Well, seeing as I have devoted my existence to defending all that is good and destroying all that is evil, I know how I would have handled the situation. Of course most people don’t spend every waking hour considering all the possibilities like I do.
Milgram proved nothing to me except that the world is full of weak-minded INDIFFERENT fools. The indifference of good men is the worst form of evil, after all.
I actually just recently wrote an essay refuting the idea of the power of the situation. It could stand to be revised a few times, but it’s not horrible.
The Power of a Strong Leader
By Robert Horn
Philip G. Zimbardo (2004), a prominent social psychologist, said that "when the majority of ordinary people can be overcome by such pressures toward compliance and conformity, the minority who resist should be considered heroic" (p. 47).
This idea, that there are in this world a heroic few who fight when others would stand down, is the foundation upon which the world can be changed and over which evil can be triumphed. It is important to examine closely those individuals who have inherent resistance to the circumstances around them in times of trouble, and then use those observations to help average people understand what they have the potential to be.
One thing in the study of leaders is clear: true leaders have the inherent strength to overcome the power of the situation.
Before discussing a leader’s ability to overcome the situation, it is first necessary to define leadership for the context of this paper. In this context, I would define leadership as the ability both to think critically about a situation and make a moral judgment as to the correct course of action, and to influence others to see the true path in situations where they might ordinarily be lost.
With leadership defined, we can discuss the affect a leader can have on society. However, to discuss how the leader can combat evil, evil must also be defined. The best definition of evil I have seen is by Zimbardo (2004), who defined evil as “intentionally behaving, or causing others to act, in ways that demean, dehumanize, harm, destroy, or kill innocent people” (p. 22).
Now an intelligent account of the power of a leader to overcome the power of a situation can commence.
Consider the story of Lawrence Rockwood, a former Captain in the U.S. Army. While on Assignment in Haiti, Rockwood discovered that prisoners there were being grossly mistreated by the military that had overtaken the region. Determined to put a stop to this abuse, Rockwood forced the prison to let him take at least a small tour of the vicinity.
Once let in, he discovered many examples of mistreatment of the prisoners. His superiors did not have any intention of putting a stop to the madness. He was ordered to let it be. For the average person, the pressure of the situation to forget about the incident and move on would be too great to resist. Rockwood, however, is a true leader. He continued on with his fight against these inhumane acts, all the up to his discharge from the military for disobeying orders to cease his investigation (McDevitt, 2004, para. 7-10).
This example shows the great possibilities of the man that has enough “moral sense” (Rivkin, 2004, para. 4) to know when the majority are wrong and orders must be disobeyed.
At times the cinema can be a useful tool in showing society the side of an issue that has not been previously considered. One such example of this usefulness is the movie “Tears of the Sun”, starring Bruce Willis (Fuqua, 2003). Bruce Willis plays the part of a Navy SEAL officer who has been sent to a part of Africa to pick up an American citizen before the village in which she is residing is overtaken by the savage rebels. The woman who is to be rescued is working as a doctor to many wounded natives in the area. She refuses to leave unless the natives are allowed to come with them.
At first Bruce, in the name of the mission, does whatever is necessary to complete his mission. Doing whatever is necessary in this case meant tricking the natives of the village into thinking they were also being rescued, and then abandoning them at the last minute.
Initially it appeared that the situational forces were controlling Bruce’s actions, and, at first, they were. But Bruce started to see things clearly as the helicopter flew away from the desperate natives. His inner voice, the inherent force that told him what he was doing was wrong, took charge. He ordered the helicopter to turn around and valiantly took to a new, personal mission: to get the natives to the French Embassy before the rebels could wreak havoc on them.
There were many factors contributing the strong influence of the situation. He had orders, phone calls from his superior continually trying to get him back on track, and peer pressure from his platoon to ditch the natives and get back to the mission. An ordinary man might have cracked under the pressure. It is a true leader indeed who can overcome all those factors and do what is right. Bruce was a true leader. This strength is something for which we should all strive.
Perhaps a personal story will give more potency to the point I am trying to make. I consider myself to be “hardcore”. I have a personal set of values and morals which I try to consistently live by. One of these values is that I will not take advantage of a woman who is under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Most men I know think me a fool when I tell them this, because as far as they are concerned, these women are “ripe for the taking”.
Basically, the situation here is one in which it is considered acceptable to have sex with a woman who is drunk at a party. It is this situation that I had to deal with not too long ago. One night I went with a couple of my friends to a house party. Of course, there was alcohol at this party, and most people there were drunk. Now, I do not drink personally, but I find nothing wrong with those who do, which is why I stayed at the party and tried to have a good time.
So I was sober at this party, and a beautiful girl, obviously drunk, came up to me and we started talking. She was actually a pretty good conversationalist despite her drunkenness, which impressed me. I started to really like her, and I could tell she liked me too. After a while of talking, she wanted me to take her to a room so that we could be alone. Of course, being a man, there was nothing at that moment I wanted to do more than take her up on the offer. She was certainly a strong source of pressure, as well as my friends who told me I had to take advantage of this situation. Despite this seemingly overpowering situation, I resisted the temptation and asked the girl for her phone number instead.
I had the inner strength to do what I knew was right, regardless of what was easy. This kind of strength exists in a true leader.
I have thoroughly gone through and explained the inherent strength that true leaders possess, and how this strength can be used to resist the situational forces ever present in this world. However, this idea alone, the idea that leaders can do what is right in the toughest of circumstances, is not enough to change society for the better. Rather, I believe it is also necessary for the average person to realize that this strength that leaders possess is actually within us all. We need only to learn how to bring it out and use it to better our world.
This idea is where the true strength to overcome the situation lies. If everybody made the consistent effort to think about the situation they are in, and to do what they know is the right thing to do, not the easy thing to do, two things will happen: first, the incredible weight that currently rests on the few leader’s shoulders will be lightened. Second, the forces of evil that exist in this world will have a much harder time prevailing. And that, most definitely, is what we are all ultimately after.
References
Rivkin, R. S. (2004). Moral conscience and the war in Iraq. San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved October 15, 2005, from MORAL CONSCIENCE AND THE WAR IN IRAQ / A duty to disobey
McDevitt, P. F. (2004). Do soldiers have a duty to disobey illegal orders? History News Network. Retrieved October 15, 2005, from Do Soldiers Have a Duty to Disobey Illegal Orders? | History News Network
Zimbardo, P. G. (2004). A situationist perspective on the psychology of evil: Understanding how good people are transformed into perpetrators. In A. G. Miller (Ed.), The social psychology of good and evil (pp. 21-50). New York: Guilford Press.
Fuqua, A. (Director), Bryce, I., Lobell, M., Rifkin, A. (Producers). (2003). Tears of the Sun [Motion picture]. United States: Columbia Pictures.
