Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Stephen Colbert pwns Phil Zimbardo
Phil Zimbardo, the Stanford University psychologist who has been coasting on the notoriety of the infamous Stanford prison experiment for 36 years, has written a book on evil. Too bad he can’t even go one round with not-too-shabby-theologian Colbert.
Watch the video and tell me what you think*. Seems to me, Colbert knows his catechism.
D.
*I’m not sure I buy the premise that evil is a societal or situational effect. These supposedly “good” people who behave in evil ways, given the right situational prompts: are they truly good? Or do they have some latent moral laxity which gets magnified by the appropriate prompts?
I think it’s all locked in fairly early, certainly by age five, and that many among us are plenty evil, yet lack the opportunity to exercise these talents. That nice little old lady next door, the one who brings you oatmeal cookies on the weekends, would in an instant, given the right movitation, hook up the jumper cables without a second thought.
Not related to anything, but when I saw this I thought you’d be interested…
ps: thanks, I think I will send her something. Not sure how interested she’ll be in my romance, but my SF might strike her fancy.
The message I took from Zimbardo is that everyone is capable of committing evil acts and categorizing people in terms of good and evil may not be appropriate. Zimbardo is suggesting, in your own words, that there is no such thing as truly good. Unlike our fingerprints, we change according to our environment to some degree.
P.S. When has Colbert NOT pwn his guests?
Great video of Colbert. It must have been the one I missed the other night or else I fell asleep before it came on! Colbert really has his theology down pat, I totally agree.
I agree that people have a certain tendency to good or evil from a very early age and that is why certain circumstances can bring it out. For instance, I was a real goody-two-shoes in high school. Never drank, ran around with boys, did my homework, etc. Was I really good? No! No one ever ASKED me to do any of those other things! I went off to college and drank and smoked my brains out and I won’t even tell you what else! So it just goes to show that tendency was always there but without the external opportunities or pressures, it was not evident. (Of course I do believe in our ability to reform ourselves and learn from mistakes).
Since I don’t believe in God or the Devil, I feel it’s up to us to be what we should be and treat others well and, to coin Google’s company motto, “Don’t be evil.”
Um, to be clear, I never drank or ran around with boys – DID do my homework…bad grammar.
I’m a huge Colbert fan, but his showdown with Dr. Z was unsettling. Stephen knows his theology alright, but his “reason for hell” tangent obscured an important lesson. Perhaps Dr. Z should have avoided the Lucifer analogy to curtail orthodoxy debates. Interesting that religioua dogma became the issue when his work is really about human behavior that transcends cultural contexts. Watch the Stanford experiment video, read Lord of the Flies, view the “Ghosts of Abu Ghraib,” or study the systematic Nazi campaign (or any genocide, for that matter) and you get what it’s about. “Good” people can do “bad” things in the right social structures. The Abrahamic black and white worldview of good vs evil only convolutes our understanding of how events like 1994 Rwanda occur and how, if deemed necessary for our interests or moral reasons, we recognize and prevent them in the future. This worldview, especially the American tendency to break things down into absolutes of good and evil, is a contributing factor to our foreign policy troubles. By the way, I’m amazed people are delighting in Colbert’s Biblical pwn of Dr. Z…the implications make me uncomfortable in pluralistic America.
just wanted to know i haven’t forgotten about you and am planning to add you to my blogroll.
real life has been incredibly hectic and i have not been able to attend to housekeeping duties at the blog.
thanks for your understanding
hey balls (or is it walnuts?)
just wanted to know i haven’t forgotten about you and am planning to add you to my blogroll.
real life has been incredibly hectic and i have not been able to attend to housekeeping duties at the blog.
thanks for your understanding
this all being said, i do believe there are some people who are pure evil; i’ve met one. this girl has absolutely no moral sense, no conscience–she will push her epileptic older sister down a flight of stairs or randomly kick her in the chest so hard there is internal bleeding, and walk away without a speck of remorse. she’s a frikkin’ psychopath.
whoops, sorry for the double post, walnut!
I couldn’t get past the fact Colbert threw the T shirt Zimbardo gave him on the floor. Why? It was a gift. Put it on the table and thank the man. They talk about God and the devil like it’s all fact. THe devil might be my Chihuahua for all I know.
Thorbak: I was under the impression some people refused to “play evil” in the experiment. This would seem to contradict the idea that we’re all capable of evil. “Most,” perhaps, but not “all.” It must take a lot of clear-headedness and self esteem to resist the peer pressure, but some folks manage it.
Mauigirl (and others): just so you know, I don’t buy into Stephen’s theology. Merely, I thought it was a spectacularly HUMOROUS performance on his part. Colbert Report isn’t always about real debate — csf’s right, SC seemed to steer it into this turf so that he could perform his big trounce.
csf: re,
Nothing convoluted at all if we accept one simple, albeit inflammatory, premise: most people are evil.
skippy: it’s walnut. I’m married to Balls 🙂
shains: yup, the REALLY creepy people are the ones who don’t need an excuse to be evil. They revel in it all the time.
Corn Dog: I missed the part about the tee shirt! I must not have been paying attention. You’re right — that’s not the act of a gentleman.