While I was on my manic purging of personal items last week I ran across something that has survived 13 years of manic purgings. It was an assignment from my Contemporary World Issues class my senior year in high school. My girlfriends and I used to giggle about our "Contempt" teacher up in our dorm room, referring to him as the Portugese Man of Mystery and imagining his dark bearded face poking out of a black leather jacket roaring onto campus on a motorcycle with the wind wooshing through his thick, wavy eyebrows. Trust me, it was funny in our dorm room. Perhaps the smuggled bottles of rum helped?
Anyway, as you can guess from the title of this post the assignment was in conjunction with our discussion of
"Lord of the Flies". The assignment was to write a paper about how things would have been the same/ different if it had been a group of girls stranded on the island or a group of boys AND girls. I read through the paper and found that I still agreed with myself. Whodda thunk?
A while back,
David and I got into a heated exchange (on my end, anyway, I AM an ornery redhead) about whether or not Zarqawi was "human". Biologically speaking, we really can't argue that point. Science would clearly state that his anatomy was distinctly human - that's pretty safe to say considering the information that I have been given. I was arguing that, despite his murderous and unforgivable actions he was still once a living creature deserving of a modicum of privacy and respect in death. The argument changed, as arguments of this nature often do, into an argument about the truth of human nature. I promised David I would mop the floor with him on this one and I don't really want to go back on my word so here it is. This is the way I perceive human nature through the prism of behavioral science, personal experience and observation.
In the 1960's and 70's a few mavericks in the behavioral sciences (Go ahead and chuckle for a moment at the phrase "mavericks in the behavioral sciences", I promise I'll wait for you.) created experiments that truly pushed the limits of our understanding of human behavior. A few of these experiments were deemed unethical due to the intense stress experienced by the subjects of study, however, these experiments are still taught in psychology classes today because of the insight they provide.
One of these experiments placed a test subject in front of a board with rows of switches on it that supposedly corresponded to electric shocks that increased incrementally up the board. The test subjects were told that they would be helping scientists to discover how well people learn under the influence of negative reinforcement. The subject was told to teach a man in another room word pairs and each time the man got the answer wrong the subject was to administer a shock. As the scenario progressed the "student" would have horrible reactions to the "shock" the test subject administered. He would scream and complain about his heart and the majority of test subjects would bow to the authority figure in the room (the scientist administering the experiment) and go to the top of the board even though it distressed them greatly to do so. In some cases the reactions from the test subjects ran contrary to what we would hope to expect from another human being in such situations. There was inappropriate laughter and actions that could be construed as sadistic but the underlying emotion was intense stress and moral wrestling. A few adhered to their so-called "human" and compassionate ideals and refused to go beyond a certain level of shock and defied the authority figure in the room...a few. Time and time again, history has proven that normal, everyday people bow to authority in destructive ways and even participate in activities that, prior to their involvement, they would have found morally reprehensible. Most of us would like to think our moral character is so strong that we would not succomb to such pressure. Statistics prove that, in actuality, the majority of us would cave.
So, that may give us a clue into the rank and file but what about the extraordinary sadist? What about the power mad megalomaniac who would destroy everything in his path?
Let me preface what I am about to say with this... I AM NOT EXCUSING THE BEHAVIOR. NOR DO I ADVOCATE ANY BLEEDING HEART BULLSHIT THAT PEOPLE WHO PERPETRATE CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY SHOULD NOT PAY FOR THOSE CRIMES. DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT ACCUSING ME OF THAT! Just because I am fascinated by the motivations and feel that it is vital to dissect them to further our knowledge of our fellow man (and YES in the process am able to empathize with monsters) does not mean that I do not care for the victims. It DOES NOT mean that I do not or would not demand consequences for the offending party. I'm not talking punishment at the moment. That is a completely seperate issue. What I am talking about is learning and not being afraid to see what lessons are applicable to the monster within. I believe we all have one. I'll get into that more later.
Feel free to chuckle, but my acting training has taught me this very simple truth; Happy people whose basic needs are being met do not purposefully inflict pain upon others. The amount of pain and suffering one inflicts on another is comparable to the amount of pain and suffering one perceives he/she is being forced to bear. It's a fairly simple equation. There are those of you who will go through your laundry list of grievences only to point out that you have not gone out to mame, kill and destroy. You would have a valid point in saying so, but I believe that only looks at part of the picture.
When writing a good story, the key is in the circumstances. Building circumstances that support the choices that characters make is the most important job in constructing the framework of a story. You cannot separate the choices from the circumstances or the circumstances from the choices. They are linked in storytelling as they are linked in life. A circumstance of great importance in understanding human behavior is temperment- for lack of a better word to describe it.
There are those of us who feel responsible and accept the bad things that are done to us as somehow our responsibility. These people are more likely to do damage to themselves before lashing out at others. This lashing out does happen, but usually in more passive aggressive ways. There are others who feel an acute sense of injustice and who reject that which is foisted upon them. Due to other circumstances in one's uprbringing/ environment this person could react to stimulus in a positive or negative way. A positive manifestation of this temperment would be someone who did not accept the terms of oppression and organized against it. A negative response would be to build a wall to defend one's self against the onslaught. Acquire goods, acquire power, acquire followers to cushion one's self from the blows the world can and will frequently deliver. This kind of consumption of power and influence is often demonstrated by personalities who carry monsterous insecurities and incredible pain. To this person weapons, coersion, and death are all soothing balms for festering wounds.
In 1971 a group of heavily screened, healthy young male volunteers were arbitrarily separated into two groups. One group were marked as criminals and the other group were deemed prison guards. The "criminals" were surprised during their daily routines by real police officers and booked into a mock prison where they were guarded by the "prison guards". This was the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment. At first, this seemed a bit of a joke to the participants, but it wasn't long before the guards began perceiving the inmantes as real threats. Certain personalities took to the power role more readily than others and they exploited that power, humiliating the prisoners at every turn. The prisoners were forced into their roles as defiant, belligerant and difficult threats that must be manhandled and broken. The spirit does not break willingly. The prisoners became increasingly unruly and found loopholes through which to needle the guards which encouraged the guards to crack down on them even harder. It is important to note that whenever you allow yourself to be cast in a "role" you play it out according to the standard script. It is shocking to see the similarities between the environment in the Stanford Prison Experiment and the atmosphere in places like Abu Graihb.
Of course, this subject is highly nuanced and I can only speak in generalities here in a stupid blog post. But you might ask yourself, why is this bullshit important? What does it really matter? What does this mean in my life? What the fuck does this have to do with the pictures of dead Zarqawi displayed on the evening news and on the front page of every paper in the country?
David brought up female circumcision as being evil and an intolerable offense against humanity. I can't disagree. But I am also flexible enough where I could fathom finding myself in a set of circumstances that would allow such behavior. In my estimation it is the judgement that is the obstacle to fixing a situation. In the Stanford Experiment, the prison guards' judgement of the nature of the inmates encouraged the very behavior they professed a desire to weed out. This happens so frequently in life it is frightening.
My son whines. I hate this sound. It drives me up the wall. When I treat him like a "whiner" he whines even more. He easily falls into the role. If I loosen my grip on it so does he. I've said it before and I'll say it again, sometimes the secret to life is to do things that are seemingly counter-intuitive. I think it is human nature to unwittingly encourage bad behavior. I think it is the human race's family dysfunction. But I also believe we are capable of great good and that there is hope if we strive to understand that which we despise and fear. Especially if we look to challenge that which we fear inside ourselves.
It is counter-intuitive for me to give respect to a monster like Zarqawi and yet I look away, mentally placing a sheet over his ashen face. By denying him, and those like him ready to take his place, that which is so cheap to give I fuel the fires of resentment and perpetuate the same old script. It is much more important to me to find peace and joy than it is for me to find vengeance. He's had his comeuppance and I need not add to it. What would be the point? It would only add more ugliness to the world. I do recognize that most people are not comfortable looking at the world in this way. In some ways it is much easier to hold on to anger and pain because the absence of it is so unfamiliar and anger can be such a motivating force. I am working very hard to keep that from my life and live in true compassion which requires empathy for all living things. This is no easy task and I do not always succeed.
In case you remember the beginning of this post (it's a long way up there, isn't it?) and are wondering what exactly was the conclusion I had reached in my Lord of the Flies essay, this is basically it: People behave rashly and are sometimes inhumane regardless of their gender. The only real difference is how that behavior is displayed. A female Piggy would have ended up just as dead as the male Piggy and it is our willingness to follow that is to blame.
Perhaps we should not ignore our capacity for obedience in our educational system and begin to teach people how to choose better leaders since it is in our nature to look for them. But that, my friends, is a different ball of twine.
