I generally spend some quiet time reading the Post while having my morning oatmeal, wondering if anything I'm going to read today will provide me with some inspiring thoughts. Two articles stood out for me this morning, but I thought they had nothing in common: 160 square miles of Antarctic ice broke off the iceshelf, and extensive Nazi records from the Holocaust era were released for the first time last year, allowing survivors at long last to learn the fate of family and friends. What's the connection? Trust me: there is one.
The connection is named Stanley Milgram. His ground-breaking work on obedience and torture showed that even good people can forsake their moral principles — and even their humanity — when they've been goaded by (perceived) authority figures and the stakes are gradually raised.
Do you see the connection yet? No matter how unthinkable, people will willingly pursue destructive policies (even self-destructive policies) so long as those policies are promoted by people in power. When Craig and I visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington for the first time several years ago, what I found most deeply disturbing (besides the extent of the Holocaust) was that the erosion of human rights took place so gradually that even the prospect of the existence of the death camps was only mildly disturbing to the population.
The underlying mechanism is the same for global warming. It's still only mildly disturbing that a chunk of ice six times the size of Manhattan has broken off from the Antarctic (where, incidentally, the effects of global warming are not yet being strongly felt). Once again, as we gradually approach the unthinkable, we're allowing authority to downplay science and obedience to trump prudence. In the 1930's, there was no general outcry against the gradual marginalization of Jewish individuals in Europe (and it's starting again in some areas) and now we're thinking that probably, someday, something should be done "in case" our behavior is changing our planet's climate.
How long can we continue with 'business as usual' until the consequences of our behavior catch up with us? Will there ever be a Nuremberg Trial for the perpetrators of the climatic collapse of our biosphere? Or, will they be long gone and unreachable by the time the full impact of their policies and decisions come down upon us? Finally, the deepest and most unsettling questions must focus on our own complicity. As Edmund Burke said, "All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men [and women] to do nothing." Need we prove this saying true yet again?
H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2008 H. Les Brown
Technorati Tags:
mindfulness, Holocaust, global warming, Stanley Milgram, authority, obedience, responsibility
Keep it coming, wirtres, this is good stuff.
Posted by: Chelsi | Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 03:39 AM