Genocide: Nightmare At Your Doorstep

Reasons To Avoid This Topic

• Too controversial

• Traditional social psychology topics like conformity, attribution, aggression, etc.

• Less time can be spent talking about research from my laboratory

• There are many topics that I and other persons know more about

Reasons To Examine This Topic

• The importance of the topic suggests that social psychologists should have been studying this for years

• Social psychologists have skills and have developed a knowledge base not available to politicians, journalists, historians, etc

• Chance to talk about where we are going rather than where we have been

Premises We Will Adopt

• No moral judgment is implied in the labels ‘terrorist,’ ‘guerrilla,’ and ‘state.’ These simply describe activities that individuals and organizations employ to gain social influence.

• Terrorist, guerrilla and state organizations form a continuum. Larger organizations retain all the capacities of the smaller organizations, but smaller organizations lack some of the capacities of larger organizations.

Premises We Will Adopt

• Conceptual structures are best formed by allowing permeability between disciplines. Our structure will take from psychology, history, philosophy, art, politics, etc.

• No new forms of social interactions have occurred since 09-10-01. Thus, while we will not avoid discussing the present international climate, analysis of the current political situation is unlikely to yield any new principle of social influence.

Three Themes Will Introduce Our Topic

• Themes introduce some persons whose lives will help us understand terrorism, guerrilla and international war

• Themes begin a search for a structure to study terrorism, guerilla war and state conflicts as mechanisms of social influence

Theme 1: The Villa

Theme 1: My Friend’s Father

• What had produced the metamorphosis from executioner to kind father

• Was the image of the kind father a ruse

• Did the kind man and executioner co-exist concurrently

Theme 2: Beautiful Art

• Michaelangelo

• Jack Kerouac: On the Road

Theme 2: On The Road

• Hitchhiking as a vocation

• Blizzards and the failed photo essay

• Rescue in Ames

• Exit on Powell Street

Theme 2: Reappearance of Our Rescuer

• What social experiences led Kaczynski to renounce a successful career to become a techno-terrorist?

• Do ‘monsters’ have redeeming qualities

Theme 3: A Contrast of Leadership

• JFK at the Ambassador’s Residence

• The impracticality of Pope John XXIII

• Vatican Deathwatch: The morality of states

Theme 3: JFK in Berlin

• Rudolph Wilde Platz

• June 26, 1963

Theme 3: Arlington

• Gawking at the procession

• Dreams unfulfilled, a lack of closure

Theme 3: Arthur Schlesinger

• Advisor to President Kennedy

• A Thousand Days

• Age of Jackson

• The Age of Roosevelt

Theme 3: Schlesinger’s Analysis

• A sit-about Christmas: Schleisinger envisions the 21st century

• 20th Century marked by great ideological conflicts: WWI, WWII, the Cold War

• Triumph of Democracy: Destruction of empires, colonialism, fascism and Communism

Theme 3: Schlesinger’s Analysis

• Triumph of democracy creates a power vacuum

• Power vacuum allows expression of old hatreds

• Creates an international environment dominated by:

• Genocide

• Terrorism

Joshua at Jericho

Salem Witch Trials

• In 1692, 20 were executed in Massachusetts

Turkish-Armenian Genocide

• 1.5 million of 2.5 million Armenians in Turkey were exterminated between 1915 and 1923.

• "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"

Holocaust

• Six million Jews (67% of Europe’s population) were exterminated

• Others: Roma, mentally retarded, mentally disturbed, 3 million Soviet POWs, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Communists, Socialists

Cambodia: Killing Fields

• Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge kill 1.7 million (21% of population)

Rwanda

• In 1994, within 100 days 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus are exterminated

Kosovo: Ethnic Cleansing

Questions Involving Genocide

• Will genocide be a consistent state of affairs during the next several decades?

• Under what conditions should the US intervene to prevent genocide?

• To what extent should color, culture, religion and economics matter?

• What social conditions lead otherwise good women and men to kill their neighbors?

William Shirer’s Analysis

• Pioneering foreign correspondent

• Wrote Berlin Diary

• Wrote Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

William Shirer’s Analysis

• Why did so few Germans resist working in the concentration camps?

• A summation of western history since the Magna Carta

• Flaw in German national character

• Implies that a German-style concentration would not flourish in the US, Britain, France, Italy, etc

Adolph Eichmann

• Supervised trains during the ‘Final Solution’

• Imprisoned in American POW camp

• Captured by Israelis in 1961, tried and executed

Hannah Arendt and Adolph Eichmann

• Arendt was a prominent social philosopher employed by the New York Times to cover the Eichmann trial

• Summarized her conclusion in Eichmann in Jerusalem: On the Banality of Evil

Arendt’s Question: What kind of person would contribute to the deaths of millions of people?

• Slightly above average intelligence, no sign of pathology on psychological tests, good organizer

• Other than during the ‘Final Solution’ there is o evidence of criminal activity

• Viewed himself as a good soldier who believed that not one Jew died because he was born

• Arendt’s Hypothesis: In obedience to authority the average person will commit extreme anti-social actions such as mass murder.

Mai Lai

William Calley

• Led massacre of 300 unarmed women, children, and elderly

• Sentenced to life at hard labor

• Served 5 months and was pardoned by Nixon

• Married and living a ‘normal’ life outside of Ft Benning, GA

Hugh Thompson

• put his guns on Americans, said he would shoot them if they shot another Vietnamese, had his people wade in the ditch in gore to their knees, to their hips, took out children, took them to the hospital...

• Awarded Soldier’s Medal in 1996

• Living a ‘normal’ life

Theories of Obedience to Unjust Authority

• Nazis were an aberration in history

• Shirer: Flaw in German character

• Arendt: Flaw in human character

• Milgram: A social psychologist looks at obedience

Milgram’s Baseline Procedure

Milgram’s Baseline Procedure

• 63% shock to the limit (STL)

Questions From Milgram’s Paradigm (1)

• Is blind obedience to authority a distinctly American characteristic?

• Did the ‘teacher’ enjoy shocking the ‘learner?’

• Does the status of the authority figure affect obedience?

Questions From Milgram’s Paradigm (2)

• Does the personality of the victim affect obedience?

• Are the personalities of the maximally obedient and maximally rebellious subjects different?

• How would a moral person respond in Milgram’s study?

Questions From Milgram’s Paradigm (3)

• Were Milgram’s results predictable?

• Why are Milgram’s results surprising?

• A naive belief in the relationship of morality to behavior

Ethical Criticisms of Milgram’s Work

• No true informed consent

• Participants experienced significant stress

• Long-term negative effects on self-worth

Milgram’s Response To Ethical Criticism

• Extensive debriefing

• Follow-up surveys were generally favorable

• Benefits to society

Follow-up of Milgram’s Participants

• 80% reported that they were “Very Glad” or “Glad” they participated.

• 15% had “No Strong Feelings”• Just over 1% were “Sorry” or “Very Sorry”• 80% said more research of this kind should be done. • 74% said they learned something of lasting value.

A Question Mark: The Cost of Ethics?

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How To Get Good Men and Women To Murder Their Neighbors

• Get them to say:

• I hate or

• I would never