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Stanford prison experiment my opinion
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When we think about the genocides and mass killings throughout history, human nature wants us the think of the perpetrators as being antithesis to ordinary people. They are endowed with sub-loving stereotypical villainous names like sadist, evil, and monstrous, all with no moral code, enjoy killing people for entertainment. We like to think this, because we can’t fathom perpetrators of genocide as being ordinary like ourselves. What is inevitably true of the most horrific genocide in the past century (the Holocaust) is that ordinary people are capable of committing the most heinous crimes imaginable.
The myriad of events that took place throughout World War II, that constituted the destruction of the Jewish people, were carefully constructed pogroms instituted, commonly by average people, out of fear of retribution, self annihilation, and greed. The catch-22 situation that was present for the perpetrators of Battalion 101 and the Poles of Jedwabne, illustrate the lengths at which ordinary people will go, to conform to those around them and protect themselves from harm.
In almost every careful analysis of individuals who committed violent actions, past history and characteristics have been analyzed, usually with some event being a trigger for such negative behavior. In the case of Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 And The Final Solution in Poland and Neighbors, the perpetrators commonly had very normal backgrounds. In Ordinary Men, the men of the Battalion consisted mostly of working class, middle-aged men from Hamburg. Browning found that 63% had working class backgrounds with few being skilled laborers (Browning, 1998, p. 47). Browning quoted saying:
These were men who had known political standards and moral norm...
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... study and the Stanford Prison experiments simulated many of environments in which seemingly regular individuals can perform heinous crimes, drawing a parallel to the events at Jedwabne and Jozefew has its complication. While the premise of compliance and obedience for both was the same, the shear complexity of war and combat could never truly be tested unless on the battlefield. Inherent in the experiments was control. While the Stanford Prison experiment deviated from its original course, the severity of consequences doesn’t come close to those faced with imminent death or the order to kill.
Works Cited
Browning, C. R. (1998). Ordinary men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the final solution in Poland. New York: HarperPerennial.
Gross, J. T. (2002). Neighbors: the destruction of the Jewish community in Jedwabne, Poland. New York, N.Y.: Penguin Books.
The atrocities of war can take an “ordinary man” and turn him into a ruthless killer under the right circumstances. This is exactly what Browning argues happened to the “ordinary Germans” of Reserve Police Battalion 101 during the mass murders and deportations during the Final Solution in Poland. Browning argues that a superiority complex was instilled in the German soldiers because of the mass publications of Nazi propaganda and the ideological education provided to German soldiers, both of which were rooted in hatred, racism, and anti-Semitism. Browning provides proof of Nazi propaganda and first-hand witness accounts of commanders disobeying orders and excusing reservists from duties to convince the reader that many of the men contributing to the mass
The arguments of Christopher Browning and Daniel John Goldhagen contrast greatly based on the underlining meaning of the Holocaust to ordinary Germans. Why did ordinary citizens participate in the process of mass murder? Christopher Browning examines the history of a battalion of the Order Police who participated in mass shootings and deportations. He debunks the idea that these ordinary men were simply coerced to kill but stops short of Goldhagen's simplistic thesis. Browning uncovers the fact that Major Trapp offered at one time to excuse anyone from the task of killing who was "not up to it." Despite this offer, most of the men chose to kill anyway. Browning's traces how these murderers gradually became less "squeamish" about the killing process and delves into explanations of how and why people could behave in such a manner.
Twenty-four average men were entered into a fake prison setting, twelve of which who had been given the role of prisoner and twelve with the role of guard. Throughout the course of the experiment we see the environment effect negatively on the actions of the group of guards, clearly demonstrating that situational forces can force a person to cross the line between good and evil. We see this heavily embodied in the guard Dave Eshelman AKA ‘John Wayne’ – nicknamed by the prisoners in the study – the most brutal guard of them all, the one who demonstrated all the findings on the influence of power and authority and human behaviour. “I was kind of running my own experiment in there, by saying, “How far can I push these things and how much abuse will these people take before they say, ‘knock it off?'” But the other guards didn’t stop me.
Life is a valued concept, as are the people and experiences associated with it. However, when one is pushed to the limit of human capacity, they can lose familiarity with the value of their own life. Genocide-- the mass slaughter of a group of people based on their identity-- can have severe effects on the victimized people in a plethora of ways. One can not possibly quantify the grotesque, inhumane treatment witnessed in many genocides. Simultaneously, many victims are vulnerable to their identities being left behind and only their will to survive being left intact. Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, recounts his experiences being at the hands of a brutal, systematic killing regime in his award-winning memoir, Night. Wiesel
The events which have become to be known as The Holocaust have caused much debate and dispute among historians. Central to this varied dispute is the intentions and motives of the perpetrators, with a wide range of theories as to why such horrific events took place. The publication of Jonah Goldhagen’s controversial but bestselling book “Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust” in many ways saw the reigniting of the debate and a flurry of scholarly and public interest. Central to Goldhagen’s disputed argument is the presentation of the perpetrators of the Holocaust as ordinary Germans who largely, willingly took part in the atrocities because of deeply held and violently strong anti-Semitic beliefs. This in many ways challenged earlier works like Christopher Browning’s “Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland” which arguably gives a more complex explanation for the motives of the perpetrators placing the emphasis on circumstance and pressure to conform. These differing opinions on why the perpetrators did what they did during the Holocaust have led to them being presented in very different ways by each historian. To contrast this I have chosen to focus on the portrayal of one event both books focus on in detail; the mass shooting of around 1,500 Jews that took place in Jozefow, Poland on July 13th 1942 (Browning:2001:225). This example clearly highlights the way each historian presents the perpetrators in different ways through; the use of language, imagery, stylistic devices and quotations, as a way of backing up their own argument. To do this I will focus on how various aspects of the massacre are portrayed and the way in which this affects the presentation of the per...
Ney-Krwawicz, Marek. "The Polish Underground State and Home Army." Http://www.polishresistance-ak.org/. N.p., 1 Oct. 2001. Web. 6 Apr. 2014.
I was surprised that the soldiers of the Reserve Police Battalion 101 in Browning’s book were willing to shoot the amount of unarmed men, women, and children that they did without more men refusing to do so. Even though the Battalion Commander offered a way out by offering no personal consequences for not participating in the shooting, I would have thought the moral conscience of more men would have made them step out of the formation in order not to participate. Browning’s argument that these were ordinary men and that any ordinary man could have participated in murdering thousands of people in such personal way, showed me that the comradeship and unit cohesion of the men in Police Battalion 101 was stronger than the values of the individual
soldiers during the Jewish Holocaust, knew that the Nazi’s actions were inhumane and cruel; hence, he commanded his soldiers to not confiscate property from the Jews. Although the Nazi soldiers did not take valuables away from the Jews, they still dehumanized and exterminated the Jews, rega...
History aims to examine the actions and legacy of mankind. The past is filled with the achievements that humans have reached, however, history also shows us the evil that man is capable of. No atrocity against mankind is more heinous than the act of genocide. Genocide is the aim to destroy all (or part of) of a racial, religious, ethnic, or national group of people. This paper will examine two famous cases of genocide in history: The holocaust of Jews and other groups in Nazi Germany, and the destruction of the Congolese people under Belgian colonialism. The Holocaust remains as one of the main legacies of Hitler and the Nazi party, who claimed an estimated 11 million victims, 6 million of which were Jews. Comparatively, the Congolese Genocide
Steven Pinker implied that, “As long as your ideology identifies the main source of the world's ills as a definable group, it opens the world up to the mass murder of people” (1). Steven Pinker revealed an interesting side to the controversial topic of mass murders and the causes of them. He revealed that as long as people in this world believe that they are better than other due to their race, religion, and everything else that defines a group of people as different from another group of people. People are and have been wrongfully treated differently due to the incompetence of some to realize that everyone is equal. They often believe that they were superior to others because of their physical attributes and beliefs that they had. The Holocaust is a major example of the ignorance of some in history. This ignorance often resulted in the murders and mistreatment of many. Elie Wiesel was one of the six million plus people who were wrongfully mistreated during the Holocaust. Many believe that this sort of event could not occur in the current time period because people have become more civilized and tolerable to the differences of others, but sadly the world is not ready to contain a social utopia. The mass murder, and violence that is occurring in Darfur is one of the many things that shows that the world is far from achieving this social utopia. Throughout history, many occurrences of genocide have occurred due to the diversity of people and even though society has evolved greatly, there are still people and places today that are suffering.
The atrocities of the Belgian Congo and the Holocaust are two of the main events in history that have been responsible for the mass murdering of millions of people. Although these events significantly changed the course of humanity, and the story behind each one is very different, there are significant factors that make them alike as well as different. Many would agree that comparing two atrocities that affected the lives of so many people and gave a 180-degree turn to each of their countries would be something very difficult to achieve. However, by comparing the behavior of both the perpetrators and the victims of both cases, we might be able to further understand the lack of morality and the inspiration that led to these awful events. The perpetrators in both atrocities tended to have a similar pattern of behavior when it came to the way they saw their victims.
Most narratives out of the Holocaust from the Nazis point of view are stories of soldiers or citizens who were forced to partake in the mass killings of the Jewish citizens. Theses people claim to have had no choice and potentially feared for their own lives if they did not follow orders. Neighbors, The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland, by Jan T. Gross, shows a different account of people through their free will and motivations to kill their fellow Jewish Neighbors. Through Gross’s research, he discovers a complex account of a mass murder of roughly 1,600 Jews living in the town of Jedwabne Poland in 1941. What is captivating about this particular event was these Jews were murdered by friends, coworkers, and neighbors who lived in the same town of Jedwabne. Gross attempts to explain what motivated these neighbors to murder their fellow citizens of Jedwabne and how it was possible for them to move on with their lives like it had never happened.
"Cracking The Code Of Genocide: The Moral Psychology Of Rescuers, Bystanders, And Nazis During The Holocaust." Political Psychology 29.5 (2008): 699-736. Business Source Premier. Web. The Web.
Without any warning heavily armed men destroy the door of a perfectly normal looking home. The men are outfitted in wartime attire with guns that are reminiscent of those sent over to Iraq. Before the men enter the house one throws a flashbang grenade into the home, destroying this hardworking family’s living room. This may sound far-fetched or dystopian, however, this type of thing has become the reality of many an American. Through an examination of threats to public safety, racial profiling, and the wasting of taxpayer dollars it is clearly evident that the militarization of United States police has to stop.
This book left me with a deeper sense of the horrors experienced by the Polish people, especially the Jews and the gypsies, at the hands of the Germans, while illustrating the combination of hope and incredible resilience that kept them going.