Inhuman treatment and Human Nature

I don’t have an answer for Mr. Ramzi Kysia’s first question—why God allows atrocities to occur—but I do have an answer to the second question—why we commit them. My answer is we are designed to commit the kinds of behaviors that we, as a culture, call atrocities.

How can this be? Because, in the environment in which we evolved as a species, it was a necessity to aggressively defend one’s self and one’s family group. And, over the intervening thousands of years this pattern of behavior has not been replaced or extinguished.

Now it may seem like I have just given you my entire sermon—and in a way you are correct—but not really. For all I have done is to tell you what I am going to tell you.

As you may have noticed from what I said in my last sermon, I have been very absorbed in the exploration of human evolution—especially Evolutionary Psychology. This was the foundation of my sermon last year on November 30 the title of which was “The Nature of Human Nature”.

For my purposes here this morning, I will draw an arbitrary distinction that is not totally supported in the dictionary but it is useful to by discussion. I suggest that to describe the actions of the guards at the Abu Graib prison as “inhuman” is inaccurate. I say this because it implies that it is not human—one of the definitions of inhuman is “non-human.” In fact, what those guards and interrogators did is well within the range of normal human behavior; and it is even predictable given the nature of human nature and the stresses under which they were acting.

What they did and what we all have seen displayed for us in the news media are acts that I choose to identify as inhumane. This is a cultural judgment on their behavior. It says that we consider those behaviors to be atrocities—behaviors that lie outside of what should be expected of people who respect the worth and dignity of every human being.

I am using this distinction to emphasize the fact that they are indeed inhumane atrocities; they are also a natural outcome of out of our human nature. To underscore and expand on the human character of these acts, I refer a recent television news broadcast.

The human character of these behaviors was testified to by the panelists who participated in a discussion of this issue in a segment on the News Hour of the May 11, 2004. (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/jan-june04/prisoners_5-11.html) Three of the panelists were Psychologists and one was a military historian. All three Psychologists confirmed that, given the “right” combination of circumstances—extreme power differential, high stress, and lack of proper supervision—one can guarantee that there will be abuse of the prisoners by the guards.

One of the Psychologists was Dr. Robert Jay Lifton. As a professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School he has studied Nazi doctors and the atrocities they performed during World War II; he has also studied Vietnam veterans. This is part of what he said about what we have seen from Abu Graib.

“I would understand it as what I call an atrocity-producing situation. In studying Vietnam and what happened there and interviewing Vietnam veterans I found that the situation they were in was so structured psychologically and militarily that ordinary people, no better or worse than you or me, could walk into it and commit atrocities.”

Another Psychologist on the panel was Dr. Philip Zimbardo. As a Professor at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, Dr. Zimbardo’s principle interest has been the behavior of people in groups. In 1971, he designed an experiment in which he attempted to model a prison. This is what he said about his study.

“What happened is, in my study, we took good young men, put the them in [the difficult situation] of a simulated prison and out came corrupted young men who did sadistic acts very similar to what you see in Abu Ghraib, chaining them, making them naked, putting bags over their heads, making them clean out toilet bowls with their hands and at the end simulating sodomy, having the prisoners simulate sodomy. And these were college students to other college students.”

The military historian was Professor Jay Winik. In response to a question about what lessons we have from history on this topic, he said this.

“What history tells us is that there's just a terrible logic of war where ordinary or even extraordinary people can just do terrible things. Hannah Arendt, the philosopher, once called it the banality of evil.”

He went on to say that history is replete with horrible atrocities committed by men on other men and on women. He did not mention the alternative—atrocities committed by women—but I suppose it has happened.

The third Psychologist was Army Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman, a retired Professor of Psychology at West Point. His attention was on the training of troops. He said this.

“Ever since Mylai, every single soldier is required by law to be repeatedly trained on a yearly basis about what is an illegal act, what is an illegal action and not just how to identify illegal actions but how to go about reporting them and how to disobey orders.”

He spoke at length about what the Army is attempting to accomplish, that is to build in controls so as to prevent atrocities. This is a small excerpt.

“The potential for atrocity, all of my fellow speakers tremendously imminent individuals, keep speaking of war as a situation which by definition has these problems. But the reality is that it has the potential for these problems. [emphasis added]

The goal has to be a consistent systemic process at every level. The individual must be held accountable. The leaders who were immediately responsible must be held accountable. The individuals who were responsible for establishing the framework must be held accountable.”

The question no one wants to hear stands before us: Is it possible that the source of this abusive behavior is an integral part of the nature of human nature?

What I can tell you is this. From what I have read of the neurological research on the functioning of the brain, from anthropological research on primates and primitive human tribes, and from analyses of human behavior in stressful situations, including and especially, war, the answer comes back a resounding YES.

For many decades Psychologists have done research and gathered evidence. Evolutionary Psychologists have taken this evidence and formed theories that attempt to explain these patterns of behaviors. We know that there are patterns of behavior built into the human brain that are triggered by external circumstances. Learning a language is an obvious one.

It is important to understand that the basic wiring is genetically transmitted. However, the exact behaviors elicited by a given set of stimuli will depend upon what learning has taken place before the incident in question. For example, given the stimulation of a brain pattern that calls for a violent and deadly attack on an opponent, one would not expect a modern man to grab for a spear the way his ancient relative would. He would probably grab for a knife or a gun because those are the instruments of violence he has used or seen used.

One set of these inherited traits that exists predominantly in men is the pre-wired pattern for violent aggression. This pattern in the brain evolved because the behaviors that these genes carried into the next generation proved to be a good fit for the environment in which early man evolved. What is impressive to me is that this trait is so successful that it even survived the split off of the human family from the rest of the primate family. Violent aggression in the male human animal is not significantly different from that found in our primate male cousins, the chimpanzees.

The young males of a tribe of chimpanzees are the defenders of the boundaries of the group. They form strong bonds in the process of defending their group and they seem to actually seek out opportunities to be aggressive towards other groups. They do not leave their natal group. Of course, in the process, a number of them are killed. The females, on the other hand, do not take part in aggressive activities and usually leave their natal group and find another group to join. Thus the population of any one group is fairly stable.

Anthropologists who have studied primitive tribes in South America have found these same patterns of behavior. But, if all this talk of primitive tribes and chimpanzee behavior is not very convincing to you, let me tell you about Mr. Chris Hedges.

Mr. Hedges has been an international reporter for the New York Times for many years. He reported on many of the nastiest wars we have witnessed over the past 20 years or so. He has been shot, severely wounded, captured, brutally treated and was often in fear of loosing his life. Yet he returned again and again to these same situations. As a kind of self-analysis, he wrote a book in which he tells of his discovery. The title tells some of what his discovery was—War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning.

He describes war as a drug. He does this because from his own experience he realized that he simply could not resist returning to war and all its violence. He was addicted. He returned not for the violence but for the close relationships he found there. He describes the male bonding among men under fire as more powerful that the bond between a man and his wife. Yet he says this about love.

“There are few sanctuaries in war. But one is provided by couples in love. They are not able to staunch the slaughter. They are often powerless and can themselves often become victims. But it was with them, seated around a wood stove, usually over a simple meal, that I found sanity and was reminded of what it means to be human.” Pg 160-161.

Notice that he is not speaking of a couple, the man of which is a part of the action. He speaks of them as separate from the terror of war, so that their love feels like a shelter to him. Whereas when he is subjected to the drug of war he is its captive. His description is telling.

“In the beginning war looks and feels like love. But unlike love it gives nothing in return but an ever-deepening dependence, like all narcotics, on the road to self-destruction. It does not affirm but places upon us greater and greater demands. It destroys the outside world until it is hard to live outside war’s grip. It takes a higher and higher dose to achieve any thrill. Finally, one ingests war only to remain numb. The world outside war becomes, as Freud wrote, “uncanny.” The familiar becomes strangely unfamiliar—many who have been in war find this when they return home. The world we once understood and longed to return to stands before us as alien, strange, and beyond our grasp.” Pg 161.

Then on May 21, 2003, the Rockford Register published Mr. Hedges address to the graduates of Rockford College. Here are two excerpts in which he speaks of war.

“For the instrument of empire is war and war is a poison, a poison which at times we must ingest just as a cancer patient must ingest a poison to survive. But if we do not understand the poison of war -- if we do not understand how deadly that poison is -- it can kill us just as surely as the disease.”

Regarding the outcome of victory he said this.

“Once you master people by force you depend on force for control. In your isolation you begin to make mistakes. Fear engenders cruelty; cruelty, fear, insanity, and then paralysis. In the center of Dante's circle the damned remained motionless.”

But what about the intoxicating effects of this drug called war? (When I use the word “war” it is to be understood as violence of whatever kind, whether committed against an enemy with a gun or against a prisoner in a jail cell.) I go back to the News Hour broadcast I quoted earlier. A question was raised as to how does one explain the smiles on the faces of the guards? In response, Dr. Zimbardo said this.

“The glee on those faces-- I don't think anybody has said this. I think they were trapped in what is considered an expanded present time zone where they were cut off from their past and then their past is, your history, your personality, your obligations, your religion. And they're cut off from the future which is the consequences of your action. They were in a kind of hedonistic revelry, trapped in that moment but like you get in drug addiction, like you get in ecstasy, like you get in riots, it was a special kind of mentality where they were living in the moment.”

I hope that you are beginning to connect the dots I have put before you.

First, we have this male human animal with a brain that is pre-wired for violent aggression against a perceived enemy. It is also pre-wired to develop a very strong bond with other males who are similarly engaged—a relationship of such strength that it is not matched under any other circumstances.

Next we have the reality that, for many males, the strength of this bonding with other warriors is a drug that is so strong that it eventually becomes overpowering and results in self destruction—witness the number of suicides of Vietnam veterans following their return. Also, once addicted to this drug of violence, it is not possible to find peace in the love of another person. One can find shelter in the love of others but only as a brief respite from the addiction. Notice here that when I say war, I am also referring to any situation that can be considered to simulate a large scale war, for example gangs in the inner city.

Third, we place this male human animal in a high stress situation where his aggressive actions might assist other warriors of his group. We give him the means and, at least the tacit, if not explicit approval for the commission of violence against those males in his charge who are perceived as enemies. The results are those to which the experts have already testified—we have all seen them in pictures, and in print.
Even though the opportunity for disaster and violence was there it could have been avoided. As Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman said in the statement I quoted earlier, “The goal has to be a consistent systemic process at every level. The individual must be held accountable. The leaders who were immediately responsible must be held accountable. The individuals who were responsible for establishing the framework must be held accountable.”
This is what Lieutenant General Taguba reported following his investigation—there was inadequate supervision. This was the missing ingredient that resulted in the atrocities we have witnessed. Without consistent responsible supervision, the animals go wild. It is as simple, and as terrible as that. We have connected all of the dots and come to the end of this terrifying story.

I believe that I have made convincingly clear that violent aggressive—one could say murderous—behavior is an integral part of the evolutionary wiring of the male human brain. Like all biological systems, the intensity of this behavior varies in the male population and its distribution follows the traditional “bell” curve.

This behavior is triggered into action by the perception of external actions that threaten the safety of the individual or to the safety of its group. Another element in this equation is that the higher the background level of stress the more violent the behavior will be. The third element in this equation is permission. If there is no external restraint, and if the individual has insufficient internal restraints, the behavior will be elicited—that is the individual will be violently aggressive.

On the highways around our city and around our nation this is known as “Road Rage.” In warfare between gangs it results in brutal killings with occasional dismembering of the corpse. Without restraint, there is literally no limit to the horrors that can take place.

As much as we would like to, we can’t re-wire the male human brain. [I am sorry ladies you can’t change your husband.] There are things we can change. We can hopefully reduce the background stress. Lower the level of fear we all feel. We might be able to modify the perception of threats. But, in the end, supervision—internal or external—is the way to stop it.

We cannot place the blame on so called “rogue” elements. Violent abusive behavior is a part of the male human animal. We must accept our own dark side and deal with it in a humane manner.

It is a powerful exercise in self-love to accept—yea even love—that scary side of ourselves. It is an integral part of our nature. It is inherently good. It has enabled us to survive for millennia. This is the difficult part of our spiritual task: To love ourselves—the whole of our being—including the dark side. For what we will find when we can come to love all of ourselves is that we will then see all of our neighbors as loveable.

As Pogo said so long ago, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” All I will add to that is: love your enemy, for it is you.

Closing Words (Benediction)

I leave you with these hopeful thoughts. Humans are not moral animals, but we have the capacity to become whatever we choose to become. For evolution has also wired into this brain of ours the circuitry that allows us to monitor our automatic inclinations and makes it possible for us to resist the immediate emotional pull into action.

Controlling our own actions is the true challenge. As Mr. Ramzi Kysia said just last week, “…the only place we can possibly wage war against inhumanity is in our own hearts.”