The CNN article “Charting the psychology of evil, decades after ‘shock’ experiment” ought to be retitled “Charting the psychology of web reading on a Dull Friday”
Stanley Milgram’s research was remarkable and valuable. It has been replicated. It has been quoted and interpreted to ad nausium. Now in an effort to sell copy during the hiatus between presidents some genius has resurrected it and given it a fancy name with “evil” in the title. Now it has a zillion hits and is replete with “coulds” shoulds” oughts, may, and other conditional phrases that allow the reader to be led down a path to a possible chance-finding of a new version of a car crash.
Words are powerful. It is a sign of Dumbness when people hoping to land on an island of absoluteness grasp on to anything that is presented as binary:
Good vs. evil
right vs. wrong
Chevy vs. Ford
normal vs. abnormal
Democrat vs. Republican
Worker vs. management
Muslim vs. Christian
etc. vs. etc
It’s here again. We use the research rather than this sadly disturbed illiterate interpretation to keep authority figures off alter boys, teachers off cheerleaders, bosses off new-hires and rent-a-dicks away from ‘civilian combatants’ in detainment.
But, because we have the 1890 concept of behavior as being based on religion, traditions, and good and evil, all these perverts continue to exist aided by the writers who need to finish off the month with a dippy article in order to look like they know how to read.
All this has to do with implied and explicit rules and a false sense of personal and divine responsibility that has been part of the teachings in schools and churches and synagogues for 400 years at least.
Pay attention to the consequences to understand behavior. Pay attention to the rules that the “other” person is working under to understand behavior. Pay attention to the knowledge that you have millions of rules you don’t know about and those rules are not likely the same as anyone else’s rules – at the moment they are your rules. Pay attention that the different rules you attend to on Monday don’t exist on Sunday.
When reading about “What the heck is going on out in the world? – consider that some grad students or volunteers got paid to be in an experiment 29 years ago. They wanted to do it right in front of all the PhDs and they wanted the money and they wanted to show they were smart and on and on. Hundreds of rules were working including doing what you were told that our parents locked down early on.
When you define things arbitrarily – the things like evil, good, honest, hero, sinner, saint, patriot, freedom fighter, and all the other meta-terms keep their fuzziness so that you read what you bring to the article. (By the way, that is another experiment to read up on….) While having specific and empirical definitions is not going to happen, using your noggin for something more than a baseball cap rack can’t be beat.
As they say on ESPN’s NFL Countdown… “C-mon Man!”
This site and this author will contribute by provided one of the many versions of “BALONEY DETECTION COLLECTION”… stay tuned…it’s coming to you and, as always, it is FREE…
[…] to be able to tell when something in the media didn’t seem right or justifiable, etc. as in CNN and Evil – Snivil… I promised those that there are some rules of thumb for detecting faulty, deceptive or malicious […]
It’s been difficult to relate this type of thinking verbally. It’s been a pleasure reading your thoughts on it.
Thank you.
Yes, it is difficult to do because of many reasons, not the least of which is experimenting with trying to understand what the heck is going on in the world.
When things are conflicted on a personal, small or global scale there is frequently ways of watering down the matter as a way to provide ‘order’ to what our senses tell us.
When those don’t translate well [are un-convincing even to us] there is occasion to question them. Ultimately for many people the questioning pays off higher than the chicken wire and bubble gum explanations that are easy to repeat but lack substance of clarity or provability or even relevance in the worlds we live in. Soooooo…. one option is ask more questions. Based on that and answers, we get to ask more and experience more and so on and so forth. Before you know it we’re involved in life at a whole different set of levels.
But this like everything else, including standing pat to support traditions, myths, etc., is based on what value we get from expressing what we have learned. At least that is one way to approach not getting a lot of feedback for others on this stuff that has been difficult to relate to.
Whaddayathink?