applejack
Smash Journeyman
I have recently started reading a book called The Lucifer Effect. It talks mainly about a psychologist’s experiment to find what changes a prisoners personality while imprisoned, but had an unexpected effect. The mock guards for the prison began to verbally and emotionally beat the college students who had volunteered to be prisoners. The experiment was cut short a week and a half early to spare the students/prisoners from further torture.
These results were reflected in the recent Abu Ghraib prison torture stories nearly thirty years later.
The book talks about one’s possible descent into a different person when in unusual surroundings, how the setting can morph and distort a person’s character.
My question is which do you consider has a greater effect in society, the strength and sincerity of the character, or the situation that one is found in? Which has a bigger impact on your reaction?
Also, is there a true evil? Some have the idea that evil is a thing that others have and others could never be susceptible to, the book raises the possibility that anyone can do inhuman things if they find themselves in a different society without the former ties to their self.
I think that no matter the individual's character, the setting they find themselves in will have an impact on how they act and think.
I think that anyone is capable is evil, especially once they start viewing people whom they have power over has something less than human.
These results were reflected in the recent Abu Ghraib prison torture stories nearly thirty years later.
The book talks about one’s possible descent into a different person when in unusual surroundings, how the setting can morph and distort a person’s character.
My question is which do you consider has a greater effect in society, the strength and sincerity of the character, or the situation that one is found in? Which has a bigger impact on your reaction?
Also, is there a true evil? Some have the idea that evil is a thing that others have and others could never be susceptible to, the book raises the possibility that anyone can do inhuman things if they find themselves in a different society without the former ties to their self.
I think that no matter the individual's character, the setting they find themselves in will have an impact on how they act and think.
I think that anyone is capable is evil, especially once they start viewing people whom they have power over has something less than human.