Inherent Worth and Dignity

 This is a Sermon I gave online to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Brevard on 8/23/20.
(FYI, the extra punctuation and spacing is to remind me to breathe - in general good advice).

 

Inherent Worth and Dignity

Good Morning everyone, My name is Beth Anz, and I am a “normal” 

person... (mostly). I am neither a “good” person, or a “bad” person, 

who I am, is not as simple as that. I may say things you disagree with, 

and often, in this polarized world, if we disagree, we are quick to “cancel” 

and dismiss people we disagree with.  We react in an instant, either 

deifying, or demonizing others, based on a post, a tweet, or a sound byte.  

But opinions don’t exist in a vacuum.  I would invite each of you 

to look further, to seek a dialogue, before you dismiss someone.  

We as Unitarian Universalists, state our First Principle as, 

“The Inherent Worth and Dignity, of Every Person”.  That is more 

difficult than it seems on the surface. Not “Every Person” is 

easy to care for, and see their worth; particularly, when those 

individuals, act in ways that are contrary, to our values and beliefs. 

We prefer insults, to discourse, and we fear that if we engage, 

we risk also being attacked.  

What I want to discuss today, is the dangers, of creating 

Monsters, or Saints, in society, creating an “other” and 

dehumanizing each other.  The dangers of inaction, 

or acceptance of these behaviors.  Much of our discourse 

runs around this dehumanization, and the concept isn’t new. 

Several years ago, I read a book called, 

“The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People, Turn Evil”.  

The Book is by Philip Zimbardo, and goes into depth 

about his famous “Stanford Prison Experiment”, and it’s 

real world parallels.  Many of you have probably heard of this 

experiment, but here’s a quick, synopsis.  In 1971, 

Professor Zimbardo recruited College students to be randomly 

assigned, as either “guards” or “prisoners”.  The Prisoners were 

mock “arrested”, booked and placed in a mock “prison”, built in 

the basement of the Stanford Psychology building.  Each 

participant was pre-screened for any underlying psychological 

issues, to ensure they were as quote, as “normal” as possible.  

The “guards”, were given an orientation and instructed to 

“control” the prisoners, but NOT to harm them.  Zimbardo, 

who played the Prison superintendent, gave these instructions to 

the guards: "You can create in the prisoners feelings of boredom, 

a sense of fear to some degree, you can create a notion 

of arbitrariness, that their life, is totally controlled by us, 

by the system, you, me, and they'll have no privacy ... 

We're going to take away their individuality, in various ways. 

In general what all this leads to is a sense of powerlessness. 

That is, in this situation, we'll have all the power, and 

they'll have none."

Those familiar with the experiment, will know that it quickly 

devolved, as the participants fell into their “roles”.  Guards, 

who were instructed to call prisoners, by their numbers only, 

quickly internalized their roles, and throughout the week, 

enacted several acts of abuse, and dehumanization.  The 

prisoners started to see themselves as their numbers, and went 

along with it, for fear of being singled out.  

By day 2 the prisoners rebelled, the guards pushed back, 

giving privileges to those who complied with the rules, and 

denied rights, such as beds and toilet privileges to those who 

didn’t.  Sanitation quickly devolved, harassment escalated, 

particularly during the “daily counts”, and both the prisoners 

and guards became psychologically institutionalized in their roles. 

This experiment which was supposed to last 2 weeks, was shut down 

after 6 days. Because Professor Zimbardo was also ingrained 

in his role as the Prison Superintendent, It took an associate of his, 

pointing out the abuse to shut it down.  Everyone had lost perspective 

and accepted their roles, fully. 

Philip Zimbardo was quoted many years later, saying

 - "I had been conducting research for some years, on 

deindividuation, vandalism and dehumanization, that illustrated 

the ease with which ordinary people could be led to engage, 

in antisocial acts, by putting them in situations where they felt 

anonymous, or they could perceive of others in ways 

that made them less than human, as enemies or objects," 

This “less than human” mindset is how the experiment 

encouraged such abuse.  They created a system of power, 

where the prison guards dehumanized the prisoners, by only 

using their numbers, not their names.  They created an institution 

of authority, the prison system.  They gave them uniforms/ to 

create unity, and anonymity, they encouraged them to use their 

power, to keep order; and allowed abuse to go unchallenged, 

creating an escalation, and indifference to that abuse.  

All these things, according to Professor Zimbardo, are a recipe for evil.

He admitted in later interviews, that he should have shut down 

the experiment, much sooner, but allowed the abuse to continue, 

because he himself, became part of the experiment, and part of 

that group mindset.  In effect, Professor Zimbardo used the power 

of his prison system, to encourage dehumanization, and 

allowed the prisoners to become an “other”. 

When I say an “other”, what I mean is collectively declaring a group 

of people, as “less than”, to exert control and power over them, 

separating “us” from “them” by some dehumanizing 

characteristics. The Stanford Prison Experiment is not unique in its tactics.  

Professor Zimbardo went further in his book, and showed 

real world examples of his mock “prison”, the most prominent 

being the Abu Grahib prison torture in 2004.  

He highlights the similarities, between the real world torture 

of Iraqi prisoners, and his “mock” Stanford prison, showing, 

image for image, replicas of prisoner torture.  

Again, these people were not inherently evil, they were 

not “bad apples”, they were average, “normal” soldiers.  

The Abu Ghraib soldiers were pressured to “soften” these 

prisoners up for interrogation, without much oversight, much 

like the Stanford prison guards were pressured to keep order.  

But according to Professor Zimbardo, it is not just “bad apples”

in these cases, we have to look beyond the individual, at the 

situation, and the system (or the “bad barrel”, and the “bad barrel makers”).  

In all these cases, you need to find where the Power is.  

Power, without oversight, opens the door to abuse.  This does not 

excuse the abuse, but it allows us to understand how 

“good people”, can do “terrible things”.

History is filled with examples, of leaders using their power, 

and control, to create the dehumanization of “others”.  The United States, 

and many other colonial countries, dehumanized, and controlled, 

the native or captive populations, promoting racism,

and a sense of their own superiority.  During Reconstruction, 

the former plantation owners of the South, used Jim Crow Laws and other 

tactics not only, to control former black slaves, but also to prevent, 

poor White farmers, from joining with the newly freed, poor Black farmers 

after the end of slavery.  In World War two, Hitler convinced the 

downtrodden, German People, that they were superior, 

while committing atrocities to “others”, most predominantly the Jewish People.  

But during that same time, the US put their own German, and 

Japanese citizens in camps, without any cause, simply out of fear.  

Now those are extreme examples, of how we use the 

“other” to accept atrocities, but all extremes start small.  

Professor Zimbardo illustrates this, with Milgram’s famous 

1963 Shock experiment, which looks at people’s obedience to authority, 

or how Milgram looked at it, “could the holocaust happen here”?

Quote “Ordinary”, volunteers, were asked as the “teacher” to 

teach a “learner” a series of words to study memory.  When the 

“learner” gets it wrong the “teacher” is instructed to give the “learner” 

a shock.  For this experiment, Milgrim made the volunteer “teacher”, 

think that both the “teacher” and “learner” were volunteers, 

but unknown to our volunteer, the “learner”, was actually one 

of the researchers.  

The volunteer sees the “leaner”, strapped into the shock machine 

that they will control with a dial, but during the experiment they can not 

see them, they only hear them from the other room.  The experimenter 

(our authority figure) would instruct the “teacher” to increase 

the shock every time the “learner” got the words wrong.  

Like all “evil” acts, it started small, with 15 volts, but increases 

by 15 volts for every wrong answer.  On the other side, the person 

getting shocked is begging and pleading as the shocks get worse, 

but the researcher instructs our volunteer, repeatedly, that they must 

continue.  Since the “teacher” volunteer does not know the “learner” 

is pretending, they think they are hurting this individual.  

The theory was that Nazi’s, were inherently predisposed to evil 

and authority, and that “Ordinary” people, would not continue to 

increase the voltage, causing great harm.  But the experimenters were 

wrong, very wrong, two-thirds of all the participants went to 

the lethal level of 450 volts.   

Why did they do this?  The simple answer, is Authority, and Obedience, 

but not just to the authority figure, peers as well.  In later experiments, 

Milgram found that if the participant, saw someone go to the lethal level, 

before them, they were more likely to do the same, 

but if the participant saw someone, rebel before them, 

they were more likely to refuse to shock the other volunteer.  

This fear of authority, this pressure to conform, and obey  

institutions, shows how “ordinary”, people are able to do “evil acts”.  

Like in the Stanford prison, they used this fear of being treated like “others”, 

or losing our status, to ensure we go along with it.  The prison abuse, 

started with small things, and grew, as their actions were not challenged.  

In the modern world, we saw it with Muslims after 911, we see it with our 

immigrant communities, with white supremacy, and with minorities and the 

police.  By thinking of people as “other”, or “less than human”, we allow 

ourselves to treat them inhumanely.  When we do not speak up 

for our fellow humans, we allow the abuse of “others”, and we are complicit.  

According to our principles, we believe in the “inherent worth, and dignity, 

of every person”.  It is easy to think that we do, that we would never, be led 

into such behavior, as those in the Stanford Prison Experiment.  

But remember, those “normal”, kids began the experiment 

the same, assigned positions at random, and quickly devolved, into abuse, 

because of the pressure to fulfill an identity.  They were given permission, 

to see their fellow volunteers as an “other”, and therefore 

open to inhumane treatment.  

When people commit acts that go against our values, 

it is easy to demonize them.  But I feel that is where the danger comes in, 

the seed to abusive behavior.  We must remember, that humans, and other 

living creatures are worthy of our compassion.  Human beings, are neither 

all good or all bad, and when we demonize, we fail to see the 

whole person, and what drove their behavior.  At the same token, we 

can not deify a person, if we do, we fail to see any wrong in bad behavior.  

If our favorite celebrity, says something against our values, we have to 

be willing to acknowledge that, and see them as a flawed 

human and not a saint.    

  

In the next few months, we will be seeing plenty of political discourse.  

Politics is perhaps the best example, of our need to deify or demonize 

others, and nowhere is it more prevalent, than in our social, 

and traditional media.  We take sides, we double down, and we hide 

behind anonymous, online personas, insulting  anyone 

who disagrees with us.  

Now everyone knows politicians, who act against their moral values.  

You can, and should speak out, against their behavior, and their policies, 

but I encourage you, not to dismiss them, as inhuman.  

It’s easy to dismiss, and ignore their humanity, but by creating that “other” 

category, we stop the conversation, encourage abuse, 

and dismiss the bad behavior, they inspire in others.  

In several of the cases we discussed today, the “evil acts” 

were stopped, only, when someone spoke up, and intervened.  

It is this heroic act, the act of recognizing, the humanity 

of another, that caused the system to change.  We also saw that 

those, “heroic acts”, also inspired others to further action.  

We glorify those in history, who stand up, and fight for

these inequalities. 

While we usually see these individuals, as exceptional, 

Professor Zimbardo suggests, we see them as ordinary, “normal” people.  

That we develop a “hero mindset”, and teach our children, 

that each one of us is a “hero in waiting”.  Each of us, when we 

see something wrong, has the potential to act, and in turn inspire others, 

to act.  We should understand the evil, of inaction, even for the small things, 

because all “evil” acts, start small.  

We must learn as heroes to speak up, even if no one else does, 

to think not “ego-centrically” but “socio-centrically” for the greater good, 

of all humanity.  In other words - we are the heroes we’ve been waiting for, 

and any act of good, no matter how small can have a larger impact.

If we truly believe in the principle, of the “inherent worth 

and dignity, of every person”, we must acknowledge that those we praise, 

and those we criticise, should still be treated as human. We must 

do the work, and have the hard conversations, even with those we 

disagree with.  We must learn to criticize the behavior, without 

demonizing them.   No one said it would be easy, but principles rarely are.  

So in this polarized world, let's learn civility, and do the work, call 

out bad behavior,  be the heroes we are waiting for, and understand, 

that we are all part of the human race, and that we, are all, worthy.   

Namaste, thank you.