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...Gist: Chances are you underestimate your capacity for cruelty. Stanley Milgram's famous obedience experiments in the 1960s and '70s demonstrated that we're conditioned to inflict pain on complete strangers when impelled to do so by an authority figure. Milgram's experiments - linchpins of any freshman psych class - were simple. Volunteer participants were enlisted to help with a study purportedly tracking the effects of punishment on learning. When the "learner" made an error, the volunteer was told to administer an electric shock. Milgram found volunteers were disturbingly willing to follow orders, even as voltage levels increased in intensity...
...Lowdown: Burger's replication of Milgram's famous demonstration was watered down somewhat; a review of his findings by University of California-Davis professor Alan Elms terms the study "Obedience Lite." The electric charges were purposefully subtler and the conditions less stressful. But the takeaway is no less disturbing: humanity's threshold for cruelty is, like everything else, situational. We seem wired to follow orders, even when they're harmful to others. In her chilling portrayal of Nazi middle-manager Adolf Eichmann, Hannah Arendt famously excoriated this impulse as "the banality of evil." Evil is way too strong a word...
...From the beginning of the massacre, Indians in India and abroad never doubted Pakistan's hand in the ghastly attacks. President Richard Nixon's famous "tilt" toward Pakistan, decades of American support for Pakistan's military dictators and America's turning a blind eye to Pakistan's involvement in a long series of terrorist attacks against India have borne fruit in the form of worldwide Islamist terrorism. These dreadful attacks will continue unless international pressure is brought to bear on Pakistan's government to bring its military under control. Chuncha Mel Ramakrishna, Cherry Hill, New Jersey...
MILEY CYRUS accidentally poses for famous photographer for several hours...
From the beginning of the recent Mumbai massacre, Indians in India and abroad never doubted Pakistan's hand in the ghastly attacks [Dec. 15]. President Richard Nixon's famous "tilt" toward Pakistan, decades of American support for Pakistan's military dictators and America's turning a blind eye to Pakistan's involvement in a long series of terrorist activities against India have all borne their fruit in the past decade in the form of worldwide Islamic terrorism. These dreadful attacks will continue unless international pressure is brought to bear on Pakistan's elected government to bring its military under control...