Stanford Prison Experiment

Did you ever hear of the famous "Stanford Prison Experiment"?  It was a psychology experiment that went out of control and was stopped only after an outsider saw how distorted things had gotten.  It helps explain the evil that allowed The Crazies to take an innocent person and turn them into a torture victim and an enemy of the Nazi state.

 Phil Zimbardo who carried out the original Stanford experiment commented in a recent book that aberrant, illegal or immoral behavior by individuals are typically labeled as misdeeds of a few bad apples.  The implication is that the illegal, insane acts are a rare exception that the "good apples" don't approve.  The elite rulers want to single out an event as being an isolated incident that takes away any blame from the rulers at the top.  Rather that blaming a few bad apples, a system analysis focuses on the apple barrel makers or the power structure that allowed the misdeeds to happen and continue unabated.  That is to say, there are no outsiders as there was in the Stanford Prison Experiment to say the events taking place are out of control and should be stopped.  The barrel makers are rotten, not just the apples.

Seven social processes grease the slippery slope of evil:

     1) Mindlessly taking the first step - like taking a innocent victim and setting him up as a witness.
     2) Dehumanization of others - that was obvious in my case.
     3)  De-individualization of self (anonymity)
     4) Diffusion of personal responsibility  (The Crazies kept their identity hidden(anonymity) and deny any responsibility)
     5) Blind obedience to authority (This is a well studied phenomenon - see Stanley Milgram)
     6) Uncritical conformity to the group's norm (nationalism)
     7) Passive tolerance of EVIL, through inaction or indifference.

There you have how an innocent good worker could end up being a torture victim and political prisoner.  The apple barrel maker, the amerikan system, is corrupt and broken.