The Lucifer Effect within the Prosperity Paradigm

The Lucifer Effect was observed and defined by Philip Zimbardo in very widely known Stanford Prison Experiment. The Lucifer Effect revealed rather shockingly, well within 36 hours of beginning of the Stanford Experiment.

To understand the psychological mechanics & dynamics in prisons, Dr. Philip Zimbardo simulated a prison within the basement of Psychology Department of Stanford University. The volunteers were employed who were largely graduates of the university, wherein all of them were keen to take up prisoners role. Randomly, 6 of the 15 volunteers were chosen as the 'Prison Guards', while the remaining 9 were dramatically were 'arrested' and then 'imprisoned'. These 'arrests & 'imprisonments' were simulated highly realistically, as they couldn't get access to the real prison! Though the 'Prison Guards' were told never to punish the 'prisoners' physically, the Lucifer Effect unfolded within just 36 hours of the Prison Experiment was unimaginably cruel, ethically unbearable bordering almost on the edge of the legal periphery! In the author's own words:   'factors that can create a "perfect storm" which leads good people to engage in evil actions. This transformation of human character is what I call the "Lucifer Effect," named after God's favorite angel, Lucifer, who fell from grace and ultimately became Satan.'

The 'gaurds', even the most conscientious and kindest among them started indulging in the worst possible punishments. The 'prisoners' sent through the worst of the ordeals they couldn't even after their fundamental rights, since they were part of an experiment not the actual prisoners. Even Philip Zimbardo, the author, who was conducting the experiemnt also couldn't call off the experiment and got carried away leading to continued violence inflicted on the volunteers. Though he closed the experiment within 5 days though it was intended to run for 2 full weeks, all the volunteers, the staff members and Dr. Zimbardo, as a 'superintendent of the prison' got tormented badly and shaken in ethical dilemmas, in the process. And the Stanford Prison Experiment gained the infamy simply as The Experiment. 

I have watched at least 2 movies on The Experiment, both have left me deeply disturbed. In fact, that was one of the reasons, I didn't want to go through the book until now. While, I was reading the book, I literally went through the harrowing nightmares, while going through the initial part faithfully documenting the ongoings in the prison!

The crux of the Lucifer Effect is the situational forces and the larger systemic factors start acting against us all at surprisingly faster speed to turn us into evil. Deindividuation, which accords the immediate detachment of ethical standards & limitations, of the arbitrarily & absolutely empowered, here the 'prison guards' gives them diabolical power to inflict unbearable violence, on the hapless prisoners, who are physically constrained and mentally driven into learned helplessness. In the other side, the prisoners are dehumanised and reduced to numbers, thus taking away all the mental energy. 

In my view, since both the guards & prisoners are taken away all the human qualities through situational forces & systemic factors and then the potential tormentors are given absolute power while the potential victims are made absolutely powerless. This situation leads to create an ideal condition to unleash brutal forces almost immediately. Since all of them have entered into primal conditions, only the change in the situation & system can bring all the 'actors' back into human senses. So the focus needs to move on to the situations & the systems rather than the individuals, though the actors can't be exculpated completely Dive they could have moved to higher level of thinking and addressed the situational and systemic issues. But here also the greatest factor is when they can't use basic mental energy could they afford to access the advanced & higher mental powers? To be fair, a very few in the experiment, both the sides showed the least significant number of people showed the mental courage to overcome the situational & systemic constraints & restraints. Definitely they all lacked approaching others and forming the groups to collectively, amongst themselves to address the larger forces beyond them. Dr. Zimbardo's further studies went on to address the situational & systemic factors in the best 3 decades before he wrote the book. I came to know that he had started an experiment to study Heroic Champions too, reduce is a welcome move!

What surprises me even now is why the study wasn't done the other way. My point is why the experiment was devised only to create situational & systemic conditions to sap all the human qualities in so the actors, whittle contrasting both the groups with the absolute power difference? There is a reason for it, sand that's far greater systemic issue, one can term it as universal issue. The reason is we all have, since millennia, lived with scarcity but not with surplus. So we have either the prisons or at the best asylums! 

As we enter into surplus economies and because the entrepreneurs take the centre stage in the economy driven by the better understanding and implementation of the Prosperity Paradigm, there is a definite need to create institutions to create & sustain situations & systems to ennoble the people. The emergence of such ennobling institutions pave the way for flourishing societies striving towards real nobility & the divinity. And in my view, that what prompted Yuval Noah Harare to write Homo deus, to lineate the future course of evolution from Homo sapiens! 

I searched for a mythical entity exactly opposed to Lucifer, but the efforts didn't yield into any specific & concrete answers, which highlights the powerful & ever dominant influence of scarcity condition on humanity! Before I conclude the search, I have come across Amesha Spenta in Zorastrian mythology. I need to delve deeper into it before I move ahead on this topic.