(no subject)

[brynndragon]

Someone on my friend's list posted this over the weekend: You Can't Be a Sweet Cucumber in a Barrel of Vinegar
It's an interview with Philip Zimbardo, a situational psychologist whose greatest work and most painful experience is the Stanford Prison Experiment, who talks about his work and Abu Ghraib. From the interview:
"It's not the bad apples, it's the bad barrels that corrupt good people. Understanding the abuses at this Iraqi prison starts with an analysis of both the situational and systematic forces operating on those soldiers working the night shift in that 'little shop of horrors.'"

Comments

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I wonder if, given the cultural emphasis on the value of learning, a Jewish school like the one I went to tends to have fewer misbehaving students than a non-Jewish school? Although there were some ways in which the school seemed poorly designed to deal with kids of a certain level of smart (specifically between "average" and "ZOMG!") - I was stuck in the mediocre English class because I wasn't born with the ability to analyse poetry and liturature, but once I was taught these things at the public school I ended up in AP Lit and did well. It also seemed odd that they failed to do full-immersion Hebrew during the Hebrew part of the day starting in Kindergarden if they honestly wanted us to be fluent in it (again, I'm not a natural at languages but given such an environment I'd've actually picked it up and been quite good at it). Every once in a while I ponder writing them a letter, but I don't think they'd pay it much mind (which fits in with your last comment).