Returning to the Stanford Prison Experiment

Ben Blum, in his article The Lifespan of a Lie, sets out to put to rest the findings of the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE). He suggests that the reason we have collectively embraced the lesson of the SPE—that environments strongly affect people's moral decisions—is because it lets us off the hook for bad decisions. In other words, we cannot be held accountable for immoral behavior if it was our environment, not ourselves, that caused us to act as we did.

Seemingly at variance with his viewpoint, Mr. Blum goes on to write about an attempted replication of the SPE. Emphasis added by me:

"According to Alex Haslam and Stephen Reicher, psychologists who co-directed an attempted replication of the Stanford prison experiment in Great Britain in 2001, a critical factor in making people commit atrocities is a leader assuring them that they are acting in the service of a higher moral cause with which they identify — for instance, scientific progress or prison reform. We have been taught that guards abused prisoners in the Stanford prison experiment because of the power of their roles, but Haslam and Reicher argue that their behavior arose instead from their identification with the experimenters, which Jaffe and Zimbardo encouraged at every turn. Eshleman, who described himself on an intake questionnaire as a “scientist at heart,” may have identified more powerfully than anyone, but Jaffe himself put it well in his self-evaluation: “I am startled by the ease with which I could turn off my sensitivity and concern for others for ‘a good cause.’”"

An important lesson that we can draw from the Stanford Prison Study, Haslam and Reicher's replication, Solomon Asch's experiments on the bandwagon effect, and other studies on social norming, is that people generally conform to what they think they are expected to do, and much more so when that expectation comes from an authority figure. The COG employed the highest and most absolute authority of all, God. Following the words of our "prophet," David Berg, created an upside-down, morally abhorrent, alternative reality within COG Homes and was the root of abuse and exploitation within the cult.

See also, The Power of Ideology.

Apologies

Dear Children,

The subject of apologies is vast and overwhelming. It is probably easier to try to sift out the few things I did right from the haystack of wrongs. But that wouldn't be an apology. 

Although I have apologized privately to you and to other young people I have known over the years, I would like to make a public statement. For what it's worth, I am deeply sorry for the following:

• raising you in a toxic cult with twisted sense of normalcy
• subjecting you to reading—and memorizing—Mo Letters and the Bible in lieu of more useful books and information
• not ensuring your safety from abusive treatment
• failing to provide you with a carefree childhood
• having you pass out tracts, sell posters and tapes, and other embarrassing "witnessing" ventures
• leaving two of you as nursing babies to go away for "training," per leadership orders
• striving to be a Bible woman and thus setting a terrible example as a mother
• remaining with a man who was physically and emotionally abusive to my children, necessitating walking on eggshells to try to avoid his tirades over petty perceived offences, angry outbursts, and beatings
• raising you in a dysfunctional stressful household
• dodging confrontation instead of facing and working through the conflict
• not allowing you older ones a normal opportunity for socialization
• not ensuring you got the education you deserved
• limiting your opportunities by raising you in a foreign, rural backwater
• allowing one of you to go work for evil cult overlords who subjected you to unwanted sex, and for not insisting you come home immediately when you called me upset about being there
• and to all the young people who grew up in TFI, I am sincerely sorry for closing my eyes in denial and remaining in a cult that advocated pedophilia, child abuse, and medical and educational neglect

There are probably more things that you deserve an apology for, but they escape me now. 

In spite of me and all my failures as a mother, you have all overcome your difficult childhoods, pulled out of dark places, and have grown into mature, good-natured, intelligent adults that I am deeply proud of. 

Love,

Mom

The Endless Road of Loss

Lost opportunities. Lost years.

The list of missed experiences has no end: college, friends, my own apartment, lunch out with girlfriends, dinner and drinks, vacations, travel, unconditional love, dating, a wedding, freedom, books....

But it takes just one thought for all that to evaporate: our children. They had no choice. 

My loss, though painful, pales into insignificance.

Dear FGAs

I am sure, you, like me, joined the COG filled with zeal and enthusiasm. We were going to make the world a better place - to win the world for Jesus. With the best of intentions, we sacrificed, gave up everything. As the years passed, and more and more "strange truths" entered our canon, our "radical prophet" led us down paths that were harmful to ourselves, and more egregiously, to our children. But we didn't notice, so twisted was our sense of normalcy.

Today, our children are grown. Tragically, some have felt they had to take their own lives. Some struggle, not fitting in anywhere. Some have gained a measure of success. Some have been very successful.

If your children have succeeded, perhaps you're tempted to pat yourself on the back, "it's because of the way they were raised, the opportunities the 'faith life' afforded them." Maybe others realize, like myself, that if they succeeded, it was in spite of how they were raised, not because of it.

Maybe you don't want to look back at your life. "It's in the past," you think. "We should 'forget those things which are behind.'"

But, could that just be an excuse for denial? An unwillingness to face the horrible truth? A resistance to dealing with the cognitive dissonance of the truth clashing with your image of yourself as a "good person"?

How much have our decisions affected the lives of our children? Do they still suffer? How have they adjusted to the real world, after being raised in an environment where their "normal" was anything but normal? Imagine the gut-wrenching feelings of abandonment, of being used, of missing out on a normal childhood. They see their peers, and they can't help but compare their upbringing. Do they wonder how their parents - the ones they loved and admired - their first role models - could have raised them so? What can they say when someone asks them innocent questions like, "Where are you from?" or "Where did you go to school?"

Have you talked with your children about their childhoods? Have you asked them how they feel? Have you sincerely apologized to them for the abuse they suffered, whether it be physical, sexual, or psychological? Or for the neglect - educational, medical, financial or otherwise?

Or do you feel you are not to blame, because your "heart was in the right place"? "God looketh on the heart." And besides, it's all in the past? Or perhaps you and your children have put your personal histories away in a box, compartmentalized, and agreed to never open that box, never speak of it.

It's hard to face, terribly hard on the ego to admit we were part of a harmful organization. We were duped. We were exploited, as were our children. The Family was not the best place in the world to raise children. We failed our children by not protecting them. And by continued association with the group, we were complicit in the abuse others suffered.

To realize that the cause we sacrificed for, that we gave years of our lives to, was nonsense that resulted in harm to the ones we love most in the world is shattering. Horrifying. Paralyzing. It shakes us down deep in our hearts. We can lose all equilibrium.

But it must be done. It must be done for our own sake. To face reality. To learn. To grow. To mature.

And more than even for our own benefit, it must be done for our children's sake. They need parents who love them, who support them, who they know will have their back. Who are going to be honest with them. Who they can trust.

Children naturally love their parents. Imagine the difficulties they must face when talking to their parents who still cling to their own righteousness and to the righteousness of The Family.

Our children need parents who are mature, who face their mistakes, apologize, learn from them, and grow. Let's be those parents.

Isolation

Last week I finished Amanda Lindhout's compelling memoir, A House in the Sky, recounting her 15 months as a hostage in Somalia. Aside from being food for nightmares, what impressed me deeply was the community she had back home that was working to save her. Although isolated and alone in her dark room, separated from her fellow-captive, there were many many people in Canada that worked tirelessly to obtain her release.

Then I listened to a talk by Steve Hassan, who, according to Wikipedia, "is an American licensed mental health counselor who has written extensively on the subject of cults." He joined the Moonies when he was 19 and was in for a couple years when a traffic accident landed him in the hospital. His sister visited and convinced him to go home with her to meet her son who had been born after Steve joined the cult. He agreed, but asked that she not tell his parents because they didn't like him being in the Moonies. Fortunately, she did tell his parents, and they arranged an intervention in the form of a deprogramming, and after five days of this, he came to his senses. He went on to study cult recruitment methods, write Combatting Cultic Mind Control, and become an expert on cults.

I wonder if people take their families and friends for granted? I know it's easy to take our "normal" for granted. Both of those people's salvations were made possible by others. What if they had had no friends and family? Or what if their parents were dead and their friends and families were so caught up in their own lives that they had no time to think about them? The endings may not have been so happy.

So much of the power of cults to keep its members comes from their burning of bridges - cutting off contact with their friends and families and keeping them isolated. Orphans are even easier to keep. Where can they go?