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January 12, 2005
How human is human, anyway?
Abuse, such as that at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, is something other people do, not us, we say. It's described as "inhumane", not human, as a way of dehumanizing the abusers. They are described as not viewing the captives as human, as if human should necessarily recognize human. As if just labelling someone else as "inhumane" removes their human essence. In truth the actions of some humans proves that humans are capable of all types of horrible acts. These acts are sadly, terrifyingly human.
Lost in all the stories about Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prison abuse is the fact that there's something about the wiring of the human brain that leaves this sort of abuse to be a real possibility. If the powers that be don't actively stop it, abuse will happen. The fact is that those with power benefit from the natural uprising of abuse. The fact that it springs up unbidden gives them the ignorance to avoid being responsible. Not fake ignorance: true ignorance. "No one asked for this," they can say. So people in power, like the Bush administration, who don't look to avoid it--if not actually run to embrace it--invite it take place by simply not saying "Thou shalt not...". Memos are written to explain international treaties as "quaint" but they don't even need to be written for the prisoner abuse to take place.
The soldiers who carried out the abuse claim "orders" were being followed, and that no "real harm" was done, or that harm was "asked for" by unruly prisoners; meanwhile, their parents run before press corps and defend their children as "good kids" in a "bad situation." Any and all of these reasons spring up on their own, but how is that possible? How can "good kids" do such horrors?
The Stanford Prison Experiment: A Simulation Study of the Psychology of Imprisonment shows how it is. Scary how human we are when we don't pay close enough attention to ourselves.
Posted by sferrell at January 12, 2005 12:43 PM
