In the Lucifer Effect- a book by Philip Zimbardo - tells of an experiment conducted in the sixties in Standford University. Students were chosen to carry out an experiment in the basement of the university. A prison was recreated and by the flip of a coin 7 students were held hostage while the other 7 students were the prison guards. The guards had absolute power over the victims (except for physical violence) and the experiment was meant to last 2 weeks. Yet, at the end of the 6th day the experiment had to be ceased - victims having nervous breakdowns. The guards, that unleashed their evil, had to go under therapy for years to come. My question then is: is Man, when given absolute power, evil?
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“Is the man when given absolute power, evil?”
I still believe that every man is good inside, but also I can see many times that situations change us.
Yesterday I saw a movie in which a man was driving with his son and in matter of seconds, somehow he didn’t pay attention to the road and the car drove off the road a little bit, enough to…kill the child standing there, and..what did he do? He…drove off.
What happened? Why good father, normal human being, could do such a thing?
Fear..? Moment out of control? Can be anything. Situations..change us.
Especially when we’re faced with fear, tragic moments, so…maybe when we’re faced with absolute power it can change us too.
As the video, or a book “Lucifer Effect” shows, it can, and it does.
But ..why? Does a man cannot deal with too much..of control, fear…?
Does a man cannot act properly in extreme situations? Why? Aren’t we ourselves in such moments?
I guess we’re not. And it also means that taken to extreme, we simply lose control of our mind.
Impulse takes priority, and everything that is good just cannot surface somehow.
But still…we’re not evil.
We’re just simple human beings that can love and..hate sometimes, that can smile and cry, that can.. feel.
And maybe, just maybe, because of those emotions we are taken by the river of live, and when the current is too strong…we’re…let ourselves drown.
love
Agnieszka
In my opinion, No.
Humans have a nasty tendency in to believing that they are not free, or even worse they can make themselves slaves with so many things, that when they adquire some power they would do their “will”.
Another “help” to this behavior is the tendency of each one of us to make the “forbidden” things and when the Moral leash is gone (usually because of adquiring power) then we tend to do exactly as the opposite as the “perfect” society would like us to do.
But on top of all those wicknesses I would say that everybody has the opportunity to stand to those temptations as we can certanly read in the Bible, that God just allow the temptations that He knows we can fight. Well thats what I believe.
there is a saying that power corrupts… so many generals who changed when in power and became cruel dictators. But also leaders who didn’t care about the power, but about the people.
Thankyou for linking to the video, very interesting!
Existió un hobre que era un rey muy poderoso y ante él se presentaron dos mujeres que decían ser las dos la madre de un niño. El rey resolvió que el niño fuera partido por la mitad para repartirlo y en ese momento la madre verdadera gritó y dijo nooooo. dárselo a ella.
Desde ese momento Salomón que era el nombre de ese rey tan justo supo quien era la madre verdadera y relolvió darle el niño a la mujer que había renunciado a él.
Moraleja: La inteligencia hace que el mal quede en segundo plano a pesar de tener poder suficiente para destruir optamos por el progreso ya que si no iríamos en contra de nosotros mismos.
Un beso Paulo esto recuerda a tu libro: “El demonio y la Sta. Prym que se ha considerado en la Universidad como tema a debate.
Another thought came to my mind.
The absolute control gives a man a feeling of being….God, and that’s a very powerful feeling, so big that I think it can drive a man crazy,… can make him a monster, an evil.
love
Agnieszka
Yo creo en el AMOR.
Man is what made him man.
His true beauty shows in the moments of equilibrium in his four powers.
But inherent in him are tremendous, horrible and wonderful powers.
We are all infinite; there is no difference.
No sé si he entendido bien la pregunta, pero contesto a lo que me pareció entender. No sé muy bien el inglés.
Ni todo es blanco ni todo es negro. Quiero decir que cuando la gente tiene poder puede emplearlo de muchas maneras. Hay gente que lo utiliza para hacer el bien y otra para hacer el mal.
Sea como sea, PAZ y AMOR.
A wise man could not fight for absolute power. So, yes, inevitably, a “Man, when given absolute power cooperates with evil”. On earth, in all case.
Where the only person that could live this absolute one in good, would be the Messiah Christ.
I’d like to add, that often, people that follows Christ’s path, have never enough time to reach “absolute power”.
They are killed before.
But that’s not because some wanted to see them dead, that they had not absolute power, in alive’s heart. They got someone holier: the power of love.
Power without love and compassion, is not a power anymore in a way. But something that’s dedicated to die, in any way.
Love.
De todas formas sólo a un Ser con poder absoluto y ese es Dios.
De todas formas sólo hay un Ser con poder absoluto y ese es Dios.
It s all about choice…to follow this or the other path on the road…sometimes power is good..i have heard many people say, i would do this if i had the power or would do that if i had that power…
yet sometimes, those who have power tend to want more and more power…they become greedy…and that can never be good..BUT
I belive that we all have power..great power..and the greatest of all is Love.This is the absolute power..And we have it!!!God has given us the absolute power, and it is on us to spread this power!
Love that can change the world..Love that can end wars we battle with ourselves, and that can bring us back Home…bring us to Life…
Spreading Love
We are all so beautiful if we let Love take over us…
Agnieszka: “The absolute control gives a man a feeling of being….God, and that’s a very powerful feeling, so big that I think it can drive a man crazy,… can make him a monster, an evil.”
Totally Agree with you, but I must add that it is caused because we are never “trained” to handle such power, and when somebody comes in touch with it cant control it anymore and becomes a slave of his own dark desires.
yes…Isaias,
but..
I would say, we weren’t created to feel like God,
because only God knows how having endless power treat a man with respect and love, and never, ever hurt anybody,
for only God loves us unconditionally.
YES & NO
YES IN THE SHORT TERM, NO IN THE LONG TERM.
power which is given or obtained without a proper understanding of the responsibility associated with it, gets misused by evil tendencies. all power is given only for some responsibilities, and there too normally the power is less than the magnitude of responsibility associated with it. hence power without responsibility does get used up by evil tendecies first; but humans are not evil, after sometime when one sees the evil, the havoc caused by evil use of power, and sooner or later everyone sees this, the good takes over.
people who are to be entrusted with power needs to be first carefully made aware of the responsibilities that go with excercise of power, the potential misuse and its harmful consequnces for both the preparators and victims; this maynot stop misuse of power by evil tendencies but the recovery would be faster.
yes…Annie..power of love..
so many songs are about it, we dream about it, we wish for it. it is the most beautiful and the greatest power of all.
If we could have this love
to give..
if we could have this power..
we could…
take away the pain.
lots of love
Agnieszka
We learned a lot of negative things of our
parents. Its to us to reconditioning this
behavior.We say we will never do the same
things like our parents,but we are doing
just the same things.Its genetic determed.
We have to be alert of the dark side of ourselfs.Every person has his own devil in himself.A human has the property to misabuse
his power especialy when he is feeling that
another person is weaker then himself
Most certainly, but it is our duty to fight the good fight and not give in to evil. We must not give in to that deadly Sunday afternoon feeling. We all know the difference between right & wrong, it is instinctively within us. Some need longer than others to become aware of his, some for whatever reason, sadly never do!
I believe that good and evil reside in all beings. If you have power, it can be used either way. Human beings have the desire to control others. This ensures that their needs are met. Some will go to any length to obtain that control, including the abuse of others.
Giving up control and the desire for it is the only way to live in harmony. If the heart rules, the gut will concede.
why when thinking about absolute power we think about evil? because they have taught us that…why concentrate on the negative?? why dont we think about love??? most of the replies i read are about the power that we can gain and about our dark side..why dont we consider love as the absolute power???
the power that can move mountains..and bring warmth in the cold hearts…..
Love to all of you
p.s Dear beautiful Agnieszka…you spread so much love through your words…..
What is absolute power? These guys were given the role of prison guards over hostages so they were already assigned roles which have subconscious connotations and dynamics. If they were told you are healers and these are your patients would the outcome have been the same?
It seems to me that the power they thought they had here was dictated by the scenario they were given because they allowed it to be. And because of that they became as much the victims to it as the hostages - which is not power at all. To be able to rise out of those roles and be something completely different might have demonstrated a use of power.
Power is neutral and beyond duality. Those who truly understand power on an experiential level rarely, if ever, use it because they know that they do not need to.
It is very easy to say to give love to someone.
but if you never received the love of your parents its very difficult to give love.
These people has a long way to go to discover to give love to someone else.First of all we have to love ourself (compassion)
to Annie: what happens is that even love when is missused can cause a lot of damage, my parents (and most parents) do things to us believing that were the best for us and they did it truly out of love but it just hurts us very deeply.
As i mentioned in one of my previous posts, when we dont know how to handle power (of any kind) we just misuse it, simple as that…
to Agnieszka: i understand your comment and I agree also with the fact that we were not created to feel, behave or believe that we are Gods.
But that will never erase the truth of us being in constant touch with different kinds of powers: trusted to us and not trusted to us, stealed from others or just a deserved reward and when the time comes of having such power, if you dont know what to do with it, it usually ends up in stepping onto others or cause irrevocable damage in other people.
I think we all should had been “trained” by our parents on that topic but the responsibility is ours today.
thank you Annie, you too
lots and lots of love
Agnieszka
No.
Man is not evil. Man is an animal.
Hierarchy instincts are woven deep within the subconscious. Being in power (take alpha males for example) was the key to survive while we weren’t much different from the other apes.
And it won’t go away. It might seem disturbing today, especially when it shows up this intensively, it’s part of every one of us.
“Power corrupts”, that’s right. Power lets the weak break free of their chains. The sudden freedom from authority brings out every bit of suppressed aggression. They are no longer “a lower class citizen”, “a loser ex”, “a bad child”, etc. They feel strong and all-powerful in their little world. They can avenge every insult they’ve taken, and with a small hint of madness, go much further than that.
And others can use the power to build. The right man in the right place at the right time can make miracles.
This ambiguity is not the only one however. Striving to protect our loved ones is just another instinct, from the same root. Working hard for your family vs. killing your own children, thinking they’ll be better that way, are two realisations of this drive, for example.
What makes us human is the extra layer of mind that controls the instincts. Instincts are neutral, they don’t make us neither good nor evil.
Instincts are common (probably genetic, I’m not authorized to say so), everything above is different for every person.
It is easy to find excuses in extreme situations but what about our everyday lives - I believe that we can test our ability to be good in the simpliest steps. The line between good and bad lies most deffinitely in everybody’s heart and we do not have to kill somebody or torture them to choose the evil. The seducer isn’t only power but any kind of special skill, ability, talent, any occasion to feel better, more advanced than the others. Extra gifts shoul be understood as extra responsibility, extra powerful gadget that can cause extra harm.
Greetings to all the light-hearted people on this blog…Barbora
Totally agree with you, Rebecca. The participants in that experiment were placed in a situation filled with a subconscious image of what are the guardians of hostages. More, they had no absolute power, they had not options to free the hostages or do anything really good for them.
We must know that there is a difference between doing good and just not doing evil. Saying in the way of the ancient stoics, if to do good is good, not to do evil can’t be good (we don’t do good), ergo, not doing evil is evil too.
Anyway, I think the question is… let’s say “logically incorrect”, Paulo: Man cannot be given absolute power because only the God have absolute power. If a man have absolute power, he is no longer a man, but a God and the question turns to: is God, having absolute power, evil?
But speaking of a relative power over the others… For me it’s a question of the concrete person. There is persons who won’t loose their mind receiving a great power, there’s others that receiving the same power will unleashes their hidden aggressiveness. Hitler and De Gaulle… the emperors Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus and Marcus Ulpius Traianus… so many examples!…
Finally I suggest everyone of us to look deep inside his soul and memories, but honestly! We will be forced to admit that in our lives there were situations, we did react aggressively and did evil without any reason (and even if there were a reason, is this an excuse?) and there were situations where we were a really good persons even if we were in that cases frustrated by others.
So, are we, everyone of us, when given a great (but not absolute - impossible!) power, evil?
If there is such person, let her to hurl the first lapidae.
The Lion and Fox. Living together.
Can a man turn into a god ?
Are all powerful people evil ?
What is written in your DNA ? And about Lion DNA ? And also about Fox DNA ?
King Arthur, the Sword into the Stone.
And about your south ? What is written on it ?
Power ?
Who is really powerful ? The master or the Slave ?
And then the sun turned itself off.
And the crow said: Never more.
The king is naked. We can be anything. If the Master say: Be devil… We will be devil.. If Master say: Be goodness.. we will be good…
Who is your Master ?
That’s my answer.
Just a correction:
When I said South I would say Soul. Anyway it would be related deeply.
Thanks for you attention.
Everybody knows that God left us the right to choose our own way of conduct.Of course we, people are not evil inside,but,sometimes some of us are overwhelmed by the desire to dominate and the illusion of power make them akt in the worse way.That is why wise men have to learn the lesson of humiliation and obedience,in order to controll their agresivity and anger.Is the case of monks ,disciples, and not only.Of course, the , competition,even unfair can spoil the behaviour of some men. We must accept some times to be in the second place,I disagree with the ideea to be first at any cost.Maybe I am wrong,but I think in our times people make to little physical effort and motion or ,why not, martial arts including meditation could help people to burn their bad energy.
i think at every turn we try to destroy ourself(physcial) and evolve into something new…it is like the fruits decaying to let the seeds grow…
Dear Joël
I sincerely hope that you were loved by your parents. We should try to imagine that perhaps our parents were also not shown love (at least not in a preferred or understandable manner), so it could also be difficult for them to love us as we would like them to?
Despite the pain we feel by being (perhaps) neglected, we must STOP THE CHAIN REACTION, we should honour our parents and be thankful that they gave us life. We must believe that they loved or love us still, and always will. (Compassion) Smile :-)
The simple fact of feeding us, clothing us, giving us a warm bed, is an act of LOVE!
Love, Paul
I think the power is the thing that is evil not necessary the person or the situation .Power can either make you or break you …Blessings Tania
I do believe that certain people are born with a predisposition for good and bad. I’ve known people who have had fantastic lives who enjoy being evil & then I know people who have had fantastic lives who love to help & nurture others. It’s not the power…it’s the person. Sometimes people are mistreated as children & then that effects the way they feel towards other people b/c they were bullied they grow up to bully. In this day and age we have so many ways to control and manipulate people. Anyone can spy on your email, phone conversations etc. The media can sway & manipulate truth to make the ratings. There will always be power b/c some people need to be lead but it’s what you do with that power that shows your true nature. So to answer the question, yes I believe that some human beings, when given absolute power are predisposed to evil but that depends on the person & what is inside of them. It all gets down to what a man is made of.
When power is the master from yourself you forget where it comes from and lose yourself in forces which destroy
the student and the master.
We all need to learn from each other with love.
Love
All Ways
Hildegarde
Thanks Paul,
In 2007 i lost both my parents. First my father
and 3 months later my mother.
My father was a very dominant person,therefore
i hated him, because he was insulting me in front of people,he could not appreciate me , he could not say if i did something good and he destroyed my self-confidence and so on.
At the moment he was dying i possed myself the question do i love my father.
I get immediately the response,then i burst in tears at that moment i kwew i loved my father.
I went to my father to the hospital i sad to my
father: despite everything what you did to me
i forgive you and i still love you and go in peace father. My father loved me , but he had
never the courrage to say it to me.
Nothing is absolute but God. Evil and good are in every one of us except for her who was conceived without the original sin, the virgin María. For the mortal rest of us, evil is going to be as big as our limits let us be. And power is not thet thing that make me able to be evil because to be evil is to be impotent, to be evil is against the power. I consider myself at least a bit smart, so i try to dont do those things that make me impotent, like been evil, so i have to restraint myself in order to not to be a big evil whatever. Some will not agree with me, so i have to remaind that in order to be bigger is necesary to be smarter, and then i go back to the limits issue.
I know this story about a man of my town: he was born with only seven months of pregnancy and obviously he sufered the consequences: as he was growing he developed every day a mental handicap: he was unable to prevent himself from smashig, sicologically speaking, against others’ egos. He was socially retarded and evil because of his lak of the social hability of maintaining his ego away from the others’. Basically is what we, the mature society know as pure, plain and basic respect and the barbarians dont know. Later he fixed some aspects and mixed in the society, but he is still evil as evil. If he was born 1000 years ago he would rise an empire. Maybe, 60 years ago… or last year… Whatever, i dont judge him, only keep the distances but God will judge those that should but didnt do what they would, and they are all fine persons, they are good! It is because of cases like this that I, sometimes, question the existence per se. The answer have to be another existence or existences.
My thoughts are very much aligned with Rebecca , Philippe and Antonio Gomes. Students were assigned roles, and they were doing their best to play them. There is a 3 parts video(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o0Nx31yicY&feature=related) which proves it fully: the guardian who thought the experiment must be to prove a point that prisons must be cruel and horrible places, and started the first incidents that triggered the rest (an assumption, but with real results none the less). The same guardian watched “Cool hand luke”, a film filled with guardian stereotypes right before the experiment and decided he wants to be like the guards in that movie. The prisoners that were told that their lives are in total control and were biologically manipulated to have no reality anchor, etc.
• But did they had no power, really? Who takes away the power to discern between classroom consequences and real consequences of our actions? Who takes away the decision of what and how the next action of mine should be? The real power is that of deciding your identity and acting it, and I think they chose to give it away, thus letting their minds and souls be at the mercy of their “master”, who created whatever identities he needed.
There is another experiment done in the ’60, equally controversial, called the Pygmalion effect (Rosenberg effect, or self-fulfilling prophecy) in which teachers were told they had children separated into 3 groups: high-achievers, average and low-achievers. Even though abiding by the teaching ethical codes, the teachers were still treating the children differently (subconsciously). Within one year, high-achievers were high achievers, averages were really average and low-achievers were partially low and partially high. After one year, they revealed that the children were randomly assigned in those groups, the teachers created reality by acting out their expectations.
How much are we at the mercy of other people’s expectations of us? Or at the mercy of our own assumptions of what those expectations might be? How much were the students reflecting the superintendent’s expectation of them acting their roles?
{Derived from this, if the influence of people we want is cherished and appraised (aka, even praises you receive from readers), and we welcome the changes these people bring into ourselves, are the negative influences of others really an excuse? How does one tell before it is too late? }
I think your question, Sir Paulo, applies to Zimbardo. I find it difficult to believe that no other teacher/ laboratory assistant visited the experiment, until the 6th day, considering the number of students involved. The first official outsider that saw it stopped it. By this I understand Zimbardo was not given absolute power, he took it, and became enslaved by it. So much, that in the 3rd day, when a prisoner wanted out, acted like the warden and not the psychologist, and did not release it. And even in this case, the key is not the power gained shortly, but, as Antonio put it, what was his “master” that made him want it so badly?
Watching those videos I could not help noticing that the guardians interviewed years later were showing signs of dominant personalities and prisoners were submissive in style. Were those their personalities before, which would indicate a hoax experiment, invalidated by being fully induced (random allocation inexistent), or did they turned out to become as it was expected of them?
“All that is needed for bad things to happen, is for good people to do nothing”. In this case, do nothing in actions and choosing to do nothing in their minds as well.
Is Man evil? I think yes, man is capable of both evil & good, before or after power, given or taken. On how we harness ourselves in using the powers given or taken in our lives, we end up influencing people around us, and most importantly, ourselves.
This question is tricky - it´s an illusive trap that anyone person can be given absolute power over anyone else but themselves..
That said, it depends on which man is “given absolute power”.
What motivates this person? Does he or she come from love or from fear inside?.
Fear prepertrates fear and love generates love. Fear destroys, love nourishes and creates, regenerates.
If we choose to use our personal power over others, we stay powerless about dealing with our own issues and ourselves. Maybe it often happens the other way round, being powerless about dealing with our own lives, the impulse is to dominate othes. This generates fear inside us and fear generates fearfull behavior which is increasingly heartlesss and unconcious. When we are out of touch with our hearts, unconcious and afraid, we behave accordingly and become evil to a “small” or desastrous degree, or anywhere in between. The victim and the tyrant are both powerless in their roles. Power can be extremelly seductive, - and it´s a destructive force for all involved.
As I see it we really only have power over our own lives. if we choose to use our personal power to heal our selves and grow, we can become conscious of who we really are. This awakens a natural longing in us to contribute to the best of all and power over others becomes irrelevant.
Dear Joel,
I am so sorry for your loss, I know what it means.
But…
What you did set you free.
How can your father not love you? of course he did, somebody with the heart like yours.:-)
love
Agnieszka
Thanks Agnieszka,
You are right.
What i didn’t know that i was afraid to show
my love to my father and also my father to me.
Love ,
Joël
Dear Joël,
I hope I didn’t bring back too many painful memories for you, but believe what Agnieszka said, your Father did love you and the most likely reason for him not being able to show it to you during his living years, is that he was treated in much the same manner, or he experienced something very traumatic which he was never able to get out of his system. (Sorry I just can’t find the right English words for that)
You did what your heart told you, you forgave him and expressed your love for him before he died. This stopped the chain reaction and his soul will surely have found the peace it deserved at last.
You can be very proud of yourself, you had the courage to do something which set at least two souls free (yours and your fathers) but by stopping the chain reaction, you have freed the souls of future generations….your children perhaps?
God bless you, and much love, Paul
This is a great topic, and I loved the video.
Absolute power, though a myth, is often something many people search for and strive for. Really, no one can ever have absolute power over anyone one else, for that person has power of their own that at least counteracts your own power a bit.
What we search for is absolute power over ourselves. This is truely the greatest power, and something I feel everyone should work towards. The control of ones self, your own actions can be the hardest thing to obtain. But, also, even if obtained, it is difficult or even impossible to actually manifest in a way that you can realize that you have achieved this goal.
As such, in order to show that we have absolute power over ourselves, some people will choose to display absolute power over others. Very similar to what happened here. The guards used their power over the prisoners to in a way show the power they had over themselves. This actually backfires becuase as the guards displayed their power over others, they lost control and thus power over themselves.
This really goes into the group think dynamic that is becoming a popular topic of study and debate. It examines in more detail how people act as individuals compared to how they act within a group.
Now, when you look back at history, as has been mentioned by others in this power, there are leaders in this world who have shown the ability to maintain power overthemselves while obtaining power over others as well. Those who can do both have the opportunity and ability to create truely great things. Those who can not, only have the ability to destroy.
Thanks Paul for your kindly reaction.
Its true , i walked almost the same path
as my father, but i met a wise man ,he showed
me the way of the heart , thanks to him i
became a new person , before i was a agressive
and impulsive person most people were afraid of me.I have long way to go to find my dream.
Maktub
HI ! All !!
I read all the comments here with interest. damn interesting, so many angles !
i saw
Anlao, Rebecca , Philippe and Antonio Gomes’ throwing thought provoking perspectives, others quite emotive !
The group who was expereimenting, should delve deeper with inputs from this dicsussion. when given absoulte power AND a given scenario, people behaved in a partuicular manner ! it would be interesting to carry out similar experiment in many places across the globe, to asses cultural impacts if any, and to answer the question, change the scenario randomly as suggested by Rebecca ! may be in 50 places, 100 expereiments both scenario.
only thing that must be carefully thought out is when to call off, how to mitigate damages to the participants.
at this time my thought goes with ” when given absolute power, man in neither good or bad, but depending upon what kind of person he presently is evil or love may take over;” depending upon how much of a man the person is, depending upon how much of him is not yet man ( borrowing from Kahlil Gibran ), he will behave .
love
aditya
Joel,
My love to you also. I’m thinking about my father, who lost his father whilst not having quite put right their differences…and also a friend of mine, who lives apart, physically but not mentally, from his abusive father.
You are indeed blessed…and Life will bring more blessings through your understanding nature and maturity.
Live for Love
xxxx
Dear LEAF, welcome back, hope the gods in white were good to you, Love Paul
Thanks Leaf,
For your nice reaction.I hope for your friend
that he makes peace with his father as soon as
possible.He has not to wait until he dies.
I know it is not easy, that is the combat of a warrior of light.
That is the challenge of your friend.
Live is to short to make war ,try to enjoy the little things of live.
I thanks to everybody for the beautifull
reactions you gave me.It keeps my heart
warm.I did not realise there are so many
kindly people
I don’t want domminate the blog of Paulo
and thanks Paulo that i may used it.
LOVE to EVERYBODY
Joël
PS : a advise to your father,he can write a letter to his father with honnest feelings comming of the heart.It sounds stuppid.
Then he has to burn it on a beautifull pleace
PS: But don’t forget to keep that letter sealed in a hidden place, 21 days before you burn it. The universe looks after the rest….
Dear Joel, I know this message was not for me, but only wanted to tell you that it is beautiful not stupid to write the letter…
love
Agnieszkaa
No, a man given all power is not necessarily evil, at least not all mankind.
Thinking about this more, I still have to conclude that some people are predisposed to either good or evil. If you look back on History, certainly has provided situations which have led to incredible acts of both good and evil.
But, I have to wonder, given a different set of circumstances, would Hitler have been a different person? What about Ghandi or Martin Luther King Jr?
History has given us plenty of examples of people who have shown that put into the very worst possible situations they still have an amazing propensity for good, for helping their fellow man. While other have shown an amazing desire to learn toward evil, to seek the destruction and create suffering all around them.
I do think that some people are born either good or evil, and they tend to dictate their circumstances as opposed to having their circumstances dictate them. Men like Martin Luther King Jr, Ghandi and Nelson Mendela expirences some of the very worst this world has to offer in the form of racism. However, they never resorted to violence or the destruction of others. They preached love, togetherness and the improvement of society.
Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini did the exact opposite. The killed, tortured, and destroyed civilization all around them. Given different circumstances in life, I feel these men would have been the exact same.
no
Thanks Paul and Joel.
xxxx
Love to all
Who ever came up with the idea to do that was unethical, thats where the evil in this story springs from. If you read up on the unabomber in the US. He was also subject to tests from “university” experts.
What was that about breaking eggs//
I do not believe that people can be inherantly evil. I think it the case of the psychology experiment that you refer to it shows an ease for people in positions of authority to hide behind the rules/commands that they have to follow, and can put their extreme as something that was assigned for them to do. It is also common in groups that crimes maybe more extreme because other people are also doing the same cruel action.
I think that there is always a catalyst for evil to be created, and who can say what creates a specific personal belief/conviction/prejudice against another group of people. World wide, past and present there are situations in which an individual voice has basically summarised the majority feeling within a particular region, Vlaams Blok in Belgium for example set emphasised the feeling of the majority of Flanders people at the time. It was not one particular person, but a national feeling, which flowed into the politics of the region, and perhaps an echo of evil was then evident when in the past an asylum seeker was killed in an aircraft during an enforced repatriation to her country. She was suffocated during a routinely practiced restraint procedure.
I think this is a good example of evil overcoming authority. and in different places within society there are individuals who keep this in check either by campaigning loudly, or monitoring discretely.
ok last point! I do also have a belief that many individuals who are justly held responsible for well known attrocities, have had degrees of uncontrolled mental illness. Hitler, Idi Amin..
There is a ‘fable’ of a man named Lemuel who was given undeniable power after having humbly requested the wisdom to be successful at guiding a nation of people. His day was hailed as the most prosperous and peaceful of all days of the Ancient worlds.
Lemuel, better known as King Solomon, was a soul figure (spirit within body); a tool utilized by the spirits to manipulate this temporal realm. He naturally reacted to environmental stimulus that affected him, with the good of the nation he led in mind. This was as instructed by the spirit of Love that agreed to work cooperatively with his internal spirit.
Being of this temporal realm presents challenges to the spirit realm, which perpetuates a fascination in ruminating over rendered outcomes to episodes of life. There are marked differences to these states of being which at times are unfathomable unless one has the opportunity to have lived “in the other’s shoes.” Thus, the premise of an “only-begotten” one, born from one world to the next.
The man, Lemuel, subject to his surroundings, took to a spirit of apathy over time as exemplified by his writings and expectations of an imminent mortal future. This disenchantment may have influenced his decision to pursue the Baals (agressive factions of that spirit realm), entities manifesting opposition to the spirit of Love.
Often it is a selfish fear that spawns evil posturing out of otherwise responsible leaders. In this fleshly form man will always find himself subject to influences surrounding him.
Man is not evil at the core, I am convinced about that but the problems of the world we live in are the result of the problems we have inside, a reflection of human beings’ stupidity…
Speaking of experiments, I have read a very interesting article about a psychologist, dr. Haleakala Lew Len from Hawaii, who had accepted to be a doctor in the State Hospital of Hawaii about forty years ago, in a period when patients with mental problems who had committed horrible crimes were giving everyone a hard time. It is amazing that he never met his patients, he only wanted to have access to their files. In four years time the pavillion was closed because of the lack of violent patients! He declared that all he had to do was to work on his own interior problems. If you want to cure someone, including a patient with mental problems, you can do it by working upon your own problems. We create the world through our thoughts. All that we think is put into action into the physical world. Mind is like a garden and the seeds are the thoughs and desires. We have to be very careful about what we choose to plant because we will definitely harvest the effects of what we initially planted.
Dr. Len considered that he was responsisble for his patients’ well-being because their lives crossed with his life. If we judge a certain person, sooner or later that person will behave the way we thought about him or her, will have the tendency to be like we perceived him or her. When we use the incredible power of forgiveness, good is spreading very fast and problems disappear. It is important to have a real feeling of letting problems go, of forgiveness and then a sign of healing is obvious because an overwhelming feeling of love comes into our lives. He solved his patients problems by saying: “I am sorry for you, I forgive everything, please forgive me too” over and over again, with pure desire to help and to open minds and hearts. We can apply this method to everything with spectacular results when the wish to forgive is sincere! :-) It’s about the revival of innocence, the state of conciousness when we don’t seek our personal benefit, but the collective one, when we live joyfully, spontaneously and enthusiastically!
I guess these words say it all. The only thing left is to put them in practice and just believe in the infinite potential of good! That’s all, pretty simple, isn’t it?… ;O)
All the best in the whole world, lots of appreciation and respect!
Many hugs from all my heart,
Carmen Larisa
In the experiment there were two “good” prison guards, they never did anything to harm the” prisoners” but they also did nothing about the other guards misusing the power given to them over the prisoners. They did not have the courage to stop the hell.
Do you have the courage to stop the daily hell millions of people are going thru each and every day? Maybe Lucifer is our middle name. Misuse of power does not only happen on the high level of the political, social and religious life of this planet – it happens in our daily life on the “small” scale and is just as hurtful. “Absolute” power is very subjective – any victim will see his/her attacker as having absolute power over him/her. (Bodily, spiritual or mental harm)
Power is ruled by passion (lust) “Power is the great aphrodisiac”(Kissinger) Lots of crimes are committed by normal person, just like the person next door above all suspicion. What triggers the very moment the crime is committed – is a passion (7 vices) in one form or another….Anybody is capable of committing a crime (an act of misuse of power over another human being) – just what stops you from doing it is important.
SO WHAT STOPS YOU???
The sword needs to be honored
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
I recently read the Michael Foucault’s essay “Panopticism” published in “Discipline and Punish” cos we did a project on surveillance, based on the essay, in college.
It made me think that the whole essence of power is as follows:
He who sees (observes) is in power of what he sees, because he has the power to use what he sees for and against that what he sees.
As an example, I shall use Mr. Coelho here.
To me, he seems like a rather powerful figure, people listen to what he has to say and take his advice.
But when I broke this idea down, I noticed that when Paulo publishes a text, he alters himself to the power of the readers. We, readers, can decide, whether we like what he writes or not. We, as observers, have the power to agree or disagree with him. The more of us there is to like his texts (or the more intense the liking is), the more power he seems to have, but in fact, we are where that power lives, we are part of that power. That which I call power here, is an energy that he is a representative of, because he was the one to say that which we agree with (ie. share) out loud first.
A man can only be a representative of the energy of power, when there is more people (more energy) either agreeing with him or passive (not taking action for or againts), than againts him.
You asked if a man, given absolute power, is evil.
Following the idea of power described above, absolute power is absolute vision over absolutely everything. Seeing everything, WITHOUT BEING SEEN. If the one in power was seen, he would be altered to other’s power, and he would not have an absolute power anymore.
So YES. It is possible, that under the circumstances that one cannot get caught, due to no one being aware of him or brave enough to be againts him, one can do anything he wishes, be it evil or not.
And what’s interesting is that often the reason people do not commit “bad things” is because they feel that there is an all seeing eye or God watching over all their actions, in order to judge them one day. They feel that they are being watched, whether they are or not.
So… if the “good people” didn’t believe in karma or judgement day, would they act differently…? Who knows…
But as a conclusion I’d like to address the importance of being aware of what’s around us, keeping our eyes open, cos someone in absolute power is only in absolute power, because the opposite is not aware of them.
Does man when given with absolute power becomes evil?
Having absolute power is having great control over everything.
Absolute power defines what God is.
When God created the first human beings they were given powers to do anything in the Garden of Eden, except for one thing, not to eat the forbidden fruit.
Their power was limited.
Adam and Eve were tempted by the devil.
They lost control over the situation and gave in to the temptation.
They have misused their powers.
God got angry but still love them.
We are given free will; the will to choose between good and evil.
Humans have the tendency to be good or evil depending on situations, norms and morality.
We lose control when we are provoked, when we face fear & anxieties, when we’re in extreme situations that we can not rationalize.
My answer to the question is both yes and no.
Yes, because if man is given with absolute power and he can not control his power, he has the tendency to misuse this power and become evil.
No, because man is created by God. Every thing that God created is GOOD.
We are fundamentally good. It is in our actions that make us do evil things.