An examination of the claim that anybody will become evil when in an evil situation - The Lucifer Effect
Evil when done because you think it is your duty or because an authority figure
commands it is banal in the sense that there is something pitiful and drab and
unattractive about doing anything like you are not your own person. And when it
is evil it is so much worse. And the stupidity of using the excuse that you were
just doing what you were told is cringeworthy and is hideous in the way
irrationality is hideous.
So you may do evil for you were commanded to or asked to by somebody you look up
to as knowing better or who is seen as a higher dignity than you are. But if you
will suffer few significant adverse consequences or expect few or none then
what? Will you do evil as quickly then? Do you need requests and commands to do
harm? You do it for you don't feel responsible and that the responsibility is
their's. So if you think you can get away with it you won't feel responsible
either. Feeling not responsible is what drives you and it is present when you
are told to do evil and when you think you can avoid bad consequences you feel
permitted by that to do the bad deed. It is a case where the situation is giving
the permission or authority rather than a person.
Spontaneous group polarisation describes how a moderate easygoing person who
joins a group that validates and replicates the way she or he thinks and feels
will through debate and the example of others get gradually more ingrained in
the beliefs and even more extreme. That is why you can join a group that is bad
and soon you end up evil like it. It is why a person who claims to be pro-life
can still worship a Jesus who commanded his religion to keep God's rules
commanding that sinners such as adulteresses and bad sons be stoned to death.
The book The Lucifer Effect argues that we will all become dangerous and evil if
our lives become terrible enough. Studies on the Lucifer effect seemed to
support this. But further studies called it into question. If we cannot blame
our bad circumstances for turning us evil, then the evil is just part of us and
inside us in the first place. Evil circumstances make the evil person show their
true colours.
Every group is a gathering of individuals. A group will feel attacked if one
member is and cannot say, "It was done to John not us." It was done to the group
for John is in the group. The downside is that it goes two ways, if John is
harmed that about the group. But if John harms that is about the group too. You
cannot have it one way without having it the other too. The group is not a group
if there is anything one way in it. It is one-dimensional. It is like how saying
it is human to be kind but inhuman to be cruel backfires for it dehumanises the
person who is cruel. That person is made sub-human.
If anybody can be a Moses, Muhammad or Stalin then there is no room for an "us
not them" view. In fact having that view even about an evil group or class or
one seen as such is itself an act of oppression and hypocrisy. It is evil. If you
were in their situation and if you would do those terrible things then there is
no us versus them or them versus us. You are showing your evil by dehumanising
them and humanising yourself.