The board seems to have been struggling as of late. So, I thought I'd start a topic that shouldn't really be divisive, but also spark commentary.
What are you currently reading? Give a brief description.
As for me, I just started "Beautiful Souls: Saying No, Breaking Ranks, and Heeding the Voice of Conscience in Dark Times" by Eyal Press. This book looks at stories of ordinary people, who when faced with the choice of complying with an evil order or facing consequences of refusal, chose to the "hard right". I just finished the initial chapter on Paul Gruninger, a Swiss police captain that defied Swiss policy and falsified documents to save the lives of hundreds of Jewish refugees.
The book doesn't just detail their stories, but goes into the psychology behind compliance and disobeying. One thing that has stood out has been that these people weren't extraordinary. They were ordinary people who simply helped people that needed it. We often look at these people as extraordinary, as though they did things that we couldn't, but that's simply not the case. Gruninger wasn't driven by faith or ideology. Unlike other police captains in border Cantons, he didn't isolate himself from the refugees seeking entry. It was when he saw them, looked in their eyes and saw their pain that he realized it was his "human duty" to allow them in, regardless of what the law was. It's very interesting when the book steers more into the psychology aspect of the issue. What makes seemingly good people comply with evil acts? They go in depth in the famous Milgram experiment as well. They address the power of propaganda and dehumanization of the enemy. They point out that this was something the Nazis understood, and something that led to the My Lai massacre. A post-WW2 study showed no more than 15 - 20% of front line infantry ever fired their weapon at the enemy. The military began to focus more on dehumanizing the enemy, and anytime you dehumanize a person, you open the door for evil.
I highly recommend this book.
What are you currently reading? Give a brief description.
As for me, I just started "Beautiful Souls: Saying No, Breaking Ranks, and Heeding the Voice of Conscience in Dark Times" by Eyal Press. This book looks at stories of ordinary people, who when faced with the choice of complying with an evil order or facing consequences of refusal, chose to the "hard right". I just finished the initial chapter on Paul Gruninger, a Swiss police captain that defied Swiss policy and falsified documents to save the lives of hundreds of Jewish refugees.
The book doesn't just detail their stories, but goes into the psychology behind compliance and disobeying. One thing that has stood out has been that these people weren't extraordinary. They were ordinary people who simply helped people that needed it. We often look at these people as extraordinary, as though they did things that we couldn't, but that's simply not the case. Gruninger wasn't driven by faith or ideology. Unlike other police captains in border Cantons, he didn't isolate himself from the refugees seeking entry. It was when he saw them, looked in their eyes and saw their pain that he realized it was his "human duty" to allow them in, regardless of what the law was. It's very interesting when the book steers more into the psychology aspect of the issue. What makes seemingly good people comply with evil acts? They go in depth in the famous Milgram experiment as well. They address the power of propaganda and dehumanization of the enemy. They point out that this was something the Nazis understood, and something that led to the My Lai massacre. A post-WW2 study showed no more than 15 - 20% of front line infantry ever fired their weapon at the enemy. The military began to focus more on dehumanizing the enemy, and anytime you dehumanize a person, you open the door for evil.
I highly recommend this book.
