Zimbardo comes to life.

[franceslievens]

Ever heard of the Zimbardo prison experiment or seen the film Das Experiment? Keep it in mind when you're reading history professor Juan Cole's remarks on the "Koran with toilet"-incident in Guantanamo Bay. He quotes a former U.S. military officer:

This is without a doubt torture. Premeditated, planned....a fine lot of criminals we have in charge of the USA these days. Gitmo is so Orwellian--so Room 101. They are playing on the deepest feelings and fears.

(Via tingilinde)

Comments

[comava.livejournal.com]

Oooh, Das Experiment... great movie. My sister is studying psychology and now claims that it's all bogus, but she loved DE the first time around.

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

Well, I actually haven't seen the film (bad bad me!), so I can't really say if it's bogus or not. The Zimbardo experiment on which it's based is ver true, though, and still gets loads of mentions in the specific literature. She'll probably have studied it already -- we've talked about it in my psychology course in uni at least...