War of the mind

In preparing recently for my major paper I came across some very interesting information.  My paper was over the history of the role of psychology in relation to good and evil.  I chose to drill it down a little deeper and look at the role of behaviorism and environment on the influence of evil.  I read Dr. Philip Zimbardo’s book called the Lucifer Effect in which he discusses the intense role a situation can play on a seemingly “good” person to be able to produce “evil” acts.  He discusses the American held prison in Iraq, Abu Ghraib, the genocide at Rwanda and so forth.  He makes a very convincing argument that human beings tend to change their viewpoints on what is an evil act depending on the immediate situation that they are in.

While reading Zimbardo’s book I thought to the Nuremberg trials in the late 1940’s where in the world court tried the executive branch of the Nazi military high command.  At the time many of these men were claiming that they were simply following orders, so the goal of the prosecutors was to establish that the highest ranking members of Hitler’s Military cabinet had actually conspiratorially planed to expand war.  German efficiency being what it was, the prosecutors found that the Germans kept written transcriptions on every meeting.  Evidence showing that Hitler knew that the country’s biggest problem was that of real estate, and that if they were going to expand the German holdings that it would have to be done through war.  He also speaks of knowing that the German people would need a common enemy to rally behind.  The psychological warfare against the Jewish and Polish people begins.  By dehumanizing his neighbors, imaginary, and passionate speeches Hitler slowly changed the mental mindset of his people into a weapon of hate.  It could be argued that Hitler understood human behaviorism better than any other person alive up to that point.  He shaped the mental image of an entire culture of people into a weapon of hate.