The Root of All Evil

Today's commentary is based on the TED Talk by Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Stanford University, Philip Zimbardo, titled: "Why ordinary people do evil ... or do good?" Professor Zimbardo was the past president of the American Psychological Association, and the Western Psychological Association, and was the lead experimenter for the The Stanford Prison Experiment, in which they exposed 12 normal average college students to perform the roles of either a prison guard or prisoner.  Surprisingly within only 36 hours of the experiment, the students began suffering emotional breakdowns, and psychological imbalances, despite knowing full well that they weren't actually in a real prison. His findings from this experiment and the clinical trials of other similar experiments led him to submit expert testimony on the Abu Graive torture trials where he concluded that the system in which the soldiers were exposed, just like the students, was the root cause of their behaviour.

A common criticism of a RBE is that without laws, police, prisons, or government, evil doers would go unchecked and run rampant.  The evidence is to the contrary.  People are born empty slates with an evolutionary propensity to cooperate for survival. It is society that distorts this natural tendency and the persons values and behaviour are influenced by their environment.  Change the environment and you change the behaviour.