Lessons from prison

In the infamous Stanford prisoner experiment, psychologist Philip Zimbardo took a group of largely white, educated, well-to-do and politically liberal men and put them into a prison role-playing scenario with half acting as prisoners and the other half acting as guards. \nAt first, they played along with the game, kidding and joking, but the situation soon became nightmarish. A prison break was attempted, followed by a guard crackdown. Punishments grew draconian and humiliating, while prisoners broke down in psychotic fits. The experiment only went five days before Zimbardo pulled the plug once “guards” forced “prisoners” into sexually humiliating positions as part of their punishment. \nWhy am I bringing up an inhuman prison in a graduation column? Within us, we contain the potential to commit great evil, like so many passive participants in past atrocities. I mention these atrocities, however, because in cases of such horrifying inhumanity and criminal violence, there is the occasional whistle-blower. In the wake of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse, Zimbardo, who had mostly avoided the experiment since the controversy it caused, returned to his research to discover what makes someone look at a situation like this and say “stop.” \nHis research has thus far uncovered no pre-existing determinant of who stepped up as a hero. No background, belief or personality trait firmly correlated with the heroes who stood up against the authority instead of sitting back and doing nothing. Zimbardo only noted two common traits: deviancy from authority and empathy for one’s fellow human beings.\nAs we move forward through the world, we must note the moral choices placed before us all the time. We believe incorrectly that we are entering “the real world,” when we have been living in the real world since we were born. Every decision we have made and continue to make guides our journey. \nWhen we accept what an authority tells us – that we need not concern ourselves with unjust wars, that we should leave the complicated money stuff up to the experts – we implicitly surrender our ability to make our own judgments. When we see our community of humans as merely more competition to get out of the way, we have given up our ability to perceive our own humanity. The point is not to arrive at a moral choice and always make the right decision, but to recognize that the juncture represents a moral choice at all.\nIf the circumstances were different, would we be abusers or whistle-blowers? Most of us would like to think that we’d blow the whistle, but the prison guards of Zimbardo’s experiment were very much like we are today: bright and likable folks with significant education. What good is “education” if it doesn’t make us better people?\nWe must be ever-vigilant. Upon graduation, we must never stop asking the questions that drive us. As long as a lone voice continues to ask questions, even in the face of extenuating and difficult circumstances, humanity need not descend into inhumanity. May our class and generation be the askers and the seekers we so desperately need.