Breaking the Cycles of Violence
In August 1971, an advertisement appeared in the Palo Alto Times:
"Male college students needed for psychological study of prison life. $15
per day for 1-2 weeks..." Seventy men responded. Among them, two dozen were
chosen to participate in the experiment because based on interviews and a
battery of psychological tests they were judged to be the most normal,
average and healthy. They were then assigned randomly, by a flip of coin,
either to be guards or prisoners.
Those assigned to be prisoners were subsequently "arrested" in
their homes by Palo Alto police. They were booked at a real jail, then
blindfolded and led to the basement of Jordan Hall, which had been remodeled
to resemble a real prison. Each prisoner was searched, stripped naked and
deloused. They were then made to wear smocks with their prison ID numbers
both in front and in back. Those assigned to be guards were given uniforms
and instructed to maintain control of the prison but not to use violence.
What happened next was so shocking that the experimenters had to call off
the planned two-week experiment after only six days.
Two days into the experiments, the prisoners started to exhibit
rebellious behavior. They began to taunt and curse the guards and even stage
a revolt. The guards were enraged and retaliated, initially by using a fire
extinguisher. They broke into each cell, stripped the prisoners naked, took
the beds out, forced the ringleaders of the prisoner rebellion into solitary
confinement, and generally began to harass and intimidate the prisoners.
They also applied psychological tactics such as setting up a "privilege
cell" for model prisoners to break the solidarity among prisoners.
Alternately, they also put "bad prisoners" in the "privilege cell" in order
to create confusion, suspicion, and aggression among prisoners. By then,
these research participants had really taken on the roles that they were
randomly assigned to play.
Guards applied total control on each prisoner's life, including
going to the toilet. Repeatedly, guards also punished prisoners by forcing
them to do push-ups, jumping jacks, cleaning out toilet bowls with their
bare hands, and acting out other degrading scenarios. Often, they also
coerced prisoners to become snitches in exchange for reduced abuse.
Especially when they were bored or thought that the experimenters were not
watching, their treatment to the prisoners would escalate. The humiliation
and dehumanization got so severe that the experimenters had to frequently
remind the guards to refrain from such tactics.
The prisoners, on the other hand, started to experience acute
emotional disturbance and rage. They exhibited disorganized thinking,
uncontrollable crying, withdrawing, and behaving in pathological ways. As a
result, researchers had to release five prisoners from the experiment
prematurely. Other people connected to the experiment were also sucked in by
the situation. The experimenters forgot that they were there to observe and
collect data. Instead, they started to assume the role of prison staff and
supervisor. A priest who visited the prison started to contact parents of
the prisoners about arranging lawyers to bail them out. The parents, who had
visited the prison themselves, seemed to have forgotten that their sons had
the right to withdraw from the experiment. They actually started to arrange
lawyers. And a lawyer actually came... "("From Sing Sing to the Basement of
Jordan Hall," website:
http://psychology.about.com/library/weekly/aa060100a.htm)
That was more than 30 years ago. But to show you how far we
haven't
come as a society, these past three weeks our country has been reeling
from images that shock
our sensibilities. Images of American soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners
have
flooded the media. News of the brutal murder of Nick Berg left me in
tears
on Tuesday. Though I have not seen a replay of the video of his
horrific
death, I have been informed by some email colleagues that it is
available on
the web. Is the cycle that we have to replace the pictures of the
brutality/humiliation/ even death inflicted by our troops with
something that feels even more horrific by the enemy?
And so, The myth of redemptive violence comes into play. The
psychology that it’s o.k. because we’re doing this to ultimately
achieve peace or societal order. And we’re not as bad as those we are
fighting – these are just a few pictures – don’t forget that Hussein
tortured tens of thousands. And so the story goes on and the cycle
increases.
But where did it start? This is not about the immorality of a
few soldiers – it’s about a system of hatred. I believe that these
young men and women are the victims of a system that has said it’s o.k.
to hate and humilate as much as those they inflicted that humiliation
on. They will now be sacrificed and made example of – but it won’t
change the cycles of violence. It the mythic cycle – it’s the
justification because somehow it will bring “victory” ultimately.
Robert Jay Lifton – Professor of Psychology at John Jay College
-- has studied and written prolifically on the subjects of violence and
social order. He has offered important thoughts for us to reflect on
and to help find our ways out of this cycle of violence and atrocity.
There’s
an article on the “The Nation” website today entitled “Conditions of
Atrocity”: He writes, in reflecting on Colin Powell’s raising the
memory of My Lai at the Congressional hearings: “I also thought of My
Lai, but for somewhat different reasons. Both Abu Ghraib and My Lai are
examples of what I call an “atrocity-producing system” – one so
structured, psychologically and militarily, that ordinary people, men
or women no better or worse than you or I, can regularly commit
atrocities.”
In the case of Iraq, what ultimately drives the dynamic is an
ideological vision that equates Iraqi fighters with “terrorists” and
seeks to further justify the invasion. All this is part of the
amorphous, even apolcalyptic, “War on terrorism.”
Lifton goes on to say that individuals get sucked into this
mindset by undergoing a type of dissociation that he calls “doubling” –
the formation of a second self. Nazi doctors could continue to be
ordinary fathers and husbands when on leave from their murderous work
in Auschwitz. Tony Soprano is a likable fellow who cares about his
children but is in the business of maiming and killing. The individual
psyche can adapt to an atrocity-producing environment by means of a
subself.
In environments where sanctioned brutality becomes the norm,
sadistic impulses, dormant in all of us, are likely to be expressed. I
can’t help but think about how this permeates our lives. The “hazing”
practices of fraternities, or hearing the stories of High School
Sophomores terrorizing the Freshmen because it had been done to them.
It may seem innocent, but how often we give permission for humiliation
to be our instrument of superiority.
Lifton, in an earlier article, describes the “American
Apocalypse” saying that as the superpower, America now wants to control
history because of an underlying fear of vulnerability. 9/11 wasn’t
just a horrific and violent day – it was “humiliating” – the superpower
of the world was defenseless. So, in important ways, “the war on
terrorism”, including the Iraqi war is the impulse to undo violently
precisely the humiliation of 9/11.
How do we break the cycles of violence that have led to an
attitude that it’s o.k. to dehumanize or humiliate or brutally torture
another? Have we thrown up our hands and just said it’s impossible?
Life will never change?
One day this week I watched off and on as a fly tried to crawl out
from in between the screen and the storm window. At breakfast I watched as
he crawled rather vigorously over the whole screen cover, looking for an
exit. At mid-day I watched as he continued his search. He wasn't quite as
vigorous. Over and over he would get to the top, use his feelers, and crawl
back down the screen to start again. By suppertime he had somehow worked
his way to the other side of the screen but was still hopelessly stuck
inside the window. He kept crawling on the screen, but his movements were
very slow, and finally he curled up and became absolutely still. Every time
he got to the metal bar surrounding the screen, you see, he perceived it as
a barrier, and he sank back to the bottom again. If he had only dared go 10
centimeters further, he would have found the route to freedom. But because
he could not envision a world where a metal bar was a gateway and not a
fence, he stayed trapped.
How many times we stay stuck in the same kind of situation! We
refuse to offer forgiveness, or to ask for it. We refuse to extend a
healing touch. We settle for negotiated treaties and don’t really move
from our fixed positions instead of really trying to understand and
love “the other side”.
Robert Jay Lifton suggests that if we radically challenged this
worldview of the superpower, we would release the world and ourselves
from the spiraling violence. As a start, we do not have to partition
the world into two contending apocalyptic forces. We are capable
instead of reclaiming our moral compass, of finding further balance in
our national behavior. So intensely have we embraced the superpower
syndrome that emerging from it is not an easy task. Yet in doing so we
would relieve ourselves of a burden of our own creation – the burden of
insistent illusion. For there is no greater weight than that which one
takes on when pursuing total power.
To renounce the claim to total power would bring relief not only
to everyone else but, soon enough, to the leaders and followers of the
superpower itself. For to live out superpower syndrome is to place
oneself on a treadmill that eventually has to break down. In its
efforts to rule the world and to determine history, the superpower is,
in fact, working against itself, subjecting itself to constant failure.
It becomes a Sisyphus with bombs, able to set off explosions but unable
to cope with its own burden, unable to roll its heavy stone to the top
of the hill of Hades. Perhaps the crucial step in ridding ourselves of
the syndrome is recognizing that history cannot be controlled.
Stepping off the superpower treadmill would enable us to cease
to be a nation ruled by fear. Renouncing omnipotence would make our
leaders less fearful of weakness and diminish their inclination to
instill fear. Without the need for invulnerability, everyone would have
much less to be afraid of. I think Robert Jay Lifton has a key for us –
a way to frame our pleas for a change of policy – we may not be able to
break through the embedded mindset of our current administration – but
perhaps this is where we need to go to challenge John Kerry and others
seeking office for a new vision.
I want to close by taking us back take us back to this morning’s scriptures.
John records for us a long farewell speech by Jesus at the Last Supper.
And he gave them a gift and a promise -- a gift of peace and the promise of
the Holy Spirit. How I cling to Jesus' gift of peace -- he says he does not
give peace as the world gives it. This can only be good news.
Peace as the world gives is best defined as the absence of something -- the absence of
missiles flying overhead in the darkness, a negotiated settlement or
withdrawal plan, a leader who is taken out, a victory for one side over
another. Peace as the world gives is fleeting - it is like waiting for the
other shoe to drop, only now the shoe hitting the pavement is the detonator
of a massive suicide bomb designed to take out a city block or a bus filled
with passengers. Peace as the world gives tends to be defined by the
winners of a war, and that leads inevitably to another war as the losers
gain strength and seek to avenge their defeat. If we look to the world, or
a nation, or even an organization of nations, to give us peace, we will
forever be disappointed.
Jesus, thank the Lord, doesn't give us peace as an absence. He
gives us peace as his presence -- I am coming to you, he promises.
Jesus doesn't command us to like everybody, and that of course is
impossible. But he does command us to love, to work for another's good,
to plan for good and not for evil, and he
promises his peace to help us do that hard and often thankless task of
discipleship. Letting go of the need for control and power is one of
those steps that makes us ready to receive the peace he offers. It’s
such hard work but over and over again he calls on us to break out of
those destructive patterns personally and globally.
That is why the other text for today brings me comfort and hope. In
this passage from the Revelation to John we hear John describing a new
heaven and a new earth. It is a vision of indescribable beauty and light,
and John is lost in wonder, love, and praise.
In Chapter 18, the callous, exploitive city, Babylon, falls into
ruin. In it place is New Jerusalem, a new "Holy City" where God dwells and
all dwell with God and one another in Shalom.
A tour of the City reveals a river, a garden, and the "tree of
life." A tree reaching out with healing leaves for the nations and the river of life flowing through.
The gates are always open. No one is excluded. All who choose to live with
God and others in Shalom are welcome to come in. This is such a description
of plenitude, light, life, and peace. A compelling vision." (Bill Gordon)
John gives us a vision of life the way God has always intended it.
I don't know how much longer we will be given images of torture,
death, and pain. If the Stanford experiment is a good guide, in less than a
week we will become so desensitized to the images that we will be able to
watch them without blinking twice. That's not a long time to have your
world-view shaped by evil. How the world needs John's vision! This is not
a vision for any one particular country or time or place; it is a vision of
life as God has intended it and as God has made it possible through Jesus.
It is what "thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven"
looks like. How the world needs the church to embody this vision.