The three things that make us do evil

Some conclusions on evil from Philip Zimbardo, leader of the notorious 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment.

"... the Lucifer effect involves understanding human character transformations with three factors. And it's a dynamic interplay. 

What do the people bring into the situation? What does the situation bring out of them? And what is the system that creates and maintains that situation?

So if you want to change a person, you've got to change the situation.   

If you want to change the situation, you've got to know where the power is, in the system."

I reckon Zimbardo is right, if there's no way of changing human hearts.  Because if there's no hope to change a person's heart, then all we can do is mitigate the evil that people can commit by managing the circumstances into which we place them.

Sadly, though, I think that if this is true, we're in a hopeless situation.  We end up in a recursive loop we can't resolve.

1. We stop people from doing evil things by avoiding placing them in 'evil producing/tempting' situations.
2. We stop people from being placed in 'evil producing' situations by changing the system that creates the various situations.
3. We change the system by convincing people to change their behaviour so that they change the system.

But the system exists as the product of people acting in ways that benefit them but hurt others.  How do we change the actions of those people?  We have to start from step 1 all over again.

And so the loop continues.



If only there was a way to allow the human heart to choose the good even in a tempting situation.

"For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works."  Titus 2:11-14

Random crumbs falling from a TED talk

An interesting TED talk here on the psychology of evil, by Philip Zimbardo, leader of the notorious 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment.

His basic premise is that there are three contributive factors to the production of evil in people.

1. Disposition of the individual - are they a bad apple?
2. The situation - are the apples in a bad barrel?
3. The system - the legal, political, economic and cultural background that creates the situation.

It is, I think, excellent analysis.  The individuals WILL bring good and bad to a situation, the situation WILL provide a varying degree of temptation to act out negatively and the milieu of law, politics, economic and cultural factors WILL systemically produce certain types of those situations.

It also, it seems to me, is a perfect match for the biblical account of sin.

1. According to Scripture, sin is an individual, responsibility bearing choice.
2. The Bible also says that different situations bring about certain temptations to sin that other situations do not.  (Though, fascinatingly, God seems to use these for good!)
3. Sin gives rise to systemic sin within a population, often until it results in a tragedy of such great magnitude that in God's common grace some of the errors of the age are realised.  Then new ones are formed...

Some fascinating quotes:

Starting with the idea that God created Lucifer, who then rebelled against God and 'became' the devil:

"Paradoxically, it was God who created hell as a place to store evil. He didn't do a good job of keeping it there though."

Some interesting angles there on the nature of the world into which God placed the garden and Adam and Eve.  Biblically, it sure wasn't a perfect world.  Adam and Eve, but particularly Adam, were charged with protecting that garden from evil and chaos, and even to extend the goodness of orderliness of the garden out into the world.

In regards to Abu Ghraib:

"So another report, an investigative report by General Fay, says the system is guilty."

But the question for me is, why do we blame the system?  That people act in certain ways in certain situations doesn't absolve a person of responsibility for actions.  That there is a rich complex of influences going on is worth recognising, but doesn't make the reality of individual responsibility a non-issue.

And this very interesting set of experimental conclusions: (I've added some bible verses in brackets afterwards, because I think there are some striking resemblances)

"So what are the seven social processes that grease the slippery slope of evil? 

Mindlessly taking the first small step (Psalm 1:1)

Dehumanization of others. (Disregard for Gen 9:6, or from another angle, Romans 2:1) 

De-individuation of Self. (Colossians 3:1 - be who you are!)  

Diffusion of personal responsibility.(Genesis 3) 

Blind obedience to authority. (Matthew 15:14 and Ephesians 4:14)  

Uncritical conformity to group norms. (Galatians 2:11-12)  

Passive tolerance to evil through inaction or indifference. (Genesis 3 - Adam, I'm looking at you.)"

Just a crumb - There's something about God

An amazing thing about self-giving love is that because of God, it's indestructible.

Our God is so great that even as he hung on a cross, being destroyed and shamed, in so doing he destroyed the power of that destruction and nullified it.  He poured out his self-giving love with the ultimate result that He himself was made whole.  Our God is so great that His martyrdom is not self-destructive of His Self, nor is His Self-giving able to lessen Him.

As an awesome flow-on, the redeeming power of the Christ-event is so great that the self-giving of those who are in Christ is similarly not destructive to self, but in Him is indestructible.

Feeling the love

Inspired by a fantastic conversation on a long car-trip with a loved brother yesterday, I've decided that I'm on a campaign to encourage a language change.

I reckon that instead of thinking about "self-esteem", maybe us Christians should instead be thinking about "God's-love-esteem".

Christians ought to get our sense of value from God's gracious love for us.  Right?  It's not that we're so worthwhile that God loves us (self-esteem thinking in drag). The truth is that we are bestowed incredible honour and value because of God's love for us.  The other way around.  His love being the giver of worth.

God's love brought him to create you, in His image, for relationship with Him.  A fact that should lead to wonder that he's done so, ala Psalm 8.  (Seriously, go read it.  Now!  ;)  )  On top of that, for those who're reading this who belong to Jesus, God loves you with an everlasting, unbreakable, infinite and personal love that he demonstrated at the cross.

But sometimes, as my dear brother shared, that just doesn't feel like it's enough.  It doesn't "do anything for me".  I'd probably get a bigger boost from a 'like' on my latest selfie.

So I reckon what we really need is more "God's-love-esteem".  That is, how much esteem do you hold for the fact that God loves you?  How highly do you value it?  How much do you allow the fact that God loves you to affect your personal sense of worth?

In other words, are you feeling the love?  Are you letting the objective reality of God's love for you affect your subjective experience?  How's your "God's-love-esteem"?

So, what do you reckon?  Instead of abandoning self-esteem for nothing, can we replace it with "God's-love-esteem"?

Or come up with something that's better, catchier and easier to remember but means the same thing. And then email it to me so I can edit this post.  :D

Bonus Mini-crumb

I wonder if a part of the reason that the video is powerful is in that it actually agrees with me, at one level.  Why did they do it the way they did it?  Why a person, particularly a young, masculine, strong, attractive person, telling you that you're amazing and that you're loved?

I reckon it could be because instinctively the creators understood that human value is bestowed.  That's the power of the video.  It forms a relationship between the speaker and the listener.  In their eyes, you are awesome and therefore, you feel a sense of worth bestowed by that relationship.

That's why it matters who did the speaking.  Would the video have worked if they'd cast this guy?

You're worth it

This video is doing the rounds at the moment.  If you're of the female persuasion, I'm very interested in what you think of it.  Christian or non-Christian, though it seems targeted at Christian lasses.

I'd be more than happy if you watched it and maybe wrote some thoughts in the comments before reading my couple of bread-crumbs.  It'd be great to understand your initial response.

My thoughts?

Well, women are totally awesome creations.  You're made as the final piece of the jig-saw puzzle, co-pinnacle of creation.  You've been given the role as the image-bearers of the triune God to the rest of creation, ruling it as God's stewards.  As psalm 8 would say it, you're made just a little lower than elohim (God or the gods).  So personally, I've got a lot of time for a lot of the things old mate says.  I like how he's trying to combat false self-image with truth.

But as he goes on, he starts messing up the truth part.  He might be trying to be nice, but he's actually messing things up for women everywhere.  He'll mess up your whole sense of value if you go with this.  Seriously.  Because he makes out that your value is something that's independent from God.

And that's something I care about.

The brooding "I wish you could see how amazing you are" bloke in the video gets the cart before the horse.  He says that God looked at women and saw something worth dying for.  It goes the other way around.

God made women to be of amazing value.  It is God's generous gift that you are such.  This is why the same psalm 8 that says you're a smidge short of divinity itself also asks:

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?

Your value isn't something that flows from you and God recognises.  Uh uh.  It's something that flows from God and you get to be thankful for.  It is a humbling self-esteem boost.  A value that flows from relationship rather than an independent declaration of 'inherent' value.

And it's this, of course, that means that the great psalm talking about the glory and splendour of humanity both starts and ends with:

Yahweh, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You just won't praise God from the heart like that unless your glory and splendour is bestowed, rather proved or earned.  (Bonus Mini-crumb)  This is just basic human value. Without even taking into account sin messing us up, our value flows from the grace of God.  Now I'd love to go into how that works for the post-fall humanity and how the gospel is where we find our value (ie, in Christ), but I think it'd be too long and you'd stop reading, so I'll just give an example of it.

If I was as attractive as the dude in the vid (is he, by the way?  I've been wondering) I'd make a similar video.

I'd look moodily into the camera, and try to get you to believe that God loves you.  Not for who you are, but as you are.  That you're a treasure because you're treasured by Him.  I'd try to get that false idea out of your head that God couldn't possibly really love you because you're convinced you're not loveable.

Or maybe I shouldn't.  God probably says it better.  And because response videos copying the style of the original are lame.

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by his favour you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might express the incomparable riches of his favour, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. (Eph 2:5-7)

He has set his love upon you, and that makes you valuable.  In a way nothing else can.  And he's inviting every woman on this planet to experience that love.

At time of writing the video has 191,870 shares on Facebook.

Miley, Robin and why we really reacted

First it was "Tut, tut Miley."  Next came the cry "No, shame on you Robin!".  With pendulums swinging all over the place here, the analysis seems to take amazing delight in its ability to gush forth with moral outrage.

The difficulty that I have with ducking the pendulum swinging from one to the other is that the decisions to make music videos of a similarly sexual nature are made every day and there's not a blink of an eye-lid.  The raunch and skin on display on that stage seemed to me remarkably unremarkable.  (I didn't watch the whole thing, so I may need correction on that)

So why the outcry?

The outcry about the narrative of Miley Cyrus has been pinned as justification for knotted knickers.  Once such a wholesome icon of goodness, Miley's shocked the world by turning slutty.

Except, that she hasn't.  Surprised us, that is.  Cyrus is only following a well-worn path trod by Brittney and others before her.  The shock and horror has nothing to do with Miley's, totally expected, sexualisation.

I suspect that the reason that it has gained so much traction is because it was simply bad.  It undeniably had no positive aesthetic qualities, let alone redeeming ones.  Cyrus' attempts to find a value and identity fell flat in amongst a sea of cheap and nasty sexual stunts.  If she'd been as tasteful as, say, Rihanna who has equally fallen victim to raunch culture, then I suspect we'd have only seen about half the outrage that's come about.

And so, amongst the evils of exploitation of women so rife in our culture, we can add the sin of only really caring about it when they do it badly.