Canadian_watcher wrote:I'm still missing it - what is the common mistake?
Losing sight of their humanity.
I'm actually making a slightly different argument than Zimbardo does about how that process occurs. But both of us think it's a perceptual error that almost all people make when they feel empowered to. But he's put more thought into it than I have. So you should probably look to him and not me for the details.
Speaking of which...
compared2what? wrote:Incidentally, that tyrant thing is exactly what Zimbardo hypothesizes leads to situational evil -- ie, it's enabled by that kind of alteration to the power dynamic
I do not follow.
I don't blame you.
What I meant by both that and the "even more so" thing that you also queried a little further on was something that's really a part of my argument, not Zimbardo's. Feel free to disregard it.
What I'd like to know, though (and this is important) is how can we question such things, then?
I don't know how to answer that. "Do unto others" should always be somewhere in there, imo. But I'm sure you think that too. I really don't know. As honestly as you can? Maybe? I don't know, C_w. I'm not the boss of you. This is way too much pressure for me. It's up to you.
Do you allow for the possibility that the government or some agency would ever use actors in these situations?
I allow that it's possible that there are situations in which a person or entity with enough resources to do it might. Including the government or some agency. I don't see why it should be limited to them, though. That'd just be inviting all the other bad actors to run amok.
As to the rest, I'd like to tell you that you are shaming me and others - most obviously Dave McGowan.
No, I'm not. Has nobody on this board ever heard of "me" statements? Besides Willow? As in: "I feel shamed when...." rather than "You are shaming me when...."
I recommend it. It's a very libertarian approach to personal-responsibility-taking. I'm not shaming anyone, least of all Dave McGowan, whom I have no reason to think is acting in bad faith and whom I've never accused of anything except being mistaken in an aspect of the work that he publicly posted on the internet, thereby inviting responses of that kind from anyone who cared to make one.
That's a fair criticism. It's not like I'm rushing to judgment by calling him a henchperson of evil powers just because I don't know that he's not.
By failing to address the substance of his writing and choosing instead to associate him verbally and visually with horrors that have happened in the past you shame not only McGowan, the writer,
Oh, like hell. The crisis-actor hypothesis is politically, intellectually and morally central to the substance of his writing. And I'm addressing it.
but also the people who speak up in even glancing support of it. You also prevent anyone else from speaking up in support. (If they are more shy than some of us here, that is)
Did you miss the part of the thread where I not only practically begged conniption to come back and disagree with me, but also all but wrote an outline draft disagreement for him to use or discard as he wished?
I do not.
A lot of things sound like pitches made by cults. AA comes to mind. Cancer support groups. Every non-cult church on earth. . It's all about making people feel okay enough about their deep hidden questions and curiosities, making them understand that there's a community for them so that they don't feel isolated and alone. I think that's better than the alternative.
Not if it's intentionally or unintentionally deceptive. And I made a more specific argument for that possibility than that it was kinda like a cult pitch.
Ugh. The length. I hate myself.
