Blindly Obedient to Authority, Non-responsive Bystander or Hero – What Will You Become in a “Bad Barrel”?

Given a set of conditions, or abnormal situation, how might each of us respond?

Research indicates that most of us can be manipulated to commit acts we would not normally do. For example, in the the Milgram obedience studies, sixty-seven percent of 1,000 participants and up to 90% under very specific conditions were convinced by an authority figure to ‘shock’ another person with up to 450 volts. Others, under an abnormal situation, will just stand by and watch those doing bad things and a very small number of us will become unwitting, but true, heros.

Here are some examples of each type of response to an abnormal situation:

Blindly Obedient to Authority
There were the normal college students that willingly became the bad guards in the Stanford Prison Experiment. Their situation included minimal supervision, one specific instruction to not use physical violence, uniforms, clubs and mirrored eye glasses to hide behind. The situation was exacerbated by a prisoner revolt on the second day of the experiment. It was all down hill from there. The two week experiment was ended after six days but not before the bad guards had resorted to sexually humiliating tactics.

There was Sgt. Ivan “Chip” Frederick who was sent to prison for 8 years, busted to private and given a dishonorable discharge for his leadership role at Abu Ghraib. His situation had him working twelve hour night shifts (4PM-4AM) 7 days a week, for 40 days with not one day off. The prison conditions were chaotic and unsanitary with filthy surroundings that made it smell like a putrid sewer. There was limited water for showering and frequent electrical blackouts that created dangerous opportunities for prisoner attacks. Sgt. Frederick had no mission-specific training and was put in charge of more than 300 prisoners initially. The number soon swelled to more than 1,000. In addition, he was in charge of 12 army reserve guards and 60 Iraqi police, who often smuggled contraband to the inmates. Up until he was put in this “bad barrel” built by various authorities, the Sgt. was a model reservist, good husband and father of two, a Baptist and a fisherman.

Non-responsive Bystander
These were the “good guards” from the Stanford Prison Experiment who put in their time and watched other guards become abusive of the other students and their power as guards with no intervention from the authorities.

There were many bystanders at different levels of participation at Abu Ghraib. Some were shown in the photos and many others were also very aware of the abuse. However, all but one did nothing to stop the abuse of people and power. Some of the bystanders included doctors and nurses.

Bystanders all assume that someone else will take responsibility and action.

Heros
There was Frank DeMartini, a Port Authority construction Manager, and his crew of Pablo Ortiz, Carlos DaCosta, and Pete Negron who helped evacuate up to 70 individuals from upper floors of the North Tower on September 11, 2001. Frank and his colleagues perished when the tower finally collapsed.

There was Jabar Gibson, a felon from New Orleans, who commandeered a bus, loaded it with neighbors and drove it to Houston before the government’s buses ever arrived.

There was Dr. Tom Cahill who stood up to the EPA and warned that air quality at Ground Zero was not safe.

There was Dale Sayler who acted in an instant and pulled an unconscious driver from a vehicle about to be hit by an oncoming train. He and 17 others have been recognized by the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission.

In 1940, there was Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese consul official in Lithuania, who signed over 2,000 visas allowing Jews to escape the Nazi invasion.

More recently, there was Wesley Autrey, a 50-year-old construction worker, father of 2 and Navy veteran. He dove in front of a subway train to save Cameron Hollopeter, who had fallen off the subway platform as the train approached.

So, which of these are we capable of being? The answer is that all of us can be any one of the three depending on the situation and our personal characteristics. Is there anything we can do to increase the likelihood of being the hero instead of a non-responsive bystander or mindless implementor of authoritarian dictates? According to The Banality of Heroism by Philip Zimbardo and Zeno Franco, there is.

What personal characteristics make the difference between a mindless implementor of authoritarian dictates, a non-responsive bystander and a hero? Refer to the table in John Dean Exposes The Authoritarians that Are Leading the Way for the list of character traits that might explain the first two character types. As for heros, here are some likely characteristics as derived from The Banality of Heroism:

• Dissent – A history of incidents in Chiune Sugihara’s life suggest he “possessed the internal strength and self-assurance necessary to be guided by his own moral compass in uncertain situations.”
• Challenge authority – Chiune Sugihara refused to “obey his government’s order to not help the Jews (and, by extension, comply with his culture’s age-old moré not to bring shame on his family by disobeying authority).” Challenge others to support their own principles and ideology. Avoid the herd mentality or mob rule.
• Be Mindful and analytical of a given situation
• Hold on to your values as you imagine alternative futures for a given situation
• Don’t accept rationalizations where the ‘righteous’ end justifies the means. Resist the seduction of evil.
• Remain hopeful that others will eventually recognize your actions are just. Be ready to accept the consequences of taking action – muster your courage in the face of personal risk.
• Establish and maintain a code of conduct that has proven its value over time.

Here is a quote from another hero. “It violated everything I personally believed in and all I’d been taught about the rules of war.” This quote is from Sergeant Joseph Darby concerning his singular and risky decision to expose what was happening at Abu Ghraib.

In Ten Questions with Dr. Philip Zimbardo, Dr. Zimbardo said:

To become a hero involves only two steps on humanity’s path:

• One must act; moving away from the passivity of the mass of silent observers of evil or threats to life by somehow being catalyzed into action in that setting.
• That action is taken on behalf of others; it is a socio-centric act against the evolutionary imperative of being ego-centric, of not taking risks or putting those precious genes in harm’s way.

With all that’s been said here about situations and personal traits, take another look at the “situation” in our country and review your actions. How are you participating? Are you blindly obedient to authority or a non-responsive bystander, or are you moving toward being a hero?