Are we inherently good or bad? Imagine being asked such a tricky question. What would you say? How would you react? What would you feel? The tendency is to come up with an instant answer defending the superiority of the human species, and say that good always prevails over evil; it keeps evil under control. One might be even appalled to be asked such a silly question. How could anyone allow such a thought to even cross their minds? Of course, people are good and caring. Yet, there would be somewhere at the back of their minds the possessive adjective “our”. Otherwise, how could inherently good people explain the division between “we” and “they” still existing in our world?
This division seems to have helped people justify so many crimes throughout history committed with the express purpose of protecting what’s ours and destroying what’s theirs. Indeed, the preconceived belief that “we” are the army of good and “they” are the army of evil has helped humankind destroy whatever did not properly align with the core values shared by the winners. It must be good when the winners are “we”. But has anyone thought what it might feel like when the winners are “they”? Why bother if one is lulled into a false sense of security, if one lives in the safety of a bubble blown by the winds of change with the only hope for it not to burst.
But let’s get bothered and carefully consider this controversial issue. Probably we should start by trying to understand what good and evil mean. If we look these words up in the dictionary, we’re bound to find that evil is profound immorality and wickedness, whereas good is that which is morally right. It looks simple at first glance and comprehensive enough. But is it really so?
The crusaders thought they were profoundly moral in their campaign to win the Holy Land. The slave owners were highly moral and religious people, yet they saw nothing wrong in dehumanizing other people who did not happen to be white. The Nazis were convinced in their profound morality when they started an inhumane campaign against the Jews. The terrorists killing innocent civilians are also guided by highly moral and religious convictions. Yet, all of their actions are undeniably evil.
Maybe it’s not morality that should be mentioned in the definition as the understanding of this notion is highly subjective. Somehow these atrocities were morally justified, e.g. to kill in the name of God, or to decide on the superiority of one race over another. So, dictionary definitions offer an oversimplified explanation of what is good and what is evil. People understand them being influenced by their own socially acquired filters, as well as by their own unique perception of reality.
In his book The Lucifer Effect, Philip Zimbardo defines evil as consisting in “intentionally behaving in ways that harm, abuse, demean, dehumanize, or destroy innocent others—or using one’s authority and systemic power to encourage or permit others to do so on your behalf.” So, the renowned American psychologist does not even mention morality, instead he focuses on the intentional harmful behavior people display towards others who do not deserve it at all. It is interesting to note that the word innocent has as its synonyms such words as righteous, moral and virtuous. It is also worth noting the emphasis the scholar puts on systems as bearing the responsibility of the evil people do. Philip Zimbardo does not justify the individual act of doing evil, but rather explains how it is possible for an otherwise righteous person to do evil being influenced by the system they are part of.
Before rejecting vehemently the idea that someone can be influenced by the context to such an extent as to betray their core values, think about the righteous Germans under the Nazi regime and the profoundly religious slave owners who held the belief that all people are created equal. Undeniably, they should be held accountable for their deeds, but in order to understand the root of the problem one should dig deeper to look for the actual reasons that compel otherwise good people to become evil.
Philip Zimbardo bases his conclusions on years of research he has conducted. What he has become known for is the Stanford Prison Experiment he conducted in the summer of 1971. He wanted to examine to what extent the situation influences the behavior of the 24 participants in the experiment. During the course of two weeks the participants were supposed to live in a simulated prison. The researcher and his team would observe their behavior and note to what extent the role of the prisoner or the one of the prison guard would influence the people’s behavior. All the participants were nice young people with high hopes for the future. According to the contract, they were supposed to be paid $15 per day and could leave at any time they wanted. Interestingly enough, all of them wanted to have the role of the prisoner. None volunteered to be a prison guard. However, the experimenters divided them into two groups, and the experiment began. I think they took it lightly without even thinking that this simulation could change their behavior in any way.
However, the results were so shocking that Philip Zimbardo had to end the experiment one week before it was due. So, basically the experiment lasted one week, and still the data it provided seems to indicate that evil can be the result of the situation in which people either live or are forced to live. The way the prison guards started behaving was outrageous. Although they did not physically abuse the prisoners, the psychological abuse and other Machiavellian maneuvers allowing them to punish the prisoners transformed them into perpetrators of evil. In a matter of three days some of the prison guards have internalized the hostility, negative affect, and mindset characteristic of some real prison guards.
When it comes to the prisoners, they gradually gave in to the prison system, also having internalized the roles of the prisoners. They became conformists and obedient. Being dehumanized and humiliated by the guards, they seemed to lose their identity, whereas their dispositional tendencies were wiped out by the power of situational forces. It looked as if they had even forgotten that they could end the experiment when they wanted.
The question one might ask oneself is “Why didn’t Philip Zimbardo and his team stop the experiment when they saw that their simulated prison looked more and more like a real prison?” The researcher admits that he also was influenced by the situational powers. Although he thought he controlled his mind, it looked like the situation took control of his mind. He was responsible for the evil of inaction. Only when his future wife Christina Maslach came to pick him up for dinner and saw what was truly happening in the prison, did Philip Zimbardo understand the evil he was not only witnessing, but also doing. The experiment was stopped immediately after a week. It proved that situational forces are more powerful than dispositional tendencies at a very big cost. It had transformed the otherwise normal young men into complacent, suffering prisoners and guards who lost their moral compass. All the people involved in the experiment, including Philip Zimbardo and his team, underestimated the power of Situation to transform their thinking. As Zimbardo mentions: “a person in the claws of the System just goes along, doing what emerges as the natural way to respond at that time in that place” (2007: p. 180).
So, coming back to the question asked at the beginning: Are we inherently good or bad? Before answering it, we should carefully consider the situation and system that we are part of and analyze to what extent we are influenced by these two powers. Systemic and situational powers can transform people in such a way that they won’t be able to recognize themselves. Probably this is what happened to people who got so much influenced by the propaganda of powerful systems that they lost their moral compasses and became the perpetrators of evil.
The understanding of why they behaved immorally does not diminish their accountability. But what we could do is learn from the past errors and develop our critical thinking so that we can resist these situational and systemic powers. This is possible. We have heroes to prove this. People who risked their own lives to help Jews escape during the Nazi occupations, the whistleblowers who show how corrupted systems can be and what horrible situations they can create. The most recent example I can think of is the whistleblower who helped expose the terrible flaws in the Russian prison system. His example was followed by others, and maybe this will result in systemic change that will stop tortures in prisons.
Meanwhile, check your moral compass, and make sure you take the right direction.
Reference:
Zimbardo, Ph. (2007) The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. New York: Random House.
Falling in English with You :) 