*Ian Rosales Casocot

The optimistic view of human nature has always been that we are basically good people, some of whom become corrupted and warped by circumstances. Another view may be truer than this essentially Pollyana-istic paradigm: that we all are a carefully balanced construct of good and evil.

"Obedience is better than sacrifice." -I Samuel 15:22

Sometimes, especially at the brink of another year beginning when I despair about the state of the world-complete with images of Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, Pol Pot, Ferdinand Marcos, George W. Bush, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, and a certain former middle-manager I used to know flashing in my head-I think about the lowest levels of depravity people sometimes unwittingly allow themselves to wallow in.

The optimistic view of human nature has always been that we are basically good people, some of whom become corrupted and warped by circumstances. Another view may be truer than this essentially Pollyana-istic paradigm: that we all are a carefully balanced construct of good and evil. We all are capable of good, and we all are capable of evil. And sometimes we can even become evil despite ourselves, and especially when we choose to blind ourselves to the direct correlation of what we do and the moral meaning of our actions. There is scientific basis for this.

In 1963, the psychologist Stanley Milgram decided to do an experiment that would test the capacity for evil by the most normal of human beings. He called this controversial experiment "Behavioral Study of Obedience." The results of that study stunned the world of psychology, and gave us an unsettling view of the darkest depths of our subconscious.

Stanford University's Philip Zimbardo wrote of that experiment: "Milgram recruited more than 1,000 participants from all walks of life to be a part of his studies. They would arrive individually in the lab and be told they were helping psychological science to find new ways to improve memory through punishment and thereby help in the education processes.

"Teacher, the role assigned to the participant, helps the Experimenter, who is wearing the white lab coat symbolic of his status, to connect the Learner, a lovable middle-aged man, to the electrical shock apparatus; the victim is in an adjacent room. On the first trials, learning is going well, the word associates are being recalled, and Teacher says, 'Good, fine.' But then the Learner starts making errors and punishment begins, first small, then ever escalating. As it does, the Learner begins complaining, then yelling and screaming. The Teacher is upset, having never imagined it would come to this. Turning to the Experimenter, Teacher dissents, indicating he or she does not want to continue, which is cast aside as the Teacher is reminded of the contract agreed to previously. More [electric] shock, more yelling, complaining of a heart condition, and insisting he wants to quit. 'Who will be responsible if something bad happens in there to the Learner, Sir?' asks the Teacher. The Experimenter replies: 'I will. Please continue, Teacher.'

At 375 volts the Learner screams, there is a loud thud, and then only silence from the shock chamber thereafter. Teacher is now really distressed (the women often cry, the men wince), says the experiment should be terminated because the Learner has stopped responding. Not so easy. 'Remember the rules,' reminds the Experimenter, 'Failure to respond is an error, and all errors must be punished immediately with the appropriate level of reaction, Teacher.'

"And there are five more higher levels possible to the extreme of 450 volts."

How many among the Teacher-Participants would go all the way to increasing the voltage to 450 volts? This was the question that Milgram posed before 40 psychiatrists before conducting his research. He invited them to predict the percentage and type of person. In their collective wisdom based on their medical training in dispositional, individualistic analysis, they concluded that fewer than 1% of the Teacher-Participants would go all the way, and they would be the sadists.

Everyone's predictions of a 1 percent compliance were all wrong. There was 65 percent compliance, which meant that two-thirds of the subjects (the Teacher-Participants) went all the way up to the final level. In fact, that quantification of evil went as high as 90 percent or down to 10 percent compliance across 18 studies in Milgram's research program-each study varying one aspect of the social situation.

What does the study mean? It meant that anybody-you, me, anyone-will consciously agree on carrying out an evil task as long as somebody in authority (a scientist, a teacher, a policeman, a mayor, a governor, or a president) assumes "complete responsibility" for your actions, and invariably tells you to go on with what you are doing.

This explains why there can be absolute acquiescence by the most normal of people even in a deluge of so much palpable evil, and sometimes even contribute to its perpetuation. Think of the ordinary German people in World War II, who knew of the gas chambers and concentration camps, but went about their lives doing nothing, and even help the Nazis catch more Jews and other undesirables.

Think of the ordinary Cambodians during the Khmer Rouge bloodbath, as they slaughtered millions of their countrymen-most of them intellectuals and professionals who were considered counter-revolutionary-in one of the most despicable genocides we now know as the Killing Fields.

Think of the ordinary Spaniards during the Catholic Inquisition, ferreting out heretics in their communities, to be led to the gallows or the torture chambers. Think of the godly Puritans in Salem in the early days of the American colonies, accusing ordinary neighbors of witchcraft and sending them promptly to their deaths.

Think of the ordinary Chinese during the Cultural Revolution, forcing people considered corrupted by the bourgeois Western lifestyle to manual labor in the countrysides, or shamed in public demonstrations of mockery.

This descent to our hidden darkness has appeared time and again throughout history. Nobody is immune to this tendency.

back to top