Evil, In
Thy Service
Robert H. Outman
Prisoner P-79939
Shakespeare
wrote, "True love is like ghosts, everyone talks about it, but few witness
it." Everyone recognizes the ugly manifestation of Evil, but few
realize they are witness to Evil taking its insidious form. We all
hear "dancing with the Devil", but few know they are witness to the dance
card being filled.
Evil
is a provocative subject. Psychologists, philosophers, and theologians
offer publications on the pragmatic aspects of Evil. The public's
voyeur thirst is tantalized, as people pay witness to the forbidden and
macabre products of Evil. Billions of dollars are paid out to see
a psychopath massacre people with a chain saw, and Jason can't put down
his knife, because the public keeps paying to see his handiwork.
Cops with guns blazing fight the monsters of Evil, and everyone lives happily
ever after.
Focusing
on the end products, people are blind to Evil finding its legs. The
philosopher Nietzsche, in his analysis of Evil, wrote, "Whoever fights
monsters should see to it that in the process they do not become a monster."
Too often, we see the righteous anti-abortionist secretly wanting his girlfriend
to have an abortion, or the Freudian Oedipus complex man posing as the
perfect son and father when, beneath, he wants to destroy his father.
All the while, Evil has found a breeding ground. Why, he's a perfect
politician fighting the monster abortionists, and he's such a good son
and father; "there's no Evil."
Fertile
soils for Evil to grow are greed, desire, obsessive righteousness, jealousy,
power, and, strangely, conformity. We saw that when Rodney King was
brutally beaten by a pack of conforming police. Separated from the
pack, how many of those officers would have individually beaten the man?
Few will stray from the herd mentality. If the herd hates you, then
I must hate you. If the herd says you're a monster, then I must destroy
you. After all, separating from the pseudo-security of the herd could
be dangerous.
This
herd mentality is ubiquitous in prison, with both guards and prisoners.
Guards alone will usually conduct themselves as officers. In a group,
they'll turn bully, demonstrating to the others, I'm as polarized toward
prisoners as my peer bullies. Evil driven prisoners, like hyenas,
will hunt for weaker prisoners to exploit, or gratify sadistic demons within.
Prisoners and guards waltz with the Devil.
In
ignorant bliss, people find a false sense of security in: "I don't
have to worry about prisoners, because they're locked in there with lethal
fences". HELLO! Prison products are bad men made worse and
good men made bad. Rehabilitation is little more than a rhetorical
device to patronize taxpayers.
The
phenomena of prisons making men worse can be found in: Dr Stanley
Milgram's Obedience to Authority; Dr Christopher Browning's
Ordinary
People; Dr Solomon E. Asch's Opinions and Social Pressures;
and Psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen's Science of Evil. Cohen
brings attention to a long known condition, banality of evil (BOE).
The lay person recognizes BOE as "I was only doing my job", or "It isn't
my job." Nazi guards escaped punishment for mass murder through BOE.
Incredible human suffering has been inflicted under the safety of BOE.
By establishing a chain of responsibility, each individual in the chain
performs a banal piece of the Evil puzzle, coupled with a lack of empathy.
It's a license to kill. There is a consensus among psychologists:
the absence of empathy allows a greater proportion of Evil.
Here's
an example of BOE. I'm a 74-year-old prisoner with a multitude of
health problems requiring a multitude of medications, which present sensitivity
to heat. On a recent Thursday, San Diego was having a heat wave,
turning concrete cells into hot-boxes. To endure the heat, fans are
a survival necessity. At 6:30 AM, my circuit breaker threw, stopping
my fan. Immediately, the two cell-block guards were requested to
reset the breaker, a simple process. Thirty-two hours later, Friday,
at 2:30 PM, after at least ten guards and three sergeants, all with excuses
as to why "It's not my job", and totally indifferent to the suffering caused
by their BOE, plant ops reset the breaker.
This
banality of evil is a psychological torture, repeated in various forms
constantly in prison. Where prison personnel could set examples of
proper decorum, teaching prisoners what the "milk of human kindness" means,
they prefer to teach how to be hateful.
At
this point, I must say that there are officers among the guards, individuals
who actually teach decorum. However, they face constant pressure
to conform. Rehabilitation will never happen when guards continue
to make it easy to hate, and the products they produce are pumped back
out into society.![10x5 Page Background GIF Image](../../Images/10x5_Page_Background.gif)
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