Post four: Stanford Experiment

I do believe that human behavior is dependent on the situation. Although I found the experiment interesting and helpful in understanding human nature, I think that the Stanford Prison experiment went a little too far and really violated any code of ethics. I think it was really interesting to see how the guards abused their power and freedom and used it to their advantage over the prisoners. When comparing this experiment to racism, I would say that the white supremacist and racists are the guards, and the ridiculed group are the prisoners. Although if you look at the big picture, it is more like the racist people are the prisoners- prisoners stuck in a small room along with their negative and empty feelings towards others. They are prisoners of their own confined thoughts, unable to experience acceptance and love of others, and due to the “human nature” of groups, they lack the freedom to travel outside of the group’s ideals.

In the guards’ eyes, prisoners are just a number in their job. They don’t distinguish one person from the next, like prisoner 416 said how he was just a number to the guards, not a name. This made me think of how racist people think of the group that is oppressed. Take the Nazi’s for example; the prisoners in the concentration camps were completely dehumanized so that it would be easier for the guards to abuse them because if they related to the prisoners, it might be too difficult for them to hurt or kill them. The prisoners in the concentration camps were not people and not individuals, but just numbers to the Nazis.

The Stanford experiment really helps to illuminate privilege, power and oppression in our society over many years. The guards have the privilege of freedom, of a voice and of power over others. However, when power is trusted into the wrong people, a bad situation can result from it. It is not often that in a group of people that one person will speak up saying or doing the “right thing”. It also showed how difficult it is to break the power, and break the oppression of others because it is difficult to be the only one standing up for a cause. This experiment largely showed that the privilege of having power is often abused, resulting in oppression and abuse of other people if no one speaks up. This is why we must not be afraid of the oppression we may face by being the only one who does it.