced the queen
and with her help attacked and murdered the king and seized the throne."
Plato uses this story to depict the prevailing immorality within
his own Athenian society – a society which had, after all, sentenced to death
its wisest and most virtuous citizen. Plato suggests that his contemporaries
regard hypocrisy and deceit as the surest route to happiness, since they seek
all the benefits of a reputation for virtue, or "justice", while promoting
their own interest by vice, or "injustice", wherever possible. In the
Republic he argues, through the voice of Socrates, that this view is not only
morally wrong but misguided, since true happiness and freedom can only come
from living virtuously.
The story of Gyges's ring seems to suggest that evil is a simply
a fact of human nature. When anonymity releases us from responsibility for our
actions, we will gladly abandon morality and harm anyone who obstructs our
pursuit of what we think will make us happy. In this way, we might point to
Gyges in arguing that there is nothing particularly modern about evil. On the
other hand, though, Plato had to resort to a myth, and a magic ring, to
illustrate the conditions under which our tendency to evil manifests itself. In
our own time, technology has worked its magic, and the fantasy of invisibility
has become an everyday reality.
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