“The Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal: Sources of Sadism” is written by Marianne Szegedy-Maszak. The author is a reporter for the U.S. News & World Report. The author has written this article to explain how and why such instances as Abu Ghraib and others are being allowed to occur. The author claims that the isolation of the prison, and the natural cruelty that is present in humans is the main reason that the atrocities are being allowed to occur. However, the author fails to recognize the ways that authority figures are involved in the acts of torture that are being committed.
One of the examples that the author uses to support her theory is an experiment conducted by psychologist Stanley Milgram. This experiment helps to show how each individual
…show more content…
person has a potential to commit acts of torture. This experiment involves an actor being restrained to a chair, and questioned by an individual. When the actor gives a wrong answer the questioner is instructed to shock the actor. This continues even after the actor shows signs of experiencing severe pain. Milgram discovers that more people than is predicted will commit higher acts of torture than is thought. The author uses this experiment to show how every person has a capacity to torture another. What she does not show is the role that the director of the experiment plays in this. While it is true that the individual is shocking the actor, there is also another individual in the room telling them that they must continue until the experiment is concluded. In most cases the individual is being instructed to continue even if they do not agree with it. This shows that people are inclined to do what they are told to do by an authority figure. The author shows how in wartime soldiers have a tendency to treat the enemy, particularly prisoners, as less than humans. In the article Szegedy Maszak says that in Vietnam the enemy is referred to as slopes, and in Iraq they are called towel heads. The guards also place bags over the heads of the prisoners, and are encouraged to treat the prisoners as less than humans. The author again fails to show how the authority figures influence this. The nicknames and treatment of the soldiers do not originate with the common man, nor did the hatred towards them. This is plainly in each case a form of government and authoritarian control. If the people in charge can control how the common soldier views the enemy, they can effectively get the soldiers to commit more acts against them then they normally would in regular life. Another example that the author uses is the way that the authority figures have the prison itself set up.
The authority figures in the army place a little over 450 soldiers in a prison holding over 7,000 prisoners. This causes a great deal more stress on the guards then there would normally have been, even in a war situation. Normally the soldiers would have some small releases for their tension; however, in their situation they do not even have this.
The author uses this to explain how the circumstances of war influenced the soldier's mentality. However, she fails to address the actual problem seen in this situation. The problem being shown is not a failure to release tension in the soldiers; but is in the authority figures that fail to place a reasonable amount of guards in the prison. Thereby causing the guards to be more willing to act with extreme force.
The most obvious and completely overlooked piece of evidence in this article is a seemingly simple sentence that changes the whole argument included within the article. “The guards at Abu Ghraib were told that they were merely “softening up” the prisoners for interrogation”(Szegedy-Maszak 77). This sentence is the one piece of evidence that clearly shows how it is not the soldiers fault, but authority figures. The only ones who can order the soldiers to act this way is their commanding
officers. The acts of torture being committed at the Abu Ghraib prison were truly horrendous. There have been many attempts to figure out how and why these acts occur, when the answer is truly very simple.The guards are very simply following orders passed down to them from their superiors. As one continues to consider this it becomes a very scary thought. Our society today has been trained to follow orders and obey, which is what people do for most of their lives. Yet is this a good thing considering that people will obey others, even to the extent of torturing another human being? While the events in the article “The Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal: Sources of Sadism” may seem far away it is really not. There are people everywhere following orders and blindly obeying their authority figures. This may cause serious problems for society in the near future.
In Lauren Slater’s book Opening Skinner’s Box, the second chapter “Obscura” discusses Stanley Milgram, one of the most influential social psychologists. Milgram created an experiment which would show just how far one would go when obeying instructions from an authoritative figure, even if it meant harming another person while doing so. The purpose of this experiment was to find justifications for what the Nazi’s did during the Holocaust. However, the experiment showed much more than the sociological reasoning behind the acts of genocide. It showed just how much we humans are capable of.
Szegedy-Maszak, Marianne. "The Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal: Sources of Sadism." Writing and Reading for ACP Composition. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Custom, 2009. 210-12. Print.
Baumrind, Diana. “Review of Stanley Milgram’s Experiments on Obedience”. Writing & Reading for ACP Composition. Ed. Thomas E. Leahey and Christine R. Farris. New York: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2009. 224-229. Print.
Stanley Milgram, author of "The Perils of Obedience," conducted an experiment at Yale University to see if average citizens would partake in a study revolving around obedience to authority (Milgram 78). In said experiment, a professor from Yale would give an ordinary individual the authority to shock another person. If the ordinary individual asked to stop, the professor would coax them to continue and remind them they hold no responsibility (78). Not only did Milgram 's study revolve around obedience to authority, it also stressed the point of every person could be capable of torture and doing so without feeling responsible. In the article, "The Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal: Sources of Sadism," author Marianne Szegedy-Maszak states, anyone can
Applebaum believes that torture should not be used as a means of gaining information from suspects. Applebaum's opinion is supported through details that the practice has not been proven optimally successful. After debating the topic, I have deliberated on agreeing with Applebaum's stance towards the torture policy. I personally agree with the thought to discontinue the practice of torture as a means of acquiring intel. I find it unacceptable that under the Bush Administration, the President decided prisoners to be considered exceptions to the Geneva Convention. As far as moral and ethical consideration, I do not believe that it is anyone's right to harm anyone else, especially if the tactic is not proven successful. After concluding an interview with Academic, Darius Rejali, Applebaum inserted that he had “recently trolled through French archives, found no clear examples of how torture helped the French in Algeria -- and they lost that war anyway.” There are alternative...
Upon analyzing his experiment, Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist, concludes that people will drive to great lengths to obey orders given by a higher authority. The experiment, which included ordinary people delivering “shocks” to an unknown subject, has raised many questions in the psychological world. Diana Baumrind, a psychologist at the University of California and one of Milgram’s colleagues, attacks Milgram’s ethics after he completes his experiment in her review. She deems Milgram as being unethical towards the subjects he uses for testing and claims that his experiment is irrelevant to obedience. In contrast, Ian Parker, a writer for New Yorker and Human Sciences, asserts Milgram’s experiments hold validity in the psychological world. While Baumrind focuses on Milgram’s ethics, Parker concentrates more on the reactions, both immediate and long-term, to his experiments.
A natural response to such a violent environment is to simply behave in a way that portrays no weakness. If the soldier does not show any signs of weakness, he finds it much easier to convince himself that he can survive by his strength. In asserting his control over himself by hiding all of his weaknesses, h...
The motives are very clear as mentioned in the article. Thus it‘s justifiable to let our soldiers
We see that the author’s purpose is to allow the readers to understand that the prisoners were not treated humanly, and allows us to see the negative attitudes the authority had towards the prisoners.
Everyone in this world lives under a certain set of circumstances. These circumstances are like barrels, and these barrels shape others in certain ways depending on what are inside them. Phil Zimbardo became an expert witness for one of the guards from Abu Ghraib because when the Bush Administration and the military General said
Again the subjects surroundings and the authority over them affects the way they act and what they’ll do. In his experiment he put flyers out around town to get random subjects. He was offering four dollars and fifty cents for one hours work at the time people needed that kind of money to put food on the table so as he expected he had tons of subjects to choose from. He choose very specific subjects all men in the ages from 20 to 50 with different occupations.When he choose the subjects they didn’t know it would be a test of their obedience to authority even in crazy situations, but of their memory. Two subjects would go in at a time but one was an actor set by the experimenter and the other the actual subject. They were told that one person would be the teacher and the other the learner or student and that this would be selected randomly.But what the subject didn’t know is the actor was already the learner there was no random selection the experimenter just wanted it to seem that way so the teacher subject would truly believe it. After that each of them were strapped to a chair where they received 45 volts of electric shock. Crazy right well listen to this, the so called learner was to be strapped to the chair while the so called teacher would say a phrase and the learner would repeat it back. If he messed up the teacher would shock the learner with 45 volts
As stated previously the results of this study came with shock some value along with affirmation for many theorists. “Correctional officers work directly with inmates, and their perceptions of inmates either enhance or reduce the possibility of stress” (Misis, Kim, Cheeseman, Hogan, and Lambert, 2013). This study opened the door for psychologist to continue to research the ramifications of incarcerations in many realms and spectrums. The rapid deterioration of the mock inmates due to the immediate acceleration of aggression by the subject prison guards, enables psychologist to test the theory of inhumanity by ways of social behavior social
Slater, Lauren. Opening Skinner's box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century. New York: W.W. Norton, 2004. Print.
And when many of the prisoners tried to peacefully protest these cruel conditions, they were repaid with brutal force. This seems to be an unlikely way to reform or rehabilitate anybody It is believed by many human beings that what goes on behind prison bars is not happening in the society where we live; It is said that prisons are a microcosm of society, what happens in reflects the macrocosm. Comparing and contrasting, what go’s in prisons happens to us on the outside as a
There is a lot of parts that make a prison operate. From the generators to give out power to the building, to the janitors to keep the building clean and the mail room to sort and pass out the mail that’s comes through. But there is three key parts that make a prison function. One of those parts is; the outside fencing and barbwire that’s wrapped around the building. Without it inmates are able to come and go when they please. No boundaries are set making the jail pointless. A second key part is the commanding officer. His job is to control the inmates on what they do. The officer knows what the inmates are doing through the day, meaning if an inmate did something the officer knows about it. Lastly the holding cell.