March 9, 2010
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The Lucifer Effect: Should be required reading everywhere
Before I get into the many things I
admire about this book, I’d like to mention, the few things I don’t
like about it:First,
I’m not thrilled about the religious overtones in the title,
which also tend to suggest some sort of supernatural agency or
magical “free will” that is precisely not what the book is about.
I would have instead called it the The Nuremberg Effect, because
the greatest demonstration of its principles came twice in Nuremberg:
The first time, when Adolf Hitler rallied the crowds to his service,
and the second time, when the response to accusations of war crimes
was almost invariably “I was just following orders”. Unlike
Lucifer in Hell, an imaginary being in an imaginary place, the Nazis
at Nuremberg were entirely real human beings in an entirely real
human city, and their biological and psychological similarity to the
rest of us is as chilling as it is undeniable.Second,
Zimbardo’s discussion of absolute versus relative ethics is
philosophically naïve; it equates universal moral norms with
deontological absolutism, and describes utilitarianism as a form of
“relative ethics” when in fact a nuanced utilitarianism based on
rules and preferences is one of the best candidates for a viable
theory of universal, non-relativistic ethics.
He makes a worthwhile distinction between absolutism and
non-absolutism, but he doesn’t seem to realize that absolutism is not
considered credible by any mainstream philosopher, nor is it workable
in real life.Third,
the writing style doesn’t seem particularly polished, and the diction
is rather strange in places. I often found myself jarred by the way a
sentence was worded, or by the way two sentences were strung
together. It’s not bad writing
exactly; it just doesn’t seem as good as it could be.But in
general, this is a great book, great not in the slang sense of “very
cool”, but indeed great in
the sense of a work that will (or ought to be) forever remembered as
ground-breaking. The Lucifer Effect (along
with the Stanford Prison Experiment which it describes and reflects
upon) forces us to rethink much of what we thought we knew about
human behavior.I
remember all throughout reading this book, my strongest feeling was
invariably “Not me”; Not me, never me, I could
never do any of these things. But let us consider for a moment the
demographics of the experiment: psychologically normal 18-25 year-old
male psychology students from prestigious American universities, all
with no criminal record, mostly White, mostly middle-class. I
am that demographic. It was
chosen specifically because it was thought to be the least
likely group of young males to
engage in wanton evil (they wanted to use young males since young
males perpetrate nearly all violence in the world; but an experiment
involving actual felons wouldn’t have convinced anyone of anything).
It would have been me. I
can’t be sure which one I would have been: the kind-hearted but
passive guard Geoff, or the sadistic tyrant Hellmann? 416, who risked
a hunger strike to protest the conditions, 8612, who became
immediately distressed and uncontrollable, or 2093, who rigorously
obeyed orders without question or resistance? We should all reflect
upon these questions, for a complete measure of a man’s character
must surely include what he would do in any situation,
not merely those which are safe and familiar.On the other hand,
part of the point Zimbardo is making is that character isn’t nearly
as powerful as we ordinarily suppose. He is arguing precisely that
the greatest atrocities in history were perpetrated not by
incorrigibly evil monsters, but by perfectly ordinary men in terrible
circumstances. His evidence for this claim is substantial, and I am
convinced it must be correct; but still my mind reels to suppose it.
Who would I have been at Nuremberg? Who would I have been under
apartheid?Yet there is hope,
for Zimbardo is careful to point out that certain personality traits
really do offer protection against systemic forces. He calls this
constellation of traits “heroism”, and says that it rests in the
minds of people who are not only good under ordinary circumstances,
but continue to be good even under extraordinary circumstances. He
isn’t sure whether it’s possible to detect a hero ex ante, but
he does think that these skills are trainable. If this is right, then
heroism training should be among our highest priorities as a
civilization. We should be training people to resist persuasion, to
challenge authorities, to reflect upon their own individual moral
values.Indeed, perhaps
the most important step in this process is to read The Lucifer
Effect. If this is the case, it should be required reading for
military commanders, police commissioners, political candidates, high
school teachers, college professors—ah, why not, everyone. This
is something we all need to understand and cope with.The reward could
well be the end of human atrocity!
