Three experiments

There are three experiments in social psychology that have horrified and intrigued me ever since I first read about them. These are - The Stanley Milgram Experiment, The Stanford Prison Experiment, and The Solomon Asch Experiment.

(*There are plenty of other websites other than the one that I've highlighted, which deal with these three experiments.)

The first experiment looked into the problem of 'obedience', and how far people would go to obey orders coming from someone (a 'scientist') working in a respectable university.

The second looked into roles and their 'power' over individuals - even when the roles adopted were essentially 'fake'.

The third of the lot seems on the surface to be rather staid in comparison to the other two, since it wasn't ostensibly looking into the underlying aspects of cruelty and abuse but was simply investigating the aspect of conformity and how far people would conform to what a group (of people) was saying even though the individual had all the reason to believe that the group as a whole was dotty, blind or had at the very least severe visual deficiencies. There's one very short video clip available on youtube here, and there is something grimly humorous about it.

Each of the experiments raised many contentions and later on ethical concerns as well, and of course some people may say that the 'samples' were not large enough. There may be some seven hundred and seventy-seven other problems with all three of the studies. That's all fine.

Yet there is enough in the world to show us that the experiments were not completely off the mark. Yet while the aspects of obedience, roles, and conformity do provide clues as to how and why humans act the way they do - what still remains a mystery to me is why/how some people choose not to engage in barbaric, cruel, and inhumane behaviour no matter what. What accounts for this difference? It's all very well for sociologists and social psychologists to be looking into environmental factors in order to explain why people act in horrible ways, and to say that good people can be bad because of external factors. But that's precisely it. Good people - really good people do not go and torture human beings. That's what being good means. Not being a goody-goody two-shoes but being really good. And being really good takes an enormous amount of courage. Standing apart from the crowd takes some doing.

I could keep writing but I'll end this post for now. The next couple of posts (at least) will break off from this path.

Evil...?

To go along with the fruitless series:

1. If there is evil that exists in the world - in the form of human evil - what can we do about it? Should evil human beings be allowed to roam around free? Should they be subject to capital punishment? Should they, if they are caught, be kept locked up in a place where they are unable to harm other human beings?

....we don't on the whole seem to care much though one way or the other as long as we are safe and if we ourselves are evil, we are able to rationalise (and if 'we' don't - I do).

Sometimes I wonder....!

2. How would one deal with brutal people? Are brutal people just 'born' brutal and evil? There are some kids who like hurting animals and kids smaller than they are, and there's no point or sense in saying that little kids who are victims themselves victimize others. It might be the case for some but there are kids who are victimised and yet they grow up to be kind and sensitive.

3. I've been reading Fromm's The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness again - there's little point in saying that I don't agree with everything that Fromm has written but there are parts there that have made me travel through the corridors of evil and abuse. Add to that Scott M. Peck's People of the Lie - and Peck isn't given to being dramatic or over-the-edge just for the sake of being thus. He seems to be a calm and quiet person but doesn't seem shy of saying things that are seen as being politically incorrect in many circles, such as - 'evil people' exist. The other books that I've been reading and some essays too and their rather perceptive authors are goading me along. Haven't read an Agatha Christie in the last one month - but then I don't need to read her to remember her. I can hear her in my head alongwith Poirot and Miss Marple, thank you. I can't but feel that people who think or try to think the best of human beings regardless of how they behave are a little gullible if not downright foolish.

4. I guess all of the above would require me to define evil....or at least describe what I mean by the word. For all that - some other day.

6. I say the above is fruitless because I don't think I can really know for sure whether evil exists. I had been utterly convinced at some points that the idea of pure evil is something that I must have constructed to scare myself even though I've seen some evil myself in this world. I've seen more of hypocrites and liars and just plain vacuous people who are pompous more often than I'd like to and these sorts are no better really - but evil....I've seen it more in specific actions of people - which seem to be motivated by nothing other than evil. It really couldn't be anything else no matter how hard these people may rationalise.

7. Sometimes I am quite sure that I sense evil within me, which has nothing to do with anything on the outside....

So much for now.

Wandering and wondering

The following is related to a series of rather improper thoughts I have been having lately (or not so lately). ‘Improper’ on a number of counts I guess but here improper just because it’s seemingly such a non-social way of viewing people and their behaviours because I’m wondering whether people are just ‘made’ in a particular way – fixed and unchanging and if they change – it’s almost as though they were ‘meant’ to change like some almost non-conscious creature.

….

Every now and again I wonder: so I like wandering around in the forests, and I really love nothing half as much as wandering around a forest (there are some things that I may have liked even better in connection to walking around forests, like living in one up on the hills, but that’s not the point) but then I always end up asking myself, ‘but who wouldn’t?!’ Reluctantly and with disbelief of course I have to admit that there are people/morons who would probably choose walking around in a mall over walking around in a forest. I like to think that people who don’t like walking around in a forest don’t deserve any further thought.

But then I wonder about something else. It’s nothing new, and I myself have had similar versions of the same thought erupt in my head on different occasions: but maybe they can’t help themselves. Maybe that’s just the way they are made. They love mall-hopping and they love shopping but they hate walking around in a forest or they hate splashing up and down a creek. I know too that there may be some who love walking and trekking even more than I do and who also love shopping with a vengeance. But maybe, they too are just the way they are. They are somehow given to liking this odd combination of things. They just can’t help being the way they are.

What would make people love shopping or walking around in a mall? I do of course love book browsing (and it’s sometimes even better than book buying) but one doesn't ever go to the mall to do that and browsing through/for specific music (something I haven’t done in a long time unless it’s on youtube). But maybe this too is just the way I’m made. I remember that at as a kid I had this horrible fixation for shoes (of all things). It sounds terrible – but I did although I don’t know why considering that the Cinderella fairytale did not appeal to me one whit as a kid (this may have something to do with reading the original Grimm's version, which is quite a nightmare and nothing of a fairytale). I don’t have a shoe obsession anymore although I have the quirky (if not downright silly) habit of looking at the shoes that people wear, and these days even grocery shopping sounds better, much better than any sort of shopping that requires a trip to the mall. But I know of people who love visiting or roaming around in the mall. Why would anyone want to go there?

Yet how on earth can people be asked or forced or made to like the forests? I know of kids who never learnt swimming no matter how many times they were taken to the pool. I know of kids who read books because their friends were reading...and for many years they read and even bought books but stopped reading for fun and pleasure as soon as they 'grew up' and weren't living near those friends any longer. Some people like music, some people are tone-deaf, and some think or like to think that they like music. Some people love climbing mountains and will do anything to climb the next peak and others are afraid of heights and yet others are scared of heights and will keep climbing mountains so as to conquer their fear....

Yet maybe human beings are ‘made’ in these different ways. Someone likes going to the mall. Someone else doesn’t. Maybe it’s got something to do with internal states of being or with something like reflexive knee jerk reactions? Maybe it’s like a purely physical pleasure? Some people like ice-cream and others like chocolate bars. So some idiots like malls and some people like forests and maybe there are some messed up ones who like both. But maybe that’s just the way people are somewhere inside and there’s nothing much one can do about it?

I don’t know whether this is a depressive thought or whether it’s ridiculously insane or whether it's just plain hogwash. ….I can’t help but wonder and wander along this rather fruitless series of 'improper' thoughts.

P.S: I don't know what happened to the birdies at the water fountain. It hasn't gotten that cold but all the birdies seem to have disappeared...

Birds, boys, girls, and a water fountain

I was sitting in front of a water fountain on campus the other day. This is one of the quaint water fountains (I'll put up a picture if I ever get around to taking one) and it looks older somehow. It has a deep enough base and the water goes high enough through a pillar in the centre and then trickles and splashes down into the base, which forms a mid-sized pool.

I was rather distracted that day, and as I went over the class material in my head, organizing my thoughts, wondering how to make sense of what seems to be increasingly senseless, and how to present 'the social construction of reality' in class without sounding pompous or inane or just vague. I sighed, drank my coffee and smoked, and then finally started looking. The pillar of the water fountain had a main base which formed a pool of indeterminate depth but half-way down there was a mini-base where there was some water that collected and the sprinkles made mini showers all over and into the main pool. As I looked I saw these fat little birds that were all happily sitting on that semi-base getting drenched in the showers from the fountain. They kept fluffing their wings every now and again and then just settled right back in again, looking very happy, content and cheery. I couldn't help but smile as I saw some nine of those fat little, ridiculously content, and very wet birds. I was wondering whether the water was cold or warm or cool and was wondering how it would be to sit on the edge and dip my feet into the pool. I even wondered how it would be if I let out a war whoop and leapt into the pool with a running sprint....

Not five seconds later some four boys and three girls came truddling along. They must have been high-school kids or maybe fresh undergrads who didn't have a class at 4 on Monday afternoon. They had just finished running around in the big water fountain (about that some other day) from the looks of it. They were all drenched and soaking to the bone but looked very happy. They walked over to the fountain where I was sitting and were contemplating on the merits of jumping into the pool. One girl stuck her toe in and said, "brrr....freezing."

One of the boys with an impish look on his face looked towards me and said, "You're going in after us, right?"

With a grin I said, "Sure. And you can go and teach my class."

A couple of them giggled. Another girl stuck her foot in and said, "wow - it's deep." The boy looked at me and said, "Don't know whether we should go in..."

I said, "Go for it. You're drenched anyway."

Even before the words were out of my mouth I saw one of the girls and two of the boys leap into the pool and swim two laps and then with mighty whoops they came out. "Cold. Cold. Cold." Two of them grinned hugely at me and said, "Have a nice day." And with that the noisy little bunch was gone.

The fat little birds had flown away some minutes ago.

I trudged off too for my class while wondering about 'the social construction of reality' again with a last look at the fountain.