Heroic resisters in rotten systems

Philip Zimbardo conducted an experiment in 1971. An experimental prison was set up: carefully screened volunteers were assigned roles either as warders or prisoners. The two week programme would record the interactions between they two groups. Not all volunteers could keep going. The prisoners who did so became increasingly compliant and institutionalised. The warders increased in control and aggression, unchallenged by their fellow warders. A prisoner revolt was met with savage reprisals. After six days the Stanford Prison Experiment had to be halted lest psychological damage ensue. Most of those assigned to be warders became sadistic, revelling in the power they had been given. The researchers had a no intervention policy, and the situation went out of control. In writing up the final form of this experiment three decades later, Zimbardo has the advantage of knowing that the most 'sadistic' warders in the role play had matured into normal good citizens and parents so this was not a diagnostic tool for psychopaths. Ordinary good people became evil when the culture required it. About three quarters of people reacted like this.

Some however resisted the cultural expectations, setting themselves against huge social pressure. These resisters are described as ‘heroes’ as the book overall argues that we should not be pessimistic about humankind, but encourage more people to become resisters through education and other cultural media. The agenda therefore is for the education system to design a plan of action to enable pupils to understand and resist peer pressure. This will include them reflecting on circumstances when they exert pressure on others, as well as when they resist pressure put upon them.

This is serious business. Zimbardo points out that when new staff started work at extermination camps such as Auschwitz, apparently without a full job description, they were inducted with arguments such as 'isn't it better that they die quickly than rot in filth and die painfully of disease?'. Most adapted to their new circumstances.

Zimbardo, in his latest book The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil (Rider) engages with more recent examples of prison extremes - Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. He argues that the system was rotten and evil, and that the so-called 'rotten apples' simply acceded to peer pressure. The system should have ensured that the expectation of the job was humane, and tackled any overbearing and disrespectful assumptions.

Cut out half of the information children are expected to remember - I won't dignify it with the name 'curriculum'. Schools should be encouraging children to consider their actions and the pressures others put upon them, and be strong enough to say 'No'. Schools encourage obedient 'Yes kids' when we need independent 'No kids' - pupils who think clearly for themselves, think ahead, and consider issues, ethics and consequences. Role-play and drama can teach through experience. Literature/stories can help them to empathise with strong ethical characters without being moralising. History and geography can consider social justice and the ethics of ownership, privilege, and governance. Involvement in school decision-making and in the community can underline what we mean by respect and democracy.

Above all, school should be about blame and threat-free discussion about policies, strategies and choices. It should challenge scapegoating and stereotyping, presenting the community as inclusively 'us'. Only then will more people be strong enough and confident enough to object when callousness and disrespect of others is viewed as acceptable.

The school, College or university is also a system with embedded power relationships, which can go sour. There will be bullies, power freaks, managing by sarcasm; the system needs to control such behaviour as unacceptable and to advocate positive and empowering management strategies. Pupils and students should be encouraged to be self-validating and contributing unique individuals (called individuation as opposed the the dehumanising de-individuation (p.242). They need to consider how to cope with peer and power pressure and be able to retain their inner individuality, their sense of meaning an worth, even in dehumanising systems and circumstances. This is a challenging piece of curriculum development. The final chapter is a good starting-point – ‘Resisting Situational Influences and Celebrating Heroism’:

“Heroism supports the ideals of a community and serves as an extraordinary guide, and it provides and exemplary role model for prosocial behaviour. The banality of heroism means that we are all heroes in waiting. It is a choice we may all be called upon to make at some point in time.” (p.488).

This is heroism in everyday life, as a natural moral response to the unacceptable, not the unreachable elite heroes of fiction. I invite you to visit the related websites, www.socialpsychology.org, www.prisonexp.org, www.lucifereffect.com and www.zimbardo.com and explore the downloads.