Americans, like most human beings, believe strongly in the concept of "us and them", and subscribe wholeheartedly to a belief in American exceptionalism. The basic idea is that Americans are, by nature, the "good guys" and that we oppose the "bad guys". That America is a good place with a good government that breeds good people.
Many people, particularly— though not exclusively —those on the left, find such an attitude naïve. But their opposition generally comes down to an opinion, usually no better supported than the blind patriotism they're objecting to.
That in mind, let me remind you of two experiments that have been discussed quite a bit since the Abu Ghraib torture scandal: the Stanley Milgram "obedience to authority" experiment, and the Stanford Prison experiment.
The Stanley Milgram experiment was developed in the 1960's and repeated, with variations in sample, location, and method, well into the 1970's. The basic set up was that a subject would be brought into an office as a "teacher". They would be placed in front of a machine with a dial and a button on it. The dial listed voltages. The button would supposedly administer a shock of the voltage listed on the dial to a "learner" in another room. The "teacher" was told that their job was to ask the "learner" questions and administer a shock every time the "learner" got the question wrong. Each shock was to be at a higher voltage than the last. There were markers on the dials indicating what the shock would do to the "learner", up to and including death.
There was no actual shock being administered, but the "teachers" didn't know that. Actors pretending to be "learners" screamed and thrashed in another room, as if they were actually being electrocuted.
In one session of the experiment, 85% of the "teachers" willingly administered voltages listed as "lethal" to "learners" when ordered to do so. Generally, at least 65% of the "teachers" would administer repeated painful shocks to "learners".
The Stanford Prison experiment was more complex but, in many respects, no less disturbing. A group of college clinicians simulated the arrest of 18 male college students, then divided them into 9 "prisoners" and 9 "guards" at random. Over the six days that the experiment took place, "guards" isolated and tortured "prisoners". "Prisoners" began to panic and suffer from signs of acute mental distress. And the clinicians lost all objectivity and began to plot with the guards to keep the "prisoners" under control, even though they knew as well as anyone that the "prisoners" had done nothing, and that the entire thing was just an experiment.
The moral I see in all this is that Americans can be induced to torture and degrade helpless people on very little pretense— that there is nothing so inherently noble in our character that we can't be the "bad guys" and that, in fact, the likelihood of our being "bad guys" is closely associated with the "goodness" or "badness" of our leadership. If this point had been forgotten we may certainly have been reminded of it by the recent spate of illegal strip searches performed on customers at various retail and fast food outlets around the country.
In conclusion, Americans are not necessarily the "good guys" and anyone who uses that as the basis of their argument against accusations of misconduct is living in denial. That many Americans do just that, and are encouraged by their fellows, suggests to me that we as a people have forgotten our sense of responsibility to ourselves and to our country. It makes it all too easy to pretend that simply being an American excuses one from putting forth the effort to be moral.
Or, to put it another way, we are only the "good guys" if we make good choices. We all have to keep an eye out for the authority figure who gives us a button and a dial and tells us what our job is. In the 1960's, something on the order of 65% of Americans failed that test of character.
We're failing it again today.
Perhaps my chief source of admiration for the founding fathers (slave-holding landowners that they were) is the deep cynicism evidenced by their words where matters of state authority are concerned. Intentionally dividing the government into branches with potentially adverserial relationships towards each other, clearly dilineating the limits of governmental authority -- all those things that are mostly addressed today in terms of their inconvenience to Getting Things Done -- all speak to a deep mistrust of authority. That pack of bewigged East-Coast intellectuals must have known better than anybody there is no simpler form of government than a monarchy: simply do whatever the sovereign or his agents instruct you to do, and you will continue to be allowed to live! What could be simpler?
The fact that they decided to go with such a relatively complicated and frequently maddening form of government is testament to how little they thought anybody could be trusted to do the right thing when ceded unlimited authority. The fact that they included the right to call those in power on their bullshit right in there among our inalienable rights is all the justification I need for endlessly finding fault with those in power. It's my patriotic duty!
Could it be that they were 200 years ahead of their time (or Milgram's time anyway) in their understanding of human nature?
Posted by: flamingbanjo at May 19, 2004 02:27 PMI'm strangely compelled to add Skinner's shock box experiments to the Zimbardo and Milgram examples you gave above. Or, and I don't think this was Skinner, the wiring of the pleasure center of a mouse's brain and then giving them a lever to push to feel good. The mice all starved to death while they blissed themselves out.
Using the Good Guys argument is pure bunkum. Americans are just like other people, stupid, craven and prone to fits of madness when giving absolute power over other humans.
Just as filthy has been the attempt by some voices on the GOP side trying to downplay the nature of the torture visited upon these POW's. Rush Limbaugh, notably has likened the torture to a fraternity prank.
Posted by: Johnny Huh? at May 19, 2004 03:52 PMI disagree with the characterization of humans as "stupid, craven and prone to fits of madness". Generally speaking, I'm more inclined to agree with Shakespeare; "in apprehension how like a god," etc. The mistake is to assume that our virtues are handed to us from on high; that our actions are virtuous because we're virtuous, thereby absolving us of any obligation to question ourselves. That gets back to the "us and them" crowd; Americans, being naturally virtuous, can only commit virtuous acts. Therefore, to question the intentions of the nation (through the proxy of our leaders) is inherently wrong.
But the "humans suck" angle is no less an abnegation of responsibility. It lends itself, in my experience, either to nihilism or to "city on a hill" thinking. Nihilism doesn't work for all the obvious reasons. The city on a hill model lends itself to dehumanizing of the "others" and an assumption of divine fiat on the part of the city-on-a-hill-dwellers.
Essentialism is so popular and persistent precisely because it removes the responsibility to make decisions about what kind of person you're going to be from the equation.
I'm turning your complex argument into something simple, but I was talking to a guy I work with today about this belief that Americans are always in the right. He blames movies. He says that Americans rarely ever make movies with other Americans as the bad guy and that when they've run through the lists of foreign bad guys they just substitute natural disasters. I find it interesting that apparently entertainment can wipe out and rewrite history. I've been trying to think of any recent movies with an American as the bad guy and really can't come up with one. What about you guys? Which way does this go? Do we think we're the good guys because the movies tell us this, or do the movies tell us this because we're always the good guy?
Posted by: Melanie at May 21, 2004 02:09 PM