Alex's review
The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil by Philip G. Zimbardo
Even though Zimbardo's style is a bit self congratulating, the take on the situational dynamics that affect human behavior were fascinating and timely. Has left me thinking almost daily about the nature of good and evil, the reasons we make the choices we do, and has me endlessly meditating on a line from the Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago that I'd long since forgotten:
"If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
During the life of any heart this line keeps changing place; some times it is squeezed one way by exuberant evil and sometimes it shifts to allow enough space for good to flourish. One and th...more
"If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
During the life of any heart this line keeps changing place; some times it is squeezed one way by exuberant evil and sometimes it shifts to allow enough space for good to flourish. One and th...more
