Applying What We Have Learned

Appendix APPLYING WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED Always hold firmly to the thought that each one of us can do some- thing to bring some portion of misery to an end. —Syracuse Cultural Workers1 Shortly after the September 11, 2001, tragedy, one of the authors of this book heard a moral tale about a child who came to her grandfather indig- nant over an injustice she had experienced. “What shall I do, grandfather?” she asked. Her grandfather replied, “I have two wolves inside me. One gets very angry when I have been treated unfairly and it wants to hit back, to hurt the one who hurt me. The other wolf also gets angry when I have been unfairly treated, but it wants justice and peace more than any- thing, and it wants to heal the rift between me and my aggressor.” “Which wolf wins, grandfather?” the little girl asked. “The one I feed,” he replied. If by reading this book you have been inspired by the stories of the courageous individuals and groups, but you have wondered if you could ever have that kind of courage, you are not alone. We wonder also. We cannot help but be appalled at the perpetrators of evil we have read about in this book, nor can we help admiring the courageous resistors about whom we have learned. But it is easy to separate ourselves from both groups. We may say to ourselves, “Surely I would never kill children as did the Nazis, or force pregnant women to take dangerous drugs just to 166 COURAGEOUS RESISTANCE boost my overtime pay,” as some U.S. Customs Service officials were alleged to have done. And while we hope that we would have the courage of Cathy Harris, the whistleblower from the U.S. customs, or that we, too, would shelter someone who was being targeted for death by a pow- erful group, it is hard to believe that people who stand up for others at such cost and risk to themselves are not exceptional. However, this book shows that both the courageous resisters to evil and the evildoers themselves are ordinary people like us. The courageous resisters have fed within themselves the wolf that wants justice. The choices they have made, the networks they have joined, and their circum- stances have all shaped their ability to seek justice. Other researchers have investigated the factors that lead ordinary people to destructive human rights abuses (see Staub 1989; Waller 2002). Our emphasis, and the motivation for this book, is ordinary people’s capacity for courageous resistance on behalf of others when they are in danger. We are all born with the capacity to develop the kind of courage we have read about in this book—from Joseph Darby blowing the whistle on the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, to Anna and the Madres (Mothers) of Plaza de Mayo protesting the disappearance of their children, to the entire village of Le Chambon rescuing thousands of Jews. Evidence of this capacity for extraordinary courage comes from a wide range of scholarly research, some of which you have read about in this book. Psychological and sociological literature that describes the factors influencing individual and collective behavior suggests ordinary people’s capacity for extraordinary courage. Work by political scientists and historians who have exam- ined cases of courageous resistance over time provides support for this premise as well. Evidence comes from biology and evolutionary biology, which offer evidence for the complex adaptive function of empathy and mutual care in social animals such as humans. It also comes from com- pelling cultural messages over thousands of years. People have taught that we not only are capable of such courage on behalf of others, but that we are called to it as the finest realization of our humanity. One source of these widespread cultural messages is religious literature. The Talmud teaches that every decision we make either adds to the good in the world, or to the bad. Thomas Aquinas, a thirteenth-century Christian philosopher, wrote in his classic work, Summa Theologica, that every human act is a moral act, a choice. Islam teaches that no one is a believer until you desire for another that which you desire for yourself, and Buddhism, in the Udana-Varqa, says hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful. All major religions teach that we are called to care for others. This convergence of religious messages over time is part APPLYING WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED 167 of the support cultures offer for the other-oriented behavior they encour- age. This is part of the cultural environment that reinforces laws protect- ing human rights and that makes courageous resistance possible. In the most extensive psychological study of such altruistic behaviors, which you read about in chapter 2, Pearl and Samuel Oliner interviewed and tested 406 people who rescued Jews during the Holocaust (Oliner and Oliner 1988). They compared them to 126 non-rescuers, matched to the rescuers by age, sex, education, and geographic location during the war. The study revealed a remarkable similarity between the rescuers and non-rescuers on factors that one might think would be different. For example, both groups had equal knowledge of the dangers the Jews faced, and they had equal access to resources that would help them were they to decide to come to the rescue. What did differentiate the rescuers from the non-rescuers was a greater attachment to people and a greater sense of responsibility for them, a greater comprehension of the need for their help, more empathy for the pain and helplessness of others, and a willingness to act despite the obvious risk. The most striking characteristic of the rescuers was their sense of inclusiveness, the willingness to see all people as similar to themselves and the tendency to befriend others on that basis. The rescuers were not born with these characteristics. What distinguish rescuers from non-rescuers, according to the Oliners, are traits that are learned, ones that come from specific kinds of experiences that are chosen, from communities that one can help to form. There is not a magic formula or algorithm that will guarantee a courageous decision in every situation, but we can apply what we have learned to suggest a set of guidelines that will feed the wolf that wants justice and peace, the wolf that chooses life over death, justice over abuse. The news is filled with stories of oppression, inequity, misuse of power, degradation of the environment—all situations that cry out for action. Perhaps we, each of us individually and all of us collectively, are facing situations that call for courageous resistance. What might we do to increase the likelihood that we will respond to the needs of those around us and in doing so, create the very caring communities in which we would like to live? The answer lies in the deliber- ate cultivation of the individual level preconditions that undergird courageous resistance—empathy and other-oriented behavior, the sense of connection to individuals and groups beyond ourselves, and in prac- ticing the skills necessary for effective action. It also involves being con- nected to other people who share our values and vision for a more just world, people from whom we can learn valuable skills, and with whom we can share resources and insights—our networks. And we have learned 168 COURAGEOUS RESISTANCE how all of this is facilitated in an environment, a cultural context, in which human rights are valued and nations and institutions such as the United Nations codify human rights in their laws and then enforce them. IS REAL ALTRUISM POSSIBLE? When Kristin Monroe interviewed a number of those who, often at great personal risk, rescued Jews during the Holocaust, she concluded that their most important shared quality was that they viewed all humanity as “belonging to one human family” (Monroe 1996, 205). These rescuers’ perspectives made distinctions based on race, religion, or nationality seem meaningless. Two American psychologists were among those who offered theories of personality development several decades ago that specifically included this broad concern for others. Alfred Adler believed every human is born with the potential for a general concern for the welfare of others, but this potential must be nurtured to develop fully. As one matures psychologically, the range of those one cares about expands. When a person is psychologically immature, their concern for others, though genuine, may be limited to their family, community, ethnic group, or nation. Many adults never develop beyond this immaturity. But if one becomes fully mature, psychologically speaking, their concern embraces the whole human community, regardless of race, nationality, or any other distinction; one has a sense of “oneness with humanity” (Adler 1954, 38). A person with mature social interest acts “in the interests of mankind generally,” and engages in activities that are aimed at “helpfulness to all mankind, pres- ent and future” (Adler 1964, 78). Abraham Maslow expressed a similar idea when he described those who reach full psychological maturity as “self-actualized” (Maslow 1954). One of the main qualities self-actualized individuals were found to possess is “human kinship.” Individuals with this quality “have a deep feeling of identification, sympathy, and affection for human beings in general... [a] feeling of identification with mankind... a genuine desire to help the human race” (138).2 This book tells the stories of a number of people who did just that. Although not all the courageous resisters we have profiled demonstrate this level of exten- sivity, each has demonstrated such concern for some others.

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