The
Lucifer Effect by Zimbardo, 2007, Excerpts
“The power elite is
composed of men whose positions enable them to transcend the ordinary
environments of ordinary men and women; they are in positions to make decisions
having major consequences. They are in command of the major hierarchies and
organizations of modern society. They rule the big corporations. They run the
machinery of state and claim its prerogatives. They direct the military
establishment. They occupy strategic command posts of the social structure, in
which are now centered the effective means of power and the wealth and
celebrity which they enjoy. Whether they
do or do not make decisions is less important that the fact that they do occupy
such pivotal positions: their failure to act, their failure to make decisions,
is itself an act that is often of greater significance than the decisions they
do make.” [The
Power Elite by C. Wright Mills, 1956]
When a power elite
wants to destroy an enemy nation, it turns to propaganda experts to fashion a
program of hate. It requires a “hostile imagination,” a psychological
construction embedded deeply in their minds by propaganda that transforms those
others into “The Enemy.” That image is a soldier’s most powerful motive that
loads his rifle with ammunition of hate and fear. The image of a dreaded enemy
threatening one’s personal well-being and the society’s national security
emboldens priorities to turn plowshares into swords of destruction.
It is all done with
words and images. The process begins with creating stereotyped conceptions of
the other, dehumanized perceptions of the other, the other as worthless, the
other as all-powerful, the other as demonic, the other as an abstract monster,
the other as a fundamental threat to our cherished values and beliefs. With
public fear notched up and the enemy imminent, reasonable people act
irrationally, independent people act in mindless conformity, and peaceful
people act as warriors. Dramatic visual images of the enemy on posters,
television, magazine covers, movies, and the Internet imprint powerful emotions
of fear and hate.
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