Syllabus: General Honors 2096: Understanding Evil

CNM: GNHN 2096-301: Understanding Evil (Salbato) Fall, 2007

Syllabus: General Honors 2096: Understanding Evil

…and understanding why posturing bystanders should never say “Never Again” again.

Instructor: Jeff Salbato
E-mail:
Website: / Course meetings and final exam:
T 6:00-8:45 in WS1-204
Final Exam: T, 12/117:00pm

Catalog Description of Course:Understanding Evil is to be an interdisciplinary attempt to understand the human causes and responses to the evil so abundant in our world. This course will use resources in history, sociology, psychology, philosophy, and religion to try to begin to understand what motivates these acts, what allows a society to remain complicit in them, and what makes people respond to such events in the ways that theydo, such as those who choose to participate in such acts, those who remain bystanders, and those who choose to be rescuers.

What this course is REALLY about: I have this strange growing fetish for protecting those who suffer (yes, “fetish” is the proper term when you live in a society where narcissism and war-mongering are the norm). As such, I am driven to understand as much as I can about the causes of the most alarming instances of suffering: those caused by other human beings. So, what do I do when my questions about evil and the stacks of books that might answer them are growing faster than my ability to tackle them? I create a class so that I can gather together a bunch of brilliant students to help me. Here arethe main questions we’ll be seeking answers for:

Are humans naturally/basically good or bad?
What motivates/enables human beings to carry out acts of evil?
What compels the vast majority of people to remain bystanders?
What compels certain people to devote themselves to being rescuers?
How can we teach our society to become a culture of rescuers?

Evaluation: Your grade is based on accumulated points: 100-90=A, 89-80=B, etc.

60pts.: Weekly assignments, participation, reading questions, etc. (4 pts. per week)

30pts.:Project: Lead a discussion, book summary & critique, or research essay.

10pts.: Help Jeff prepare a reading & reading questions, and read student responses.

10pts.: Biography & handout of one perpetrator and one rescuer (5 points each)

10pts. Final Exam: Short and medium essays for those who slacked during the term

(Note: You can pick and choose how to earn your points)

Required Book List:

Milgram, Stanley, Obedience to Authority (Harper, ‘74) ISBN: 006131983X ($5-20)

Klee, Dressen, Ries, The Good Old Days (Konecky, ‘88/91) ISBN: 1568521332 ($5-13)

Arendt, Hannah, Eichmann in Jerusalem (Penguin, ‘94) ISBN: 0140187650 ($4-15)

Grossman, David, On Killing (Back Bay, ‘96) ISBN: 0316330116 ($7-16)

Hallie, Philip, Lest Innocent Blood be Shed (Harper, 1994) ISBN: 0060925175 ($2-14)

Pep Talk: This course is supposed to be a reward for the kinds of depressive bookworms that would actually voluntarily enroll in a course called Understanding Evil. My job is to merely organize our research, lead discussions, and cheerlead. As such, this course is what education should really be like: human beings working collectively to answer questions that truly matter.

The Assignments:

Weekly Assignments: Write a 1-2 page (single spaced) response to the readings for that week. Most weeks I and/or a fellow student will provide reading questions to help guide or focus these responses. The readings and questions for each week will be updated on the course website, so please check there for the latest materials. These will be due the Sunday night prior to that week. Each week you will be sending your responses to me and one or two classmates who will be helping me with making comments on them.

Project option A: Lead a Discussion: This can be on a topic of your choosing, based on a book from the recommended book list (below), or some research on one of the events or experiments we encounter in our other work. In each case I want the “leader” to create a reading excerpt and questions for the class that will be handed out the week prior to the discussion. The students will email you (and I) their responses by Sunday night. This will not be a formal presentation or anything of the sort. Your points are earned mainly through the preparation; in class you’ll simply be helping me facilitate the discussion.

Project option B: Book Summary & Critique: Read a book from the recommended book list (below) and write a careful and clear summary of its content. Then, do a bit of research into the criticisms or shortcomings of the book. This could turn out to be anywhere from 8-15 pages (single spaced), the length depending on the issues that will need to be addressed.

Project option C: Research Essay:This is your chance to do a sustained research project. Please get my approval before you begin so I can try to give you some leads and prevent some possible pitfalls. Some solid topics could be things like a concentrated study of a particular genocide, psychological experiment, or theory. A list of such topics appears below, but feel free to suggest anything and everything. My main concern is that the topic is something that you find genuinely interesting.

Help Jeff: Let’s be honest, I could really use some help with my crazy workload for this class. This assignment would involve you picking a portion of one of our required texts or an essay that I will be assigning and helping me to prepare what to have the class read, what questions to ask them, and reading and commenting on their responses.

Biographies: Research the biography of a major perpetratorandrescuer. Pick a perpetrator and rescuer from the same event. You will be responsible for bringing each person’s experiences to bear on the core questions of the course. In other words, spend as much time researching their motivations as their facts. Also, please create a one-page handout for the class that highlights key facts about their character, their role and actions, key quotes about their motives, etc. I have some sources you can borrow.

Final Exam: In the first half, you will select 5 of the 10 provided short essay, In the second half, dice will select which one of the 3 medium essays you will write. A study guide will give you hints of the 10 topics for the short essays and the exact essay questions for the second half.

Recommended Topics, Books, and Films:

Each list is given in approximate order of Jeff’s preference/importance/ease. As such, those later in the list are either more focused or more difficult than the standard fair for this course. And, well, sometimes the ordering represents merely what I’d most like to see you learn more about or learn more about myself (it’s best to be honest, right?). The materials marked with an asterisk (*) are ones that can be borrowed from me (feel free to write in the margins in pencil, but please do not underline or highlight near the printed words in my books). Use the ISBN number when ordering, and expected prices for new-used are listed.

GENOCIDES & ATROCITIES (sadly, there are many, many more than this):

Sudan/Darfur/Uganda, Iraq-now/Kurdistan-then, East Timor, Vietnam/My Lai, Haiti, Native Americans, El Salvador, Kosovo, Bosnia, Rwanda, Cambodia, Burundi, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Ukraine, Belgian Congo, Armenian Holocaust, Hereros, etc.

RANDOM LIST OF RESEARCH TOPICS:

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Evolutionary Psychology, Freud’s explanation of aggression, Teaching children empathy & altruism, Prison reform, Theories of punishment, Psychology of rehabilitation/restitution/forgiveness, Religion and evil, Government responses to genocide, US responses to genocide, Military-Industrial-(Congressional) Complex, Psychology of violence against women, etc.

PERPETRATORS:

*Olson - My Lai(Bedford/St. Martin's, 1998; ISBN: 0312142277) $14-10

*Gourevitch, We wish to inform you…(Rwanda) (ISBN: 0312243359) $15-$8

*Browning – Ordinary Men: PB 101 (Harper Perennial, 1993; ISBN: 0060995068) $14-4

*Goldhagen - Hitler’s Willing Executioners (Vintage, 1997; ISBN: 0679772685) $17-2

*Totten - Century of Genocide (reference) (Routledge, 2004; ISBN: 0415944309) $36-23

*Hochschild – King Leopold’s Ghost (Mariner, 1999; ISBN: 0618001905) $15-3

*Mayer – They Thought They were Free(U of Chicago, ‘66; ISBN: 0226511928) $22-12

Fein – Accounting for Genocide (U of Chicago, ‘84; ISBN: 0226240347) $40

*Caputo – Rumor of War (Owl, 1996; ISBN: 080504695X) $15-2

*Dallaire – Shake Hands with Devil:Rwanda(C&G, ‘04; ISBN: 0786715103) $17-11

*Taylor – Nuremberg and Vietnam (Times, ‘70; ISBN: 0812902106) $2

Arendt – Origins of Totalitarianism (Harvest, 1973; ISBN: 0156701537) $19-7

*Goldensohn - Nuremberg Interviews (reference)(Vint, 2005; ISBN: 1400030439) $17-9

*Overy – Interrogations: The Nazi Elite (reference) (Viking, ‘01; ISBN: 0670030082) $8

*Davidson – Trial of the Germans (reference) (U Mizo, 1997; ISBN: 0826211399) $30-9

PSYCHOLOGY

*Zimbardo – Lucifer Effect (Random House, 2007; ISBN: 1400064113) $28-14

*Fromm – The Heart of Man (Harper, 1980: ISBN: 0060907959) $6-2

*Shay – Achilles in Vietnam (Touchstone, 1994: ISBN: 0684813211) $14-3

*Lifton - Nazi Doctors (Basic Books, 2000; ISBN: 0465049052) $22-5

Adorno – The Authoritarian Personality (Norton, ‘93; ISBN: 0393311120) $22

*Peck – People of the Lie (Touchstone, 1983; ISBN: 0684848597) $15-5
*Staub – The Roots of Evil(Cambridge, 1992; ISBN: 0521422140) $35-6

Frankl - Man’s Search for Meaning(Pocket, 1997; ISBN: 0671023373) $7-3

*Baumeister – Evil(Henry Holt, 1999; ISBN: 0716735679) $17-5
*Dean – Conservatives without Conscience (Viking, 2006; ISBN: 0670037745) $26-3

*Miller – Social Psych of G & E (reference) (Guilford, ‘05; ISBN: 1593851944) $32-25

*Waller – Becoming Evil(Oxford, 2005; ISBN: 0195189493) $20-14

*Fromm – Anatomy Human Destructiveness(Owl, ‘92; ISBN: 080501604X) $22-4
*Fromm – Escape from Freedom (Owl, 1969; ISBN: 0805031499) $14-4

*Goleman – Social Intelligence (Bantam, 2006; ISBN: 0553803522) $28-12

RESCUERS

*Block & Drucker – Rescuers(Holmes & Meier, 1992; ISBN: 0841913234) $30-9

*Oliner & Oliner – Altruistic Personality(Touchstone, 1992; ISBN: 0029238293) $20-6

*Allen – Rabble Rouser for Peace: Tutu (Free Press, 2006; ISBN: 0743269373) $28-6

*Yad Vashem – Rescue Attempts (Yad Vashem, 1977; ISBN: ?) $?

*Fogelman, Conscience & Courage… (ISBN: 0385420285) $16-5

*Tutu – No Future without Forgiveness(Image, 2000; ISBN: 0385496907) $15-7

Bethge – Bonhoeffer (huge but good)(Augsburg, 2000; ISBN: 0800628446) $39-19

Rittner – Courage to Care (New York Univ Pr., 1986; ISBN: 0814773974) Used only: $3

Bacque – Just Raoul (French rescuer)(Prima, 1992; ISBN: 1559581425) used only: $1

RELIGION & PHILOSOPHY

*Zizek – Welcome to Desert of the Real: 9/11 (Verso, 2002; ISBN: 185944219) $14-8

Kushner - When Bad Things Happen… (Anchor, 2004; ISBN: 1400034728) $10-4

*Neiman - Evil in Modern Thought (Princeton, 2004; ISBN: 0691117926) $19-10

*Wolin - The Heidegger Controversy (MIT, 1992; ISBN: 0262731010) $30-22

Lewy – Catholic Church and Nazi Germany(Da Capo, 2000; ISBN: 0306809311) $19-6

Gandhi – All Men are Brothers(Continuum, 2005; ISBN: 0826417396) $15-7

Films: I want everyone to be borrowing, watching, and sharing movies all semester.

PERPETRATORS & PSYCHOLOGY
*Milgram’s Obedience
Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment
*Ghosts of Rwanda
*Winter Soldier
*Why We Fight
*Auschwitz: Inside the NaziState
*Nazis: Warning from History
*Judgment at Nuremberg (not the remake)
*Hearts & Minds
*Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
*The Corporation
*Vietnam: A Television History
Jarhead
Platoon / RESCUERS
*Schindler’s List
*Bonhoeffer
*Good Evening, Mr. Wallenberg
Rescuers: Stories of Courage
Day in October
Assisi Underground
SURVIVORS
*Last Days
Hiding Place
*Roots
Amistad
Voyage of the Damned

The Schedule: …just a rough estimate; the website will contain our working schedule.

Introduction (Week 1): Introduce course, the nerds involved, discussion of the central questions of the course, the core concepts we’ll use (resistance, defiance, distance, atrocity, justification, rationalization, PTSD), and discuss the classical texts on the goodness/badness of human nature.

The Psychology of Evil & Perpetrators (Weeks 2-10):

Readings: Milgram, Grossman, Klee/Dressen/Ries, Arendt, Staub, Zimbardo, Baumeister, Tangney/Stuewig, Batson/Ahmad/Stocks, Lifton, Olson, etc.

Accounts of Genocides & Atrocities: Holocaust, Vietnam, Rwanda, etc.

Primary questions that should guide our reading, research, and discussions:

Are humans naturally/basically good or bad?
What compels the vast majority of people to remain bystanders?
What motivates/enables human beings to carry out acts of evil?

Secondary questions to ask of perpetrators:

What sort of training and formal justification did they receive as a group?
Did the perpetrators show any resistance to causing harms at the time?
Did they show any signs of PTSD immediately after or in the long-term?
Were the individual perpetrators able to create physical, ideological, and/or emotional distance from their victims?
How did the individuals justify their acts? Be sure to cite evidence of things like: obedience to authority, greater good, revenge, devaluation of victim, or just doing one’s job. Try to distinguish actual justifications from rationalizations.

Student Topics (Weeks 11-12):

Rescuers (Weeks 13-15):

Reading: Hallie, Block/Drucker, Oliner, Fogelman, etc.

Primary questions that should guide our reading, research, and discussions:

What compels certain people to devote themselves to being rescuers?
How can we teach our society to become a culture of rescuers?

What to read, skip, skim in Klee and Grossman:

Klee, Dressen, Riues, The Good Old Days (refer to headings and page numbers):

Read Forward, Preface, and Intro (x-xxi)

Read “Notes” (4-5)

Skim “Bloody” and “Foreign” (5-22)

Read all of “Each time”, “Pushed”, and “Quite happy” (23-86)

Skim “Once again”, “Soldiers sitting”, and “Scores of Soldiers” (87-118)

Read from “When the Jews” to “Lieutenant-Colonel” (119-151)

Skim from “Report by Military Chaplains” to “SS-Obersturmfuhrer” (151-153)

Read from “Letters” to “Letters” (156-171)

Skim “The bodies” and “The action” (173-179)

Read from “Eliminate” to “Dismissal” (183-206)

Skim “The pardon” to “Gas –van” (207-219)

Read “Kurt” and “Interrogation” (219-222)

Skim “Gauleiter” to “Kurt” (222-249)

Read from “I only took part” to end (251-274)

Grossman, On Killing (Section: Chapter):

Read both Introductions.

Section I: Read 1-3, Skim 4.

Section II: Read 1-2; Skip 3-6; Read 7-8.

Section III: Skip

Section IV: Read 1-3; Skip 4; Read 5; Skim 6, but read pp. 190-192.

Section V: Skip 1-3; Skim 4; Read 5.

Section VI: Skim 1; Read 2.

Section VII: Read all

Section VIII: Read all (end)

[below is the actual schedule used during the term, from the website; forgive the formatting]

Week 1 (8/28) Intro course, ourselves, concepts
Reading: Plato, "Ring of Gyges"
Reading: Hobbes, "Leviathan"
Reading: Rousseau, "Origin of Inequality"
Week 2 (9/4) Holocaust: Human Nature & "The Good Old Days"
Handout: Klee, Dressen, Ries, "Good Old Days"
Week 3 (9/11) Holocaust: Justification, Distance, & "The Good Old Days"
Handout: Klee, Dressen, Ries, "Good Old Days"
Start reading Arendt's "Eichmann in Jerusalem"
(Thursday night movie: "The Last Days")
Week 4 (9/18) Holocaust: Police Battalion 101 and Arendt's Eichmann
Handout: Weeks 4-5: PB 101, Eichmann, and Bystanders vs. Rescuers
Goldhagen's Police Battalion 101 (from Goldhagen's "Hitler's Willing Executioners")
Browning's Police Battalion 101 (photocopy) (From Browning's "Ordinary Men")
Arendt's "Eichmann in Jerusalem"

Week 5 (9/25) Holocaust: Eichmann and Bystanders vs. Rescuers
Handout: Weeks 4-5: PB 101, Eichmann, and Bystanders vs. Rescuers
Arendt's "Eichmann in Jerusalem"
Birnbaum's "Eichmann's Feet"
Ozick's "Preface to Block & Drucker's 'Rescuers'"
Week 6 (10/2) Other Genocides & Atrocities and Begin Milgram
Olson's "My Lai" (photocopy; email your response)
Gourevitch's "We wish to inform..." (photocopy; email your response)
Milgram: Read Preface through chapter 5 (email your response)
In class: Film Clips: Ghosts of Rwanda and Winter Soldier
In class: Film Clips: the Milgram experiment (if absent, click here)
Week 7 (10/9) Psychology: Situation: Milgram, Zimbardo, & others
Milgram: Read chapters 6-9 carefully, 10-11 casually, 12-appendices carefully
Question 1: Briefly describe the key variations and what they imply about human nature.
Question 2: Are these "teachers" selfish? What is motivating them?
Handout: "Spreadsheet on Milgram's Results"
Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment & Situationism: (photocopy)
Question 3: What is the lesson of the SPE and what is Z's argument for situationism?
(Thursday night movie (at granny's): "Enron" or "The Corporation")
Week 8 (10/16) Psychology: Disposition: TAP, EP, etc.
Handout: Adorno & Fromm
Adorno: The Authoritarian Personality (Saundra)
Fromm: The Pathology of Normalcy (Asa)
Week 9 (10/23) Psychology: Killing in War
Grossman Read Sections I-IV (see syllabus for edits; email your free response; no prompts)
Week 10 (10/30) Psychology: War and PTSD
Grossman Read Section V-VIII (see syllabus for edits; email your free response)
Week 11 (11/6) Student Topics:
Handout: Week 11: PTSD and Prejudice
Shays: PTSD and Vietnam (Shawna)(handed out in class)
Race, Prejudice, and Violence (Trish)(handed out in class)
Week 12 (11/13) Student Topics:
Handout: Week 12: School Shootings, Frankl, Authoritarian Conservatives, and EP
Perpetrator Psychology: School Shootings (Crystal; handed out in class)
Frankl: Searching for Meaning in Auschwitz (Stacia; handed out in class)
Dean and/or Wallis: Conservativism and Authoritarianism (Sam; handed out in class)
Waller: Evolutionary Psychology (Chris; handed out in class)
(Thursday night movie: The Ground Truth or Jarhead)
Week 13 (11/20) Rescuers:
Hallie: Skim the Intro, Read the prelude through chapter 6.
Reading questions: (Please also make note of key pages we should discuss)
Are humans naturally/basically good or bad?
What motivates/enables human beings to carry out acts of evil?
What compels the vast majority of people to remain bystanders?
What compels certain people to devote themselves to being rescuers?
How can we teach our society to become a culture of rescuers?

Week 14 (11/27) Rescuers:
Hallie: Read chapters 7, 9, 11, and 12, skim the others; questions same as above with these
additions: a) Do you know anyone like the Trocmes?, b) What compelled all of the citizens to
become rescuers? c) What role did religion play in Le Chambon? Is this the core of
religion? If so, then why does religion usually earn its bad name? (i.e. explain Bush!)
Reading: Tutu: Rabble Rouser for Peace in Apartheid (Sharon); questions same as above
Your random rescuer biography: Be prepared to summarize the following in our class
discussion: their rescue work, their life situation, their motivations, their view of human nature.
Biography: Oscar Romero, archbishop of El Salvador (Sharon)
Week 15 (12/4) Promoting a Rescuer Culture
Handout: Week 15: Veterans, Social Intelligence, Altruism, & Guilt
Shay: Veterans in America (Kay)
Goleman: Social Intelligence (Will)
Oliner & Oliner: Altruism (Jasmine)
Tangney & Stuewig: "Shame and Guilt" (Miranda)
Nerdy Bonus: Tutu in his own words: Excerpts from "No Future without Forgiveness"

Final Exam (12/11) Potluck (and the exam for you slackers)