On the Dangers of Power

            Have you heard about the Stanford prison experiment? It is an important experiment for the fields of psychology and sociology, and took place in the summer of 1971 by Dr. Zimbardo. While reading Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, I can’t help but think about the experiment while I am trying to fathom the horrific acts of the masters and overseers in the story. I ask myself, “How is it possible for people to be so cruel?” and find my answer in psychology.

            If you aren’t familiar with the experiment, I will give you a brief overview. In 1971 Dr. Phillip Zimbardo conducted an experiment in which 18 college age men, all psychologically healthy and free of criminal records, were randomly assigned to the role of prisoner or guard, and participated in a six-day-long simulated prison experience. The experiment was originally to run for two weeks, but “the simulation became so real, and the guards became so abusive, that the experiment had to be shut down after only 6 days” (Zimbardo). The guards took advantage of the power given to them in the experiment and acted incredibly cruel to the prisoners, even though they knew in reality that the prisoners had no criminal record. From this experiment we can see that when people are given power and authority, even if it is only perceived power, over others, they can and will do terrible things with it. The guards were not bad people, they were just like us. If after only 6 days they were abusing their “prisoners” simply because they were told to maintain order and structure, then we have to realize that under the influence of authority we also have the chance of doing terrible things.

            I find this experiment salient in understanding the behavior of those who were given power during the time of slavery. It is almost unfathomable that a man could “at times seem to take great pleasure in whipping a slave” upon her “naked back till she was literally covered with blood” (Douglass 51). Yet, things like this happened every day. We could simply say that these slave owners and overseers are cruel horrible people who have no similarities to us, but that would be discounting one of the main messages we still have to learn from stories like Douglass’ Narrative. It is not reasonable to say that all the men and women given positions of power over slaves were terrible people, just like it is not reasonable to say that all people who were enslaved were docile and subordinate. No one is born a slave, and no one is born a master- circumstances form them to be that way. Looking at the role of master and realizing that we, too, could be driven to do bad things at the hands of power, gives us two important lessons from this book: humility, and the dangers of power. These lessons are still incredibly important for today’s readers.

            I know no one wants to think they are similar to the masters in this book, and I am not saying that we are just like them. What I am saying is that everyone has the capacity to be cruel when given false senses of power and superiority. We must remain humble and realize that we have something to learn from the various masters in this story, which is how far humanity can be pushed towards cruelty when we put up lines falsely distinguishing between subordinate and insubordinate.

Works Cited

Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. New

           York: Penguin, 1982. Print.

 Zimbardo, Phillip G. "Stanford Prison Experiment." The Stanford Prison Experiment: A

           Simulation Study of the Psychology of Imprisonment. Phillip G. Zimbardo, n.d. Web. 21
           Feb. 2013.