Your humanity is not as strong as you might think.

It takes only 5 or 6 days for normal compassionate people to become vicious torturers. 30 years ago experiments where a flip of a coin determined if the subjects were to play guards or prisoners showed n film how easy this process is. The guards became vicious and the prisoners suffered nervous breakdowns.


This kind of evil is most likely to be expressed as a group or team but seldom by an individual. When one person is in a room they are certain to report smoke billowing from beneath a door but put 3 people in the room and each of them wait for someone else to do something which results in no action being taken by anyone.

This is how the shrieking damned as they climbed a pyramid of bodies
composed of their neighbors, friends and family to escape the Cyclon B, were laughed at by the Nazi guards outside. Or how air was sucked from thousands of lungs in Dresden or how the Japanese briefly saw themselves glow incandescent while the pilot above ate a Milky Way.
This is how American Abu Graib became the same torture chamber as it was under Saddam Hussein. This is how 5,000 people a year die mysteriously in police captivity away from other inmates.
This is how endless lines of Jews were so easily herded into cattle cars. This is how Jonestown Kool Aid was made.

This is how America can now invade, kill and torture while declaring democracy, justice, technical legalities and innocence.

What is most disturbing is the belief that you are immune from this group dynamic, you are not. Be it an armband signifying authority, a mass religious or political gathering or team, all the humanity one thinks they have can vanish in moments. ITs not just mob mentality, it can be as few as 3 people.

The one person who does go against the group to do the right thing is sometimes called a hero, a boy scout, a whistle blower and sometimes called a traitor.

This is how my "compassionate" neighbor who spends 12 hours a week in religious worship and workshops can call for the destruction of certain branded human beings and openly seek new members to join their cause. He does not see it as fear mongering, hate or murder, he sees it as not tolerating evil any longer. Yet he too thinks himself immune from the loss of his humanity.

I would hope that you might be the one who stands up to be the hero.
The facts are, the odds are against you.


(this short essay appears on the back of my painting of Dachau entitled 'TEAM'.)


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