This is Why Evil Keeps Winning
Could stupidity and denial be our fatal flaws…?
I have moments, and they are happening much too frequently now, when I feel like John Connor in that unforgettable scene from Terminator II: Judgement Day. These moments usually come when I’m watching people going about the business of… well, of being people. And I think to myself, “We’re not gonna make it, are we?”
Don’t get me wrong. I see people do wonderful things every day. People come together to help a neighbor who’s hit hard times, or they risk their lives for a just cause, maybe they work overtime to save a patient, put out a house-fire, or finish building a house on time so a family can move in. Or they quietly sacrifice something they wanted so that their child can have what he wants instead. People rescue animals and volunteer in soup kitchens and homeless shelters and they paint imaginative paintings and compose exquisite classical music and make awesome, thunderous rock… There are so many great things people do.
But I also see some really terrible things people do. Aside from killing, murdering, abusing and violating other beings, including other people, there is a serious problem with stupidity. With really shallow, immature, lazy thinking. No, I’m not getting on my high horse and looking down at you, dear reader. If you have gotten this far, you are not the special kind of stupid I am thinking of…
This is the kind of stupid which does not believe its own ears, its own eyes or its own feelings. It trusts others, particularly Authority Figures, more than it trusts its own perceptions and instincts. This kind of stupidity is perhaps the most insidious, because a person denies their own reality and supplants it with the reality of someone else. This is stupidity on steroids. This is delusional stupidity!
Society, for example, tells us that “good” people are charming, ooze confidence, articulate their words well and know when to inject a joke or two. They smile and are friendly, they laugh easily and appear good-natured.
“Bad” people, on the other hand, are sullen, depressed, angry, bitter and lonely, probably addicted and likely rather poor.
Now before you get indignant, please wait and see where I am going with this.
That is what society tells us.
But, we all have our own perceptions of who is “good” and “bad” which have nothing to do with society and don’t care what society thinks. We might sense that the quiet, brooding man in the corner is no threat to us. He’s just got a bit of a Goth vibe. Or we might sense that the charming, cleft-chinned man with that sparkle in his eyes is a bit creepy, no matter how well-dressed he is, or what kind of car he drives.
This all happens on a personal level. Some of us trust what our bodies are telling us. And some of us stuff those feelings down and ask themselves “What Would [???] Do?” It could be society, or religious beliefs, or the tenants of the Star Trek fan club they joined. Whatever it is, they trust in it more than they trust in themselves.
For example, if you watched the interview with “The Laughing Man,” which I wrote about a few weeks ago, then you understand that Major Siegfried Müller was a dyed-in-the-Wehrmacht Nazi who went on a killing spree in Africa in the 1950's at the request of NATO. There, he took great pleasure in torturing and murdering indigenous people, drove around in a jeep decorated with a human skull and crossbones, and was buddies with a guy who collected and cleaned the skulls of his victims, then gave them to tourists. Müller raved about South Africa, where whites had all the “important” positions and blacks had all the “inferior” positions.
You no doubt noticed that he was superficially charming and, at least before his fifth bottle of Pernod, quite articulate in his native German. But I’m sure you understood immediately that those superficial aspects of his personality pale in comparison to the racist, murdering monster he reveals himself to be with his own words.
Right…?
Well, if you’re like me, you were completely repulsed by Müller, a fascist, a white supremacist, and probably a psychopath to boot (but I’m not a psychologist…)
However… not everybody thinks the same way. And here is where that special kind of stupidity comes into play. Because how else do you explain these comments from people who watched “The Laughing Man” on YouTube?
Really… that was your takeaway…?
So… he vas only following orders…? Ist zat reich…?
Are they approving of that or just noting it in passing…?
Oh. I see.
^^ This guy has his own iron cross.
Yes, he sounded wonderful as he described how he cut off men’s legs and arms. Oh, what’s that? I’m sorry! Please. Keep praising him…
The German comments are also mostly in praise of Müller.
There were a few thoughtful people, but they were seriously outflanked by the Congo Killer’s fan club.
I know, I know. It’s just stupid comments on YouTube, so who cares? But all John Connor saw was kids pretending to be at war, and that did it for him. Maybe it’s just that each one of these John Connor moments adds to the weight of all the collective doubt I am feeling about our species’ future…?
It used to be that I just couldn’t understand how, in the 21st century, there are still people who support Nazis, white supremacists and racist murderers. I knew about the Nazis in Ukraine, of course. Even if I couldn’t post pictures like the one below on Facebook without violating their “Community Standards on Hate Speech.” But I couldn’t understand how any thinking person could choose to support fascism!
Because they aren’t thinking.
They are on autopilot. Cruising through life without questioning what they believe, without even trusting their own senses.
The comments on “The Laughing Man” reveal how people, in Germany or Ukraine, or other places, can be swept away in fascist ideology, deluded and in denial — cut off from their own perceptions as human beings!
These are the kinds of people who can be instructed to run the concentration camps. Who will not flinch from turning on the gas or injecting the death serum or shooting someone in the legs at point-blank range. Their own feelings are stuffed down somewhere deep inside, replaced with something else…
Oh, now come on, you say. You’re reading into this too deeply.
Another person who read into this “too deeply” was Dr. Stanley Milgram, a Yale professor, who referred to this kind of behavior as the “agentic state,” and theorized that people experience an “agentic shift” when they are “confronted with a person they perceive as having legitimate authority and begin to act as an ‘agent’, on behalf of the authority figure.”
He conducted a series of controversial experiments in the 60’s and 70’s, in order to understand why people in totalitarian regimes — such as the Nazis — would be inclined to disregard their own moral compass and perform acts they might normally consider vile, cruel, despicable, evil.
You can get a quick understanding of what was involved in these tests by watching the short video above of the actual tests themselves. Or, you can watch the biographical film about Dr. Milgram — Experimenter — which I highly recommend.
The primary test was one in which two people were brought into a room and one was made a “teacher” and the other was a “learner.” The “teacher” was instructed to ask the “learner” a series of questions and to administer an electrical shock to the “learner” when he answered incorrectly.
Unbeknownst to the “teachers,” who were, in fact, the only test subjects in the experiments, the “learner” was actually part of the staff conducting the tests, and never received any electric shocks at all. However, recordings of the “learner” crying out in pain and demanding the experiment to end were played continuously as the “teacher” flipped the switches to administer the “shock,” and they could all hear the “learner” clearly.
Now, you’re probably thinking, “I wouldn’t keep shocking him if he was crying in pain!” And maybe you wouldn’t! Maybe you would be among the precious few who refused to continue, but they are so few, in fact, that the study does not even list them, although according to the movie, there were one or two.
The majority of those tested, 65% of them, continued to shock the “learner” all the way up to the maximum voltage, which they had been told was 450 volts. And all of the participants continued up to 300 volts.
The tests were incredibly controversial because of what they revealed about human nature and the instinct to conform. To many, including some of the subjects of the tests, it was a hard truth to be confronted with, one they did not want to believe.
Peter Sarsgaard, who plays Dr. Milgram, ends the film with this striking monologue:
“The obedience experiments are cited and discussed in nearly every introductory psychology textbook worldwide. My obedience film is screened for every incoming class at West Point. And my methods and results continue to be challenged, scorned, debunked, yet every time a new outrage is unleashed into the world, sanctioned and systematic acts of violence, the obedience experiments re-enter the conversation, re-framing unanswerable questions. You could say we’re puppets. But I believe we are puppets with perception, with awareness. Sometimes, we can see the strings and, perhaps, our awareness is our first step in our liberation.”
People say what happened in Germany can’t happen here.
But Dr. Milgram's experiments revealed that it can happen here.
It can happen anywhere, where humans do not feel responsible for their choices, where humans are just going through the motions, on auto-pilot, where critical thinking is not nurtured, and humans are not aware of basic manipulative patterns.
It happened to me!
Years ago, in the late 1990’s, I was covering Vice President Al Gore’s presidential campaign run in Washington State. I was out by the tarmac with a cameraman. On the other side of the tall chain-link fence, Air Force Two was waiting for V.P. Gore to return.
I was there to catch his departure. There were only a few of us there; security guys, reporters and cameras. It was quiet and uninteresting.
Soon the V.P. arrived in his limo with his entourage, which included then-WA Governor Gary Locke, and they were swiftly escorted up the steps to the airplane where they turned and waved. Not at us. But at the imaginary crowd which had gathered to see them off.
My cameraman didn’t think anything of it. He zoomed in tight, captured them waving goodbye, and edited out the lackluster scenes of the empty airport.
I didn’t question it either. After all, it was our job to make the story as interesting as possible.
About the author:
Deborah Armstrong currently writes about geopolitics with an emphasis on Russia. She previously worked in local TV news in the United States where she won two regional Emmy Awards. In the early 1990’s, Deborah lived in the Soviet Union during its final days and worked as a television consultant at Leningrad Television. You can support Deborah’s writing at Paypal or Patreon, or donate via Substack.
Your 4th paragraph sums up the age of stupid very well, of which the worst thing is - people are choosing to be stupid.
"Authority Figures" stands out well, Deborah. In fact I subconsciously had already transposed it with "Anthony Fauci" upon seeing it and being aware of the subject matter at hand. I'm just getting into reading this (I'm cheating) after finding you on US Tour of Duty this morning.)