Still More on Situational Evil

I'm still reading the Lucifer Effect. It's not exactly the type of book you'd want to skim or just give a rough read. I've been reading a library copy but I think I may go buy a hard copy. I'm having to resist the urge to highlight and make notes in the margin.
As I read I'm becoming increasingly aware of the "situational" forces that work around me. Zimbardo describes several situations where otherwise good people refused to speak up when their own morality was telling them they should. Instead they relied on the judgment of their supposed superiors to make the moral decision for them. If I've learned anything from this book it's that my own silent refusal to respond can and most likely is interpreted as agreement. I've found that since this fact is front and center in my mind that I am increasingly intolerant of immoral and unethical comments. When friends, family members or coworkers make comments that I find morally repugnant I used to lean towards just ignoring them. However, I have since become aware that this passive attitude is only marginally different than an endorsement of their comments.
I've never been good at confrontations. I'm doing my best to figure out how to balance these two conflicting forces inside me. At what point is okay to say "I don't agree and I want no part of this conversation"? And when I do respond is my response proportional to the initial comment? In the past I think I've waited far too long before I made my voice hear and then I respond too strongly. I fear that now I may be reacting to strongly too fast. Be patient with me as I wrestle with this dilemma. I'm working to find a balance that with accomplish both goals, not alienate everybody around me, and yet let them know that there are certain moral and ethical bounds that I will not cross.

I've been especially surprised at the comments I've heard from family and friends about the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
"Well if wearing women’s underwear on you head is torture there are a lot of fraternities that should be shut down too."
"They were just using these Muslims weird beliefs against them." Etc etc.
(I debated posting sevarla of the Abu Ghraib images that were clearly much worse than frat house hazing. I decided against it. if your interested just do a google image search for Abu Ghraib and your see more than you wanted.)
The analogy to a frat house is common one but the two situations are very different on a number of major ways. In a frat house the 'victims' are there because they want to be and are trying to do thing to get into the organization. In Abu Ghraib the victims were prisoners who did not want to be there and wanted to get out of this prison. This twisted "frat house" analogy only holds water if we ignore the conditions of servitude and the desires of the victims. Without these two conditions what's the difference between rape and consensual sex? There is none.
As far as the comment about using their beliefs against them goes, I agree. But it's also worth noting that the guards were also making these prisoners do things that went against their own moral beliefs. That is where they violated not only the morality of the prisoners but their own as well. I don't think it's going out on a limb to say that these soldiers would not want to have the same actions forced upon them.
Most of the comments I've heard defending the guards actions come from people who have done little to no research into what they actually did. Many of the sexually explicit images never made it on the broadcast news. And all too frequently people are just waiting for their talk radio spin doctors to tell them how to believe. So I'm not really surprised that I've heard the "frat house" analogy from more than one source. They all got it from Rush Limbaugh.
I don't believe that we have to behave like a terrorist in order to defend ourselves against them. Zimbardo's book is forcing me to become more vocal in my opposition to the situational forces around me. As he points out it isn't easy to stand up for your personal morality. But I believe that by remaining silent on these issues I become part of the system that is influencing others to do evil things.

Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Banned Book Week

Apparently this week is banned book week. A friend of mine pointed this out on her blog. After reading the top 100 list of banned books I found that I had read twelve of them. Here is my current reading list. It wouldn't surprise me if many of these books are also on somebody's banned list.

Beyond reason : eight great problems that reveal the limits of science
by Dewdney, A. K.
Non-fiction

Breaking the spell : religion as a natural phenomenon
by Dennett, Daniel Clement
Non-fiction

Junk science : how politicians, corporations, and other hucksters betray us
by Agin, D. P.
Non-fiction

The Lucifer effect : understanding how good people turn evil
by Zimbardo, Philip G.
Non-fiction

Mistakes were made (but not by me) : why we justify foolish beliefs, bad decisions, and hurtful acts
by Tavris, Carol
Non-fiction

SHAM : how the self-help movement made America helpless
by Salerno, Steve.
Non-fiction

Thomas Jefferson : author of America
by Hitchens, Christopher
Non-fiction

Thomas Paine's rights of man
by Hitchens, Christopher
Non-fiction

Why Darwin matters : the case against intelligent design
by Shermer, Michael
Non-fiction

More Situational Evil

As I listen to current events regarding the Blackwater Security investigation, I can’t help but see the parallels between this and the events that Dr. Zimbardo describes in the The Lucifer Effect. Having a large security force that is given such broad power and is under such limited oversight surely falls into the category of situational evil. The fact that they are private contractors and therefore more difficult to detain and prosecute just makes the situation more volatile. From what I’ve been reading the average Blackwater security employee in Iraq is making four times what the average US military employee is making. With this in mind it begs the question, “Are they four times more effective?” I doubt it. I just think that they are a deliberate level of separation and a way to insulate those in charge of the war from direct criticism for the atrocities. I believe that those in command knew exactly what they would get if they hired private security and that they are even more responsible for creating this situation that the employees are who simply react as expected when placed in the situation. Even if those in charge didn’t foresee this problem they should have. So, either way the real fault lays a few levels higher than Blackwater Securities.

Chicken

This is an inside joke in our family. I think it got started on one of our many road trips. The kids were playing Mad Libs and they kept asking me for nouns, verbs and adjectives. At some point I just started answering "chicken" each time they asked me for a noun. Also, Our 7-year old thinks that the only two food groups are chicken nuggets and ketchup.

Timely Comeback

If you’re anything like me you’ve likely had this scenario happen to you. You get into a situation where you are attempting to persuade someone to com around to your way of thinking. They keep insisting that there is nothing that they can do to help. You reluctantly accept your fate. Then about 10 minutes later you think of the ultimate comeback that would have persuaded them to change their mind, but the moment is gone. Well Saturday I was vindicated. I actually thought of the right persuasive comment at exactly the time I needed it and the situation turned out exactly in my favor. This happens to me so rarely that I felt it was worth a blog entry.
Last week we noticed that our air conditioner was leaking and making a small puddle on the den carpet. So we called for our seasonal service and the repairman told us that he’d fixed the problem. Well a few day go by and Friday I notice that the puddle is actually getting worse not better. We called for another technician to come by. Saturday morning we were trying to plan our day and I called the Estes and asked them to narrow down the time for me so I could plan to be home when the tech showed up. The rude customer service rep couldn’t narrow down the time and insisted that we had to be home all day to just wait for them to show up. Well it was 8:00am on a Saturday and they routineuely show up for service after 5:00pm. I told her that this was unacceptable. I didn’t care what time she picked, we’d work around it, but I wasn’t going to just sit around and wait all day. Then she pulled what she was expecting to be her “Get Out of Jail Free Card” and said, “I’m sorry but that’s our policy.” I could right an entire book about the abuses that this planet has seen because people surrender their personal decision making ability to the “policies” of a superior. But that’s another post. Here can my comeback that I believed got the result I intended.

“Is it your policy for technicians to claim they have fixed problems that they really haven’t”
“Of course not.”
“So your actions have already shown that you were willing to break policy when you created this problem. All I’m asking you to do is break policy again and give me a time that you will be here to fix it.”
“I’m sorry I can’t do that.”

At this point I asked to be transferred to her supervisor and I left a message explaining my request.
Within 10 minutes I received a call that we had been moved to the front of the dispatch list and a few minutes after that I had a call from the dispatcher telling us that the tech was on his way. The problem was quickly solved and we were able to spend the rest of the day enjoying ourselves rather than waiting for a technician.
It bothers me when people don’t treat me the same way I would have treated them. In every job I’ve ever had I’ve found it very helpful to put myself in the other person’s shoes before I respond. Even when there is nothing that I really can do I deliberately avoided the “that’s our policy” line.

You're the Best...

This is deticated to my wife, Victoria.
I love you.

Polygamy follow up

Just a quick follow up on my polygamy rant from a few days ago.
Warren Jeffs was found just guilty on two counts of being an accomplice to rape. In the cnn.com article there were a couple sentences which directly support several of the claims that I had made about polygamy.

"Jeffs also faces multiple counts in Arizona of being an accomplice to incest and sex with minors.
He has drawn attention to the polygamous FLDS by allegedly excommunicating male followers and reassigning wives and children, arranging marriages to girls as young as 13, and reducing competition for brides by exiling male teens and young men."

Logic in Theology

In logic it is very common to present one or more established and
accepted rules or facts and then show a progression of how accepting
those facts, premises, logically lead you to accept their conclusion.
They typically take the form of if A and B are true then C is also
true. If it is obvious that C is not true the only other answer is that
one or more of the premises are not true.
If all cars are red, all cars are convertibles, and I own a car, then I own a red convert able. If I don't own a red convertible then at least one of the stated premises is necessarily false. In this case it's the first two that are false. All cars are NOT red and all cars are NOT convertible.

For centuries philosophers have struggled with making theology fit their
logical rules and restrictions. The most common attempt at this is
called the problem of evil.
1. God is benevolent and doesn't want evil to exist.
2. God is omnipotent and has the power to destroy all evil.
3. Evil does exist.
Therefore both 1 and 2 cannot be true.

Entire books have been written on just this subject but, in my opinion none of them provides a complete resolution to the issue.

I'm not overly hung up on this issue but I just bring it up to illustrate how my mind tries to grasp with issues. Once I understand the logic behind a system it is easier for me to figure out what I need to do next. All too frequently my mind finds little paradoxes that I need to resolve before I can continue.

Here is one that popped into my head during Sunday's lessons on forgiveness:
1. With sin we cannot be perfect.
2. If we don't forgive the greater sin is on our head.
3. God will not forgive some sins.
Therefore the greater sin is on God's head and he ceases to be perfect.

Or this one:
1. Part of forgiveness is to forget the sins of those who trespass against us
2. God forgives our sins.
3. Omniscient means to know everything, including the history of someones sins.
Therefore, God cannot be both omniscient and forgiving.

Or another:
1. God wanted Adam and Eve to multiple and replenish the Earth.
2. God commanded Adam and Eve to not partake of the tree of knowledge.
3. Being obedient to either 1 or 2 requires disobeying the other.
Therefore, God does NOT except us to obey all of His commandments.

I could go on and on. My only point her is to show how a logical, analytical mind tries to make sense of Gospel principles.

Inspiration

We were at the church yesterday waiting for the parents of all the scouts to come collect them so Aaron and I could go home. It was just two boys left, Aaron and his antithesis, the boy who teases and torments him and calls him a sissy. After few minutes of awkward conversation because the other boy really doesn't like Aaron or me his mother arrived. I handed him his bag of dirty clothes from the caving trip. To my surprise Aaron helped him with his pack and sleeping bag. I was very impressed. Aaron had no reason at all to be nice to this boy but he didn't let himself be controlled by the other boy’s bad acts. Aaron acted on his own nature and did the good, decent thing.
As we go home I was reading my wife's blog and she had posted a video that Aaron had shown her about forgiveness and repentance. The band was Linkin Park. It's a great song and the message was very strong. Normally I don't car for videos because I like to let the imagery of the music come straight from the music. In this case the emotional impact of the images in concert with the music was overwhelming. I promptly thanked Aaron for showing me the video and again today showing me the wisdom that a young man can have at just barely 13.
A few months ago I was involved in an online chat about a bishop who made a comment from the pulpit like, ”There are families in this Ward who don't have enough food to eat and I want to know that the hell you're going to do about it." In this situation more people were upset about the fact that the Bishop had said, "hell" than they were about the fact that there were families without any food.
In this situation criticizing somebody’s choice of words is the easier way out. It doesn't require any real action. And most importantly it doesn't require anybody to set aside any prejudices. They can simply respond on autopilot. Cussing is bad; therefore if somebody cusses to make a point then their point must be irrelevant. I'm not defending the cussing but merely pointing out how we should really focus on the more important issue and not the emotive flourishes used to explain it.
Later on in the evening I made an attempt to point out the two examples of Aaron's wisdom that I'd experienced earlier. No sooner than I had brought up the subject of the Linkin Park video the conversation deteriorated and was focused solely on the bad language used in some of their other songs. Never mind the profound message in the song I was referring to that did not have any cuss words. It was simply easier to criticize modern music than to open your mind a little bit and see that forgiveness, redemption and repentance can be taught in more than one way. Realizing that I couldn't hope to get the conversation back, I simply put my arm around Aaron and thanked him for showing me the video.
I'm continually amazed at the wisdom of my children. As I grow older I hope that I will not be so set in my ways that I forget to look for and accept these alternate sources of wisdom.

Fantasy Prone Personality

A few months ago I was surfing around on the Coast to Coast AM website. It’s great entertainment. You know the routine, Ghost pictures, alien autopsies, mummified mermaids. I thought it was a kind of funny that there were very few kooky ideas that didn’t make it onto the site.
I also checked a few of the external links from the site. If I was at a ghost hunting site they would have links to Bigfoot sites. The Bigfoot sites would have links to alien abduction site and 9-11 conspiracy sites. It was almost as if in order to believe in ghosts you had to accept the whole gambit of weird ideas. It’s very rare that I would find somebody who believed one woo-woo idea and rejected the rest.
I read a paper written by a neurologist that described something called the Fantasy Prone Personality (FPP). The idea is that when we were children there is part of our brain that creates fantasies. Perhaps the rest of our brain vetting out if our fantasies are real or not teaches us rationality. Perhaps this is the source of creativity in our brains. At any case most of us outgrow this belief in fantasy as a child. But to varying degrees many of us do not.
Dr. Novella points out that people with FPP are more susceptible to hypnosis and have a strong desire to believe things without evidence. I think this is exactly why so many of these kooky ideas seem to be joined at the hip.
What brought this up is a local talk radio show that a friend of the family has been doing for a few years. I heard about The Dr. Chris Green Show a couple a years ago and just recently decided to listen to it. Dr. Chris seems to be suffering from FPP. He believes that the entirety of mainstream medicine is a global conspiracy. He recommended that a woman with ovarian cancer come in to his office for a homeopathic detox rather than get a biopsy. On September 11th his whole show was pretty much and “amen” to Alex Jones’ 9-11 conspiracy theories. Well today he made the claim that Autism is a side-effect of Irritable Bowel Syndrome which is caused by the MMR vaccine. If I didn’t know better I’d just laugh and accept that this is parody and satire. It isn’t.
I suppose that listening to things like this can be intriguing. I personally am much more intrigued by reality. Yesterday I watched Monster of the Milky Way: A Super-massive Black Hole. Chris can keep all his woo-woo doctrines. I’m much more fascinated by these types of factual tales.