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.
