my god, what is wrong with people

[Guest guest]

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Sorry to send so many crappy stories.

[Guest guest]

Geez, the Salt Lake area is just teeming with abuse...

On Tue, Mar 29, 2011 at 4:48 PM, Girlscout Cowboy <

girlscout.cowboy@...> wrote:

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[Guest guest]

They should get exactly what they gave out.

No less. Life in a jail cell won't be punishment

enough. Utah shouldn't even have enough money to

feed them, give them cable tv, free medical care,

etc etc...

babyfoggy ...now freefroggynow

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[Guest guest]

pepper in the eyes is just gross. That is really sick,

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[Guest guest]

There is something about the level of sadism in this story that is particularly

reprehensible. Its hard to believe that human beings can be so overtly cruel to

(a) their own child and ( someone intellectually impaired who can't defend

herself or walk away like a normal adult can.

The scary part is that various experiments have indicated that given the right

circumstances, that ordinary, supposedly mentally healthy human beings are both

willing and able to be quite cruel to fellow human beings.

The willingness to subject another to cruelty is connected with: being

encouraged by an authority figure to inflict cruelty on others, and/or, being

given absolute power over others.

The two experiments I'm thinking of:

One had to do with setting up an arrangement in which one student was being

tested as to how quickly and accurately he would answer questions when an

unpleasant consequence was given for slow or inaccurate answers.

The " questioner " student was to give a mild electric shock each time the

" subject " student didn't do well.

The professor who set up the experiment, the " authority figure " , told the

" questioner " to incrementally increase the voltage of the shocks with each slow

or wrong response.

This experiment showed an appalling and unquestioning willingness on the part of

most of the " questioners " to increase the voltage to extremely painful levels,

even when he or she could see that this was causing great pain to the " subject. "

In reality, the " subject " student was not being shocked at all, but was acting

the part of receiving increasing levels of pain. The real subject of the

experiments was the " questioner. "

I believe (if I remember correctly?) the results showed that only one in 20 or

so " questioners " refused to continue the experiment out of concern for the

" subject's " pain, feeling that it was wrong to keep shocking someone like that.

Only one in twenty of the " questioners " who were the REAL subjects of this

experiment, had both human empathy/compassion for the hapless " subject " AND the

strength of character to challenge the authority figure by refusing to inflict

more pain.

The other experiment had to do with setting up a " prison " situation, randomly

choosing one set of students to be the prisoners, and another set of students to

be the " guards " who had absolute authority over the " prisoners. " I am less

familiar with the details of this experiment, but I believe if I recall

correctly that on the third day the experiment had to be halted because the

behaviors of the guards had devolved into the kinds of shocking, revolting

torture and abuse that went on at Abu Ghraib.

It just makes me wonder, if under the right (or more accurately, the WRONG)

conditions most people will behave in shockingly inhumane ways, what chance did

we as children have with parents who have a low-functioning or non-functioning

executive part of the brain that allows their emotions to rocket up and down

with virtually no control or filter?

Or, do these experiments mean instead that MOST human beings have only a

rudimentary amount of empathy, compassion, self-control, and a conscience?

-Annie

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