By Dee McLachlan
I watched the movie a Stanford Prison Experiment this week (trailer below). The movie is based on a real experiment conducted at Stanford University between August 14–20, 1971 — by a research group led by psychology professor Philip Zimbardo, using college students — and paying them $15 a day.
The experiment, which seemed highly unethical, was an attempt to investigate the psychological effects of perceived power, with the interaction between prisoners and prison officers. It was conducted in a small section of a basement of Jordan Hall, the psychology building — and walls and bars were fabricated to create the atmosphere of a prison.
I was shocked, first at the way the experiment was conducted, and then secondly at how quickly those given authority began abusing their power.
I quote Wikipedia:
“Guards and prisoners had been chosen RANDOMLY [a toss of a coin] from the volunteering college students. Some participants developed their roles as the officers and… subjected some prisoners to psychological torture. Many of the prisoners passively accepted psychological abuse.
“…on the second day the prisoners in Cell 1 blockaded their cell door with their beds… Guards from other shifts volunteered to work extra hours, to assist in subduing the revolt, and subsequently attacked the prisoners with fire extinguishers without being supervised by the research staff.
“After only 36 hours, one prisoner began to go ‘crazy’… scream, to curse, to go into a rage that seemed out of control… Sanitary conditions declined rapidly… As punishment, the guards would not let the prisoners empty the sanitation bucket… [and] the guards would punish prisoners by removing their mattresses, leaving them to sleep on concrete. Some prisoners were forced to be naked as a method of degradation. Several guards became increasingly cruel as the experiment continued; experimenters reported that approximately one-third of the guards exhibited genuine sadistic tendencies.”
Tavistock and Stanford
The film leaves one with the feeling that Professor Zimbardo initiated the research, but I wonder if the experiment had been encouraged or arranged by Tavistock. Mary had alerted me that Stanford was a tentacle of Tavistock.
In “Tavistock, The Best Kept Secret in America,” Byron T Weeks MD (2001) writes:
“All Tavistock and American foundation techniques have a single goal—to break down the psychological strength of the individual and render him helpless to oppose the dictators of the World Order…[the experiment did that] Tavistock Institute has developed such power in the U.S. that no one achieves prominence in any field unless he has been trained in behavioral science at Tavistock or one of its subsidiaries.
“Through the Stanford Research Institute, Tavistock controls the National Education Association. The Institute of Social Research at the National Training Lab brain washes the leading executives of business and government.”
How was Professor Zimbardo even allowed to proceed with such an experiment? I suppose it was 1971. And it was only Christina Maslach (now Professor Emerita) who encouraged the professor to stop the experiment. They got married soon after (picture).
A Very Quick Decline
The experiment got quickly out of control and was halted after only SIX days — well before the two weeks planned. It appears most of the guards were upset when the experiment ended. They were enjoying it, while the prisoners were more than relieved (and probably harmed by it).
I found it fascinating how quickly ordinary students became corrupted by power. Was this experiment to prove that there is a dark side in all of us — so there is nothing we can do about our inherent nature — and therefore corruption? Personally, I think the individuals were somehow “encouraged” very subtly to behave in such a way. It would have been a complete waste of money if the students just hung around for two weeks, earning $15 a day, chatting between the bars. (It was funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research.)
It is implied the experiment was to learn how to limit abuse in prisons. But maybe someone, beyond Stanford, was trying to learn the opposite? Maybe it was experiment was about an experiment and the reaction to the experiment. Anyway, Dr. Zimbardo went on to write “The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil.”
I do believe we have a dark side. In 1906, Alfred Henry Lewis allegedly stated, “There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy.” But having been to University (in the 70s), I would not see this unfolding with a bunch of students. I think that the experiment is tainted somewhat.
The Importance of Speaking Out
In the experiment, many of those that were put into the weaker position, were just unable to speak up — and challenge the abuse. That sounds so familiar. People now days are afraid to talk against authority, even when authority is doing wrong.
There was an interesting comment from one of the guards afterwards. He was asked why he became so abusive. He simply said, that none of the student prisoners called him out. No one demanded that he stop. So he just continued to see how much abuse these experimental prisoners could take. Was he given a subtle signal to behave this way? Sure!
What did I learn from this?
We better start speaking up louder than ever before.
Footage of the real experiment below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIUlBrvqyyo
Dee, years ago in Australia we heard of a tour bus driver who mistreated and terrified the passengers in a remote place. Probably an experiment.
I just tried to google for it and saw other more recent cases, but they don’t look experimental, such as:
“BRAVE passengers afraid for their lives on a Northern Territory tour tried to grab a bottle from their allegedly drunk bus driver, offered to take the wheel, and finally called police after she became aggressive, threatening, and drove dangerously.
“The minibus was returning to Darwin from a trip to the jumping crocodiles at Adelaide River when, the passengers decided enough was enough.”
Dee further to your remark that Office of Naval Research funded the Zimbardo thing — need we say more?
Think Stanford also had a graduate that become US prez after ww1. He had some trouble in the UK stockmarket, came to Australia and ran a very remote gold mine with mostly Italian immigrants. Unions hated them but he created a community within a community at the sons of qualia later persiden.
He left that gold stream to, what, rebuild European communities affected by ww1.
Order out of chaos if you will and sorry for the typos
Thanks for the lead, Simon. Wikipedia (CIA) says:
That geologist was Herbert Hoover, who would later become President of the United States. Hoover arrived in Albany, Western Australia in May 1897, travelled by train to Coolgardie, then eventually to the Gwalia area by camel. He suggested himself as manager of the new mine.
The Milgram Experiment also embarrasses humanity. John Taylor Gatto explains why and how.
Wonderful John Gatto’s wonderful books. They will make you cry:
.
https://www.amazon.com/John-Taylor-Gatto/e/B001K7S0AE
Thanks Mary appreciated.
These books are based on the Survival report. Schooling can kill: how imposed schooling destroys tribal peoples.
This is a dangerous education
Survival Schools Short report 5 july 17.pdf
Survival schooling report july 2017.pdf
Diane, I googled for that and only came up with the Canadian genocide in the residential schools. Can you provide a link? Is this your Dondale report?
Also see the excellent 2001 German film, based on this, called “Das Experiment”. Avoid the terrible 2010 Hollywood remake of the same movie called “The Experiment”.
Dee, remember it could all be fake news. The experiment may be — as you say — a message. So who needs it to be true?
I think prisoners and military have been trained now to be used as violent gestapo. I really don’t believe the ordinary student would have caught on to the aggression that quickly.
But that’s merely a guess.
It appears to me that that the US Navy has for many years been involved in negative experimentation. What has this type of programme, (human abuse) and the HAARP project got to do with sailing and defending from warships. Nothing! It is because of the accepted life of discipline of the “Services” that these sorts of things can be carried out in secrecy, on behalf of corrupted governments.
While in the Army, I heard of atrocious punishment handed out to Australian troops by our own military police, at Holsworthy and while overseas. I did not witness these claims, but I had no need to disbelieve them either. These treatments at the time would not have been allowed or legal in civvy street.
Australia, was and is, signed onto the United Nations Human Rights Commission. However I have found out first hand in my attempts to get help for Martin Bryant that this organisation is completely useless and waste of money.
Authority has assumed SILENCE from the masses, and can thus proceed with anything.
AussieMal,, as a veteran myself, (68-74) I agree with your comments regarding Holsworthy.
My intake at Kapooka has a few who decided they had made the biggest mistake of their lives by volunteering, and that military life was not for them. The went AWOL, never heard or saw them again. BUT, the N.C.O.’s and Officers who ran the place, made sure we all knew what trepadations awaited anyone who saw fit to copy that act. We were given a pretty good rundown on what we could expect at Holsworthy.
Of course, whether it was bullshit or not, we never discovered.
Dee, as an German born Australian, I can attest to the evil that lurks within us all. I received a lot of bullying and harrassing during my younger years, simply because I was born in Germany. The crap I had to put up with was never ending, I was told time and time again, the Germans were murderers and butchers, evil incarnated. Yet, when I served in Vietnam, LO and Behold, I discovered it was not only German people who behaved in such a manner, my fellow soldiers, who came from all nationalities you could think off, and of all colours, all behaved similarly.
I did not need to undertake a study costing thousands and add a few alphabet letters to my name to discover that EVIL lurks within us all.
That’s where humanity and intelligence come into the equation. Everyone has FREE WILL, to choose which direction they wish to go down with their lives, and many CHOOSE to go down the EVIL route, simply because it is the EASY WAY, and on many occasions, far more lucrative.
To stand up, out of the crowd, and speak up in today’s World, takes courage, something I find in extremely short supply these days.
Every time I stood up and spoke out, I was labeled a trouble maker, and pushed aside, whilst the majority aceeded to the demands being made without a whimper.
YES, without a doubt, life could be easier if I just succumbed and went with the herd, but I couldn’t look in the mirror if I lived my life like that.
As imprisonment is, by it’s very nature, political, as almost all human interaction amounts to role playing, and as both are largely driven by misconceived ideas about personal safety……………
And we won’t even mention the Philadelphia experiment
Go on, mention it.
will join some dots re Stanford/Tavistock experiments and NT Dondale “stain” and Chelmsford “stain”on a later post
Dedicate this post to Dee and MWM our intrepid, courageous investigative journalists, and yes it is relevant to topic:
“In a surprise speech before the Committee to Protect Journalists, Meryl Streep revealed two instances where she herself was exposed to one-on-one violence. In one case she was beaten and played dead to escape her attacker. The other incident: she and Cher interrupted a woman being mugged.
She related these incidents to the courage of women journalists, and the skills they must have in order to face the specific violence aimed at them:
“….I was changed by these events on a cellular level because women do know something particular about coming to the danger place. We come to it disadvantaged through the many millennia preceding our present moment and because of our vulnerability we anticipate danger, we expect it. We’re hyper-alert to it, we have the 360 on the whole room. We have measurably more acute hearing, we have a better sense of smell, we notice details, what people are wearing, their tics and peculiarities.”
Later, she heaped praise on those journalists working against totalitarian regimes (including, ahem, in the US):
“Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you. You are the fourth estate, you are our first line of defense against tyranny and state-sanctioned news.”
http://crooksandliars.com/2017/11/surprise-speech-meryl-streep-recounts
Thank you so much for posting this Diane. I had never known this about Meryl Streep
UMMM, Duh, if this is the result of Streep being in a sticky situation and has effected her in this manner, how then are the folks effected who have suffered immensley in America’s wars of choice ???? Funny how no one wishes to dicuss this issue, instead we’re focusing in domestic violence and sexual assaults, meanwhile the World is being turned into cinder and everyone simply pretends it’s not happening.
Imagine if Streep had blown the whistle on those occassions and told the World of her experiences back then, how many lives and assaults would it have prevented ??????
‘They do not know what they do’.
Applies to all our politicians, msms and radio shock jokes.
Even today I heard George and Paul on fairfax radio 2UE (sydney) supporting the lone Oswald, doing the Kenedey murder. Lying to the public, Congressional inquiries supporting a conspiracy are not mentioned.
Deriding conspiracy theories… a concept developed by the cia to deride anyone who questioned the lone gun man government bs conspiracies.
Do they not know the questions?
Time is a coming msm, think of Mussolini strung up by the heals.
You too, ABC and felow Faine.
Ah Eddy–many many have blown the whistle “back then” –there are brave courageous whistle blowers—the likes of Lydia Cacho- Fiona Barnett- [MWM DEE} contributors of gumshoe, and many many others–who despite the undisputed evidence– are silenced- violated-discredited and at times disposed of— If you can track down the movie The Whistleblower you will understand.
The Four Corners Program -provides evidence of systems failure and crimes against humanity, torture with the intent to destroy and break the human spirit–using Military Mind Control MKULTRA strategies on children—very similar to the Stanford experiments–and yet we have a man who has held senior executive positions in many different portfolios in the NT, for well over thirty years- who should be held accountable–and removed from his position along with others- and address criminal charges if appropriate. However he has the authority and impunity to come out with audacious statements—see link below
This demonstrates the failure, despite the best intentions of many, for Royal Commissions to address failures of the System—-those in power know this– well we will see what the final recommendations are when the next RC report and recommendations are tabled mid December.
There is a documentary to be released on the 15th that will give voice to the survivors and activists who have spoken out overt he past 20 plus years.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-18/former-nt-corrections-minister-responds-to-nt-royal-commission/9163616
Former Northern Territory corrections minister John Elferink says the lack of recommendations for criminal prosecution in the NT royal commission shows allegations of barbarism and torture are unfounded.
“John Elferink says the lack of recommendations for criminal prosecution in the NT royal commission shows allegations of barbarism and torture are unfounded.”
Omigahd. Thank you, Diane, keep up the pressure.
Thank you Ned, keep up the pressure.