Has anyone ever heard that song by KT Tunstall? I started playing it from playlist.com, because I really needed something to cheer me up. Whenever I hear that song, it makes me think of carefree, summer, dancing, all things that make me smile. For reference, anyone who hasn't heard the song can hear it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-At6avvY_4
Anyway, the reason why I need cheered up at the moment is because of some research that I've been doing for an essay. I'm researching the Holocaust, so I think that, to some degree, why that is depressing doesn't really need to be explained. The specific book I'm reading is about how ordinary Germans became executioners, not because they were coerced or threatened, but because something in them wanted to do what they ended up doing, and they just needed the opportunity.
One of the most depressing parts of all this is that...they weren't alone. It wasn't just Germans in the 1940s who committed mass atrocity like this. The Japanese against the Chinese in the early 20th century, Serbs against Bosnian Muslims, Hutus against Tutsis. I don't think it's some German-specific gene that allows us to do things that make us sick in an abstract sense...maybe it's something human.
I guess what's bothering me is the question...would I become a willing executioner? I know that everyone's first response will be "no, no, of course not, you're a good person." So...were all of these executioners just bad from the start, in some kind of mode of predestination? If someone had asked the average German in 1920 if they would condone mass murder in twenty years, I doubt you'd have gotten many affirmatives. So what is it? Is it some specific spark inside us that can just get lit, and awaken something horrible inside ourselves that we had hoped wasn't there? Is there ever any way to know what we would do in a situation like that before it actually happens?
Some part of me can't accept that. Some part of me can't accept that any moral conscience I have would just disappear, controlled by some animalistic response. I think I just need to come to terms with the fact that I can both love humanity and hate it at the same time.
In some less depressing food-for-thought...has anyone heard about Iowa? If you haven't, I'll fill you in: the Iowa Supreme Court struck down a state ban on same-sex marraige. The practical application? In 21 days, gay couples can get legally married in Iowa. It's a little sad (not to mention politically weird) that gay couples can get maried in Iowa...but not in California (any more). At this point, 3 down, 47 to go. Not counting Puerto Rico. This could take awhile. One of my dreams is to see PA in the civil rights column sometime in my lifetime. I know that it won't be easy, but what that's worthwhile ever is?
This post is getting too long, and I need some sunshine therapy.
Peace. Love. Happiness.
~Cody
You know, I know what you mean about people becoming mass-murderers. It just seems to happen, but I doubt anyone who became one thought they would.....
ReplyDeleteIt's definitely depressing, my dear. Let's hope we're never faced with it.
"were all of these executioners just bad from the start, in some kind of mode of predestination? If someone had asked the average German in 1920 if they would condone mass murder in twenty years, I doubt you'd have gotten many affirmatives. So what is it? Is it some specific spark inside us that can just get lit, and awaken something horrible inside ourselves that we had hoped wasn't there? Is there ever any way to know what we would do in a situation like that before it actually happens?"
ReplyDeleteWhen I read this I thought of this study that is often quoted in Psychology classes, done at Stanford: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
To summarize, they took people with no medical or emotional problems or history of crime, and assigned them to be either prisoners or guards in a mock prison in a basement. "Prisoners suffered — and accepted — sadistic and humiliating treatment from the guards. The high level of stress progressively led them from rebellion to inhibition. By the experiment's end, many showed severe emotional disturbances." They had to end the experiment after just 6 days instead of the original planned two weeks becaue things were getting out of hand.
"The experiment's result has been argued to demonstrate the impressionability and obedience of people when provided with a legitimizing ideology and social and institutional support."
ie. In the prison study, the 'guards', on seeing each other be brutal and degrading to the prisoners, felt that it was more ACCEPTABLE to do it because the others were.
You'll note that some Nazi mass-murderers state that they were told Jews were dirty and deserved to die, and told to kill them, and that they were just complying with orders. The same sort of argument, it's been pointed out before, as Lucius Malfoy used to get out of going to Azkaban for his crimes after the first war. "Oh, it wasn't me, they made me do it!"
...just some thoughts XD sorry this is so rambly.