Random quote
We neither strive for, nor will, nor want, nor desire anything because we judge it to be good; on the contrary we esteem something to be good because we seek it, will it, want it desire it.

Benedictus de Spinoza (1632-1677)

A monstrous child. Montaigne

Monument for the more than 1100 patients of the psychiatric hospital in my town

 murdered, directly or indirectly, by the nazis during the Second World War 

In his essays, Montaigne often starts describing one or more typical cases in an objective way and then gives his personal view on the matter. Sometimes this structure that leads from the objective to the subjective is repeated several times in an essay, and sometimes it ends yet with a final conclusion. A simple instance is the essay “Of a monstrous child” (Essays, Book II-30). It begins with a detailed description of a deformed child that was carried around by his father, an uncle and an aunt to get money by showing it. The child was a Siamese twin with two bodies and one head. The case is followed by an intermediate comment and then followed by a second case. In the comment Montaigne says that “This double body and several limbs relating to one head might be interpreted a favourable prognostic to the king, of maintaining these various parts of our state under the union of his laws.” Montaigne is referring here to the civil war that is going on in France. However, he doesn’t mean it seriously, and it is rather a criticism of the practice of looking for omens after a calamity or a favourable event, for he goes on: “but lest the event should prove otherwise, ‘tis better to let it alone, for in things already past there needs no divination” and “tis said of Epimenides, that he always prophesied backward.” In other words, it’s safest to make your predictions afterwards.
The second case in this essay is about a herdsman without genitals, but who lived and functioned like any normal person would, including making love.
In Montaigne’s time, a deformed child was seen as a monster; as a divine punishment; something the parents wanted to keep secret; as unnatural, although they were sometimes also used for earning money, as in Montaigne’s example, a practice that continued (almost) to today. Although Montaigne called the child a monster, his message is different and typical for Montaigne. Contrary to what many people thought then, Montaigne stresses that also deformed born children are creations of God and are completely natural. “Those that we call monsters are not so to God”, so Montaigne. “From His all wisdom nothing but good, common, and regular proceeds; but we do not discern the disposition and relation. … Whatever falls out contrary to custom we say is contrary to nature, but nothing, whatever it be, is contrary to her.” (italics mine) And then, the final sentence of this essay, which is also the overall conclusion: “Let, therefore, this universal and natural reason expel the error and astonishment that novelty brings along with it.” Or, as my Dutch version of the Essays renders Montaigne’s words (retranslated into English): “Let this universal natural truth free us from the misconceptions and amazement that every new thing brings to us.”
So, in this essay Montaigne calls for tolerance towards what, on the face of it, for many people, is a deviation from nature and therefore objectionable. But deviations from nature do not exist, and so, what seems to be so, cannot be objectionable. How relevant his words still are in a world in which natural behaviour often still is forbidden by law and even can be punished by death, or otherwise still is discriminated in a “milder” sense. See, for example, how much violence and discrimination there still is against LGBTQ people in this world. And see also, how in many countries women still are discriminated because they are women, and in some cases even are killed because they are women.
The essay “Of a monstrous child” is typical for Montaigne because of its structure, as said, but it is also so because of its contents. As for the latter, Montaigne’s Essays are – directly and indirectly – a call for humanity, justice and social fairness, and against torture and cruel punishment. In his essay “Of Cannibals” (Essays, Book I-30), he let natives from Brazil say, when asked for their opinion about France: “… that they had observed that there were amongst us men full and crammed with all manner of commodities, whilst, in the meantime, [poor people] were begging at their doors, lean and half-starved with hunger and poverty; and they thought it strange that these [poor] were able to suffer so great an inequality and injustice, and that they did not take the others by the throats, or set fire to their houses.” Of course, this is what Montaigne himself thought. When he was mayor of Bordeaux (1581-1585), in a letter, Montaigne asked the king for financial support of the poor. If it were up to Montaigne, we would live in a better world; a more tolerant world in the first place. Montaigne had a dream.

By the way, this blog shows a structure I often use: I start explaining the view of another thinker, like Montaigne, and at the end you find my personal view.

Random quote
Most controversies arise from this, that men do not correctly explain their own mind, or else interpret the view of the other man badly. For in reality when men most vehemently contradict one another, they either think the same thing, or are thinking of different things, so that what they consider errors or absurdities in the other are not.

Benedictus de Spinoza (1632-1677)

Montaigne’s tomb.

Montaigne's cenotaph in the Museum of Aquitaine

Montaigne died on 13 September 1592. The cause of his death is not known, but nowadays scientists think that he died of a cerebral haemorrhage. Montaigne was first temporarily buried in the church opposite the entrance to his castle. His heart is still there. His wife had a very beautiful cenotaph made for him. When that was done after a year, Montaigne's body was transferred to what should become his final resting place: The Church of the Convent of the Feuillants in Bordeaux. In 1789 the French Revolution broke out and the monastery was confiscated by the state. The former monastery was now used for housing the Faculty of Arts and Sciences of the University of Bordeaux. In 1871, the old monastery building was destroyed by a fire and a new building for the faculty was constructed. The remains of Montaigne were temporarily transferred to the Chartreuse cemetery in Bordeaux and later they were transferred to the new building of the faculty and buried in the basement. All the while, Montaigne’s cenotaph remained in the same place, so first in the monastery church and then in the faculty building. In 1987 the building was repurposed and the Museum of Aquitaine was established there. The faculty moved out but Montaigne’s cenotaph was left behind and got a special room in the museum. In 2017, the cenotaph was restored and the hall where it was exhibited also got a new look.

This is a summary of what was known about Montaigne’s grave in 2018. It was known that there was a wall in the basement with apparently closed spaces. The coffin with the remains of Montaigne should still be there. But was it? Nobody really knew and how to find out? Then the director of the museum, Laurent Védrine, got the idea that it might be possible to peep into the spaces with modern means. A team of scientists, led by archaeoanthropologist Hélène Réveillas, was formed. With a micro-camera, they peeped through a hole in the wall into the space where Montaigne probably had been buried. What they saw surpassed all expectations: A wooden coffin with the inscription “Montaigne”. To make a long story short, the space was opened, the coffin was taken out and a few months later, after careful preparation, the coffin was opened, on 18 November 2019. The coffin appeared to contain a lead sarcophagus. The sarcophagus contained “a well-preserved skeleton, a skull with almost all its teeth, as yet undetermined organic matter, tissue remains, pollen and insects. … A paper contained in a flask encased in a metallic capsule, found next to the wooden coffin, turned out to be the municipal record of re-burial of the philosopher’s body in 1886.” (source) All this was a clear indication that the remains found were Montaigne’s. But in order to find out whether they really were, more research had to be done, like carbon 14 dating, DNA research and comparing the found DNA with DNA of Montaigne’s family. And then the investigations had to be put on the back burner because of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. But at last, a year ago, the results could be presented. As Hélène Réveillas summed up: “There is a bundle of clues, such as the dating of bones, funeral treatment (sarcophagus, embalming) testifying to a certain social rank. And the remains are from a man over 30 years old. The skeleton also revealed excellent dental hygiene, rare for the time, and a single missing tooth, mentioned by the philosopher in his writings.” All this confirmed that the man in the sarcophagus could be Montaigne. However, so Mme Réveillas, “some elements are not convincing enough. … Genealogical research of a possible descent of Montaigne to compare the traces of DNA found on the remains has not succeeded. Nor has research on hair or eye colour, for lack of existing sufficiently ‘reliable’ portraits. The 3D facial reconstruction is not more conclusive: The shape of the ears and skull do not agree with the face of the man lying on the cenotaph.” Therefore, the riddle who the man in the coffin actually is is not completely solved. Nevertheless, Mme Réveillas thinks that it is 80% certain that the man in the coffin in the basement of the Museum of Aquitaine really is Montaigne. (source)

During the years, I have written many blogs and essays about Montaigne and his Essays. I have visited places where he lived, such as his houses in Bordeaux and his castle in the Dordogne in France. I have followed Montaigne’s traces inside and outside France. I have also visited the room with his cenotaph at the Museum of Aquitaine. No wonder, that I wanted to visit his grave, too, if possible. But nobody knew where it was. But now we know, or at least we are nearly certain of it. I have visited the Museum of Aquitaine twice, so unknowingly, I have visited his grave already as well. Or almost.

Addendum
Video about the discovery of Montaigne’s remains (in French): https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8z7llg

Word of the Year
Brain rot: Supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as a result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging. Also: something characterized as likely to lead to such deterioration.

Oxford University Press, word of the year 2024

Jumping to conclusions

In my blog last week, I discussed how rightist politicians and also the Dutch prime minister explained the recent riots in Amsterdam by the insufficient integration of the perpetrators into Dutch society (remember that Dutch hooligans, supposedly with Moroccan roots, attacked Israelian football supporters). I made clear that the situation might be more complicated than supposed in this simple explanation and I explained that, if it were a matter of insufficient integration (which is doubtful), the cause is rather to be found in the lack of acceptance of foreign immigrants than that it is a lack of effort to integrate by the immigrants (and their offspring, so the second and third generation immigrants). But how must we understand the view of the politicians who gave an apparently wrong interpretation of the behaviour of the hooligans? Several options are possible, but from a philosophical-logical point of view the whole affair is a clear case of “jumping to conclusions”, a well-known but too often committed reasoning error.
What actually is jumping to conclusions? An interesting example is given by Daniel Kahneman (Thinking, Fast and Slow, pp. 79-80): How would you understand the sentence “Ann approached the bank”? “You probably imagined a woman with money on her mind, walking toward a building with tellers and secure vaults. But this plausible interpretation”, so Kahneman, “is not the only possible one. [For] if an earlier sentence had been ‘They were floating gently down the river’, you [would] just have been thinking of a river [and] the word bank is not associated with money.” In other words, there is a connection between the conclusion you draw from the sentence and your framing. However, if a clear frame is absent, we construct a frame, often without good grounds, like in the example (for how do we know whether the sentence is about a bank building or a river bank, if the context is absent?). If this happens, we jump to our conclusion, for it is quite possible that the constructed frame is not correct and that consequently also the conclusion based on it is false.
It is this what happened in the political debate after the Amsterdam hooligan affair. Because people with a Moroccan Islamic immigration background are still often seen as not Dutch, even though they live already several generations in the Netherlands and are Dutch nationals (= the framing), and because the hooligans – supposedly – had such a background, the conclusion was too quickly drawn that the hooligans were not well integrated in Dutch society and that this explained their behaviour. As I tried to show in my blog last week, it is far from obvious that the hooligans are not well integrated. This conclusion was drawn too quickly, and therefore those who thought so jumped to their conclusion instead of giving proof.
Now it is so that jumping to conclusions is not always bad. As Kahneman explains (p. 79): “[It] is efficient, if the conclusions are likely to be correct and the costs of an occasional mistake acceptable, and if the jump saves much time and effort. [It] is risky when the situation is unfamiliar, the stakes are high, and there is no time to collect more information.” In the Amsterdam hooligan affair the jump was apparently risky. During the years much evidence had been collected that the problem was different and the stakes were high in case the conclusion was false. If jumping to conclusions can be risky, why then people still do? Ignoring political (if not populist) reasons that may play a part (and undoubtedly were important in the Amsterdam hooligan affair), in short, one can say that it is a matter of simplicity, mental organization and mental laziness. (see Effectiviology, also for the quote that follows) Drawing sound conclusions is often complicated and difficult (one must collect evidence, which isn’t always easy to get and maybe doesn’t exist; and once one has it, it can be difficult to draw the right conclusions). Moreover, “our cognitive system relies on mental shortcuts …, which increase the speed of our judgment and decision-making processes, at the cost of reducing their accuracy and optimality.” So, jumping to conclusions seems the quickest way to get what you are looking for. And why do in a complicated way if there seems to be an easy way as well? But the belief that justifies a quick conclusion is often false and the quickly gathered evidence for that belief is often only gathered for confirming that belief, while contrary evidence is ignored (the confirmation bias). The main function of the quick conclusion is then confirming the false belief instead of giving a reasonable ground for a quick decision. Then the quick conclusion gives an unjustified feeling of certainty, but certainty is what people want. Nevertheless, jumping to conclusions is a natural phenomenon and we do so continuously, for it saves time and most of the time it leads to satisfactory results. However, it can be risky, and if there is a lot at stake (and in politics this is often the case), we should – no, must – avoid it, for otherwise it can lead to nasty consequences (and in politics to social unrest and unjustified treatment of individuals and groups).

Random quote
From the moment when in fact, even indirectly, reprisals against civilian populations and torture practices are justified, there is no rule or value.

Albert Camus (1913-1960)

The integration paradox

The integration puzzle of the Dutch PM Dick Schoof

At the moment, in the Netherlands a discussion is going on that is, I think, not only important for the Netherlands but for any country with a big number of immigrants. The reason of the discussion is the pursuit and beating up of Israelian football supporters by Dutch hooligans in Amsterdam, two weeks ago. It was a clear case of antisemitism. Many of the Dutch hooligans were Moroccan Dutch, so they had a Moroccan and also an Islamic immigration background. In the debate about how to explain and how to tackle this affair, often the term integration paradox is used. What actually is this integration paradox?
Like in many countries, in the Netherlands there are many citizens with a migration background, so people who either lived already very long in the Netherlands, or were born there and have foreign roots (second and third generation immigrants). Most non-European Dutchmen (and that’s what I am talking about in this blog) originally are from Morocco, Turkey, and the former Dutch colonies Surinam and in the Caribbean. Although the level of education and the labour market position of the second generation non-European immigrants have improved considerably compared to their parents, this group experiences more exclusion and discrimination. This is what recent Dutch studies have shown. The phenomenon is expressed in the term “integration paradox”: Those who are better adapted to the Dutch society feel themselves more excluded and discriminated. Especially those with a better socio-economic position feel so, and whatever they do to become accepted, it doesn’t help. This feeling is less strong among lower-skilled people with a migration background. The integration paradox applies especially to people with Moroccan and Turkish roots, and less or not at all to people with Surinamese and Caribbean roots. The integration paradox is all the more paradoxical, since 71% of the Dutch without a migration background think positive about the cultural diversity in the Netherlands. Despite this theoretical attitude of the Dutch without a migration background, one gets the impression that attempts by immigrants and their offspring to adapt and integrate has an adverse effect, especially when they are well educated.
Let’s now return to the violence in Amsterdam described above. Many of the Dutch hooligans who attacked Israeli football supporters because they were Jews were, supposedly, Moroccan Dutch boys and men, most if not all of them being Islamic. After their acts of violence, the Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof and other politicians, especially those of the extreme right party PVV, reacted that these violent acts were due to the inadequate integration of Islamic people with a migration background. Of course, this reaction evoked outrage among many Islamic people with a migration background, for most of them have nothing to do with and don’t want to have anything to do with such antisemitic violence and function well in the Dutch society. Later PM Schoof corrected his words, saying that he meant to refer only to “a specific group of young people with a migration background who exhibit inappropriate behaviour”. According to the prime minister, this points to a broader integration problem, in fact implying that the young people he referred to haven’t integrated well and that’s their fault (or their parents’ fault). But is it? I think that the integration paradox shows that it is not. For this paradox and studies that substantiate it make it more than likely that the problem is not that people with a migration background haven’t integrated themselves, but that it is the Dutch who don’t integrate people with a migration background. Not the migrants and their offspring must be blamed, if their integration is poor, but the Dutch without a migration background are guilty of that, although they say that immigrants must integrate. That’s the real integration paradox.
Integration is a matter of adapting and accepting. Integration is also a matter for two parties: the immigrants and the original population of the country (“original” in the sense of those who are already living there at the moment the immigrants arrive). But when the first group, the immigrants, tries to adapt to the receiving country and to accept what it finds there, but the second group doesn’t do its part, integration cannot be complete. Nowhere.

Sources
- Broasca, Delphine, “De integratieparadox op de universiteit”
- “De ‘integratieparadox’: hoe langer in Nederland, hoe meer onbehagen”
- Dikkenberg, Nicole van den, De integratieparadox in Nederland. Waardoor ervaren hoger opgeleide etnische minderheden discriminatie in Nederland?
- Geurts, Nella, Waarom voelen hoger opgeleide migranten zich minder verbonden met Nederland? De integratieparadox vanuit meerdere methoden
- Pré, Raoul du, “Premier Schoof ziet groot probleem met de integratie: ‘Hun gedrag is schokkend, moreel volstrekt ontaard’”
- “Schoof baalt van ’verkeerde vertaling’ integratie-uitspraken”
- “Vaak onbehagen bij tweede generatie met migratieachtergrond”
- TV programs and other newspaper articles

- The integration paradox is not a typical Dutch phenomenon. Search the internet for studies about the integration paradox in other countries and in other languages.

Random quote
The history of power politics is nothing but the history of international crime and mass murder (including, it is true, some of the attempts to suppress them). This history is taught in schools, and some of the greatest criminals are extolled as its heroes.

Karl Popper (1902-1994)

Paradoxes of democracy

The Dutch National Liberation Monument in Wageningen, Netherlands (detail)

In footnote 4 to chapter 7 of his “The Open Society and Its Enemies” Karl R. Popper mentions three paradoxes typical for democratic states: the paradox of freedom, the paradox of tolerance and the paradox of democracy. The paradox of freedom is, so Popper, “the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any restraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek.” This paradox is often solved – which is not discussed here by Popper – by the rule that the freedom of one ends where that of the other is affected. The paradox of tolerance involves, so Popper, that unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. “If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and the tolerance with them.” Popper doesn’t say that we must always suppress intolerant expressions, but we must keep the right to do so. However, Popper is vague about how far the tolerance of intolerance goes. I would say that at least it goes not further than where intolerance affects, if not harms, the basic rights of others or threats to do so; to begin with rights like the inviolability of life and body and other human rights. The third paradox Popper mentions is the paradox of democracy or rather, so Popper, “majority rule; i.e. the possibility that the majority may decide that a tyrant should rule.”
I think that the essence of these paradoxes is the question of respect for the other: Freedom, tolerance and democracy end if others, especially minorities, are not respected. This requires an idea of equality between people and a protection of minority rights and the rights of those who think differently. This is not always easy, however, if we think of, for example, the just mentioned problem of tolerating intolerance. Anyhow, I think that from a political point of view, the paradox of democracy problem is fundamental, since it involves the paradoxes of freedom and tolerance. It is no wonder then that politically Poppers sees the solution in the right institutional structures: “We demand a government that rules according to the principles of equalitarianism and protectionism; that tolerates all who are prepared to reciprocate, i.e. who are tolerant; that is controlled by, and accountable to, the public.” Etc. Then “all these paradoxes can be easily avoided…”, so Popper. Easily? I wished it were true, for when we look at what is happening in the world today, we see something else. With more or less enthusiasm, people in this world vote for intolerant and undemocratic leaders that suppress freedom (leaders who, once in power, often succeed to manipulate the next elections that way that they are re-elected again and again). These leaders legally and illegally undermine the freedom of expression either directly, for instance by putting down those who verbally attack them and who by doing so affect their power, (“you are a foreign agent”); or they undermine the freedom of expression indirectly, for instance by making access to the public media for their critics increasingly difficult. if not by using worse means. Minority rights are restricted as well. Opponents, whose only “crime” is that they belong to another political party are threatened with violence. Nevertheless people vote for such leaders. Will you be the next victim? As I read in UN News: “More than 60 elections are taking place in 2024 and, whilst 90 per cent of people say they want to live in a democracy, many are voting for people and systems that are restricting their rights. The UN has expressed concern about this ‘democracy paradox’, and that fact that some governments and governance systems are becoming increasingly repressive.” Democracy is not that easy.

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All “cultures” are different but none is radically foreign or incomprehensible to others.

Marc Augé (1935-2023)

Voting rationally

I wonder whether there is a day without an election somewhere in the world. Recently, there were parliamentary elections in Japan, Bulgaria, Georgia and Botswana, while this week the Americans will choose a new president. In 2024 more than hundred countries will have elections, and approximately half of the world population will be involved. This only concerns elections of national importance. If we add regional and local elections, I guess that on average there’ll be at least one election a day this year, if not many more.
Elections are supposed to measure the opinions of the people and to designate who should represent them in the political institutions. However, as everybody knows, not all elections are free and fair. They are often manipulated. In some countries, those in power will do everything, legally or illegally, to stay in power, for example by influencing the voting behaviour and the choices of the voters before they cast their votes, so that they’ll vote “in the right way”; or, if necessary, such rulers will manipulate the election results. Didn’t Stalin say that it is not important how people vote; but who counts the votes?
Even if elections are free and fair, what then determines how the voters will vote and whether they’ll vote, anyway? Voting should be a rational choice: Carefully, weighing the pros and cons of all candidates for a function (president, parliamentarian, etc.) or of a certain question in a referendum, before making a choice. However, it seldom happens that way. Take, for example, this case, discussed by Kahneman (Thinking, Fast and Slow, p. 55): “A study of voting patterns in precincts of Arizona in 2000 showed that the support for propositions to increase the fundings of schools was significantly greater when the polling station was in a school than when it was in a nearby location.” So, where you cast your vote matters, which seems not very rational. In dictatorships, one way of manipulating election results is hanging images of the “Dear Leader” everywhere (and not those of opposing candidates, of course). It shows that “Big Brother is Watching you”, and in this way it pushes your vote in the desired direction (so that the dictator needs not to apply Stalin’s rule, which might be risky).
However, what is a rational voter? In his “The paradox of voting” Aaron Steelman says it this way: “According to the rational-choice perspective, a potential voter should make the following calculation. Multiply the benefits (B) he would receive if his preferred candidate were to win the election by the probability (P) that he would cast the deciding vote. If that figure exceeds the costs (C) he incurs — the time it takes to register to vote and go to the polling place, as well as the effort required to become well enough acquainted with the candidates’ positions to cast an informed vote — then voting is rational. The voter gets more out of the act than he puts in.” Leaving aside that it is almost impossible to calculate (B), (P) and (C) in a reliable way, casting your vote based on such a calculation may be rational, but is it reasonable to expect that voters determine their voting behaviour this way? The paradox of voting tells us that for a rational voter the result of the calculation is always negative, so he or she should not vote. Nevertheless, many people who are rational vote. Why? In the first place, so Steelman, even if it is not rational to vote according to the rational-choice model, “that doesn’t mean that it is without merit. [It predicts] that people will vote in higher numbers when the stakes are high and/or the election is close. … Turnout increases when voters’ B and P values increase.” However, even then the contribution of each voter to the election result is so small, that a single vote does not affect the result. Nevertheless, people vote, so apparently there is more at stake than making a rational choice in the sense of the rational-choice theory.
In fact, people vote for all kinds of other reasons; reasons not based on the rational-choice theory but certainly not irrational or unreasonable. Some feel obliged to vote. Voting belongs to good citizenship. Moreover, which is partly the same, the rational-choice theory supposes that people are individualistic and egoistic, but both suppositions are not true. Humans are social beings and they are also altruistic (at least partly). Belonging to a group belongs to being human. Therefore, so the Wikipedia, “voters … perceive a benefit if others are benefited. Since an election affects many others, it could still be rational to cast a vote with only a small chance of affecting the outcome.” Third, people want to belong to a group and want to show this. Voting is a way to express this belongingness. By your voting choice you show that you are a person of such and such kind. Taking part in the election meetings of a certain party has the same effect. It shows that you are one of “them” and that you have similar views.
How then to vote? Weighing the pros and cons of all candidates or parties or of the issue at stake would be best and most rational, but most people simply lack the time for it. Instead, many people look what candidates and parties did in the past, often only in outline for also now it can take yet too much time to study the political behaviour in detail. In this way, you determine your choice, and often people stay voting for a certain candidate or party for years, unless they have reasons to change.
Voting should be rational and individualistic, so the idea is, in the sense that your choice should be your choice. However, in practice, choices are often based on habit and social adaption. This seems paradoxical, but often it is the most rational you can do in view of your realistic possibilities.

Random quote
Sometimes I think and sometimes I am.

Paul Valéry (1871-1945)

Philip Zimbardo (1933-1924)

Philip Zimbardo talking with a prisoner during the Stanford Prison Experiment.
 Source: prisonexp.org/gallery 

Two weeks ago, on 14 October, Philip George Zimbardo died, 91 years old. If you are an avid reader of my blogs and when you are reading them already since many years (and I hope that you do), you’ll certainly know his name, for I have dedicated several blogs to him and his theories. Zimbardo was an American psychologist and he has become famous by his “Stanford Prison Experiment”. For this experiment, he had selected 24 test subjects  with the same background characteristics. Zimbardo assigned them at random to two groups: the prisoners and the prison warders. Although there was no initial fundamental difference between the test subjects in both groups, after one-two days both the prisoners and the prison warders acted very differently in a way that went beyond their particular roles. Already after such a short time the warders began to torture the prisoners, psychologically as well as physically (within limits, for outright physical violence was not allowed). Therefore Zimbardo terminated the experiment after six days, although it had been planned to last two weeks. Since the differences between the test subjects were negligible and since all of them were psychologically healthy, Zimbardo concluded after a thorough analysis that it is not their psychological dispositions that make people behave in an evil way but that it is the situation that brings them that far. Only very few people can resist the pressure of the situation that pushes them into a certain direction, and also only very few display evil behaviour because of a disposition.
Zimbardo was heavily criticized for this conclusion. One point of criticism was that he himself acted also in the experiment (he was the prison director). Moreover, so it was said, had the instructions that the students had received for the roles they had to play as prison warders or as prisoners been different, their behaviour would also have been different and more friendly towards each other. But I think that such criticisms just affirm Zimbardo’s conclusion that “situations can have a more powerful influence over our behaviour than most people appreciate, and few people recognize [that].” For had the instructions for the test persons been different, also their situation would have been different, and then probably the prison warders would have behaved in a less cruel way just because they were in a different situation. (By the way, there were also good prison warders among the test persons; not everybody was “evil”.)
For illustrating the practical meaning of his experiment and for substantiating the truth of the results Zimbardo referred to the similarities between his experiment and the prisoner abuse by American soldiers in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2004. He didn’t accept the claim put forward by General Myers (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) that the events were due to a few rogue soldiers and that they were not typical of the American soldier. Instead, as I want to summarize Zimbardo’s words, the soldiers were placed in an impossible situation. The cruel behaviour of the soldiers was, at least for a part, a consequence of the situation in which they had to act. Basically, the soldiers were okay, and the responsibility lay with the military staff and with the American president in the first place. Zimbardo called the effect that good people can turn into evil people in the “right” – so not so right – situation the “Lucifer Effect”. (Lucifer was an angel who fell into disgrace of God and assumed the role of Satan)
Other experiments support Zimbardo’s conclusions. Take for example the famous experiment by Stanley Milgram who investigated how willing people were to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their ethical views. It appeared that many test persons were willing to do so and even were prepared to hurt people physically when instructed to do so. Also in this case, it is possible to interpret the behaviour of the “evil” test persons as guided by the situation they were in. Anyway, though I agree with Zimbardo and Milgram, the question remains why some people refuse to become evil. Apparently, not all behaviour depends on the situation and not for all people the way they act is dependent on the situation they are in. Humans are not situational dopes and apparently there is still room for a moral compass, albeit so that in modern society its role has increasingly given way to situational behaviour, if David Riesman is right with his idea of the other-directness of modern man (while before the present age people were mainly inner-directed, i.e. guided by their moral compasses).
However, if it is so that the situation people are in can make them evil, as Zimbardo states, then it must also be possible that situations can make them behave well. The right situation can stimulate people to behave in the right way, even when by nature they are not apt to do so; a conclusion also drawn by Zimbardo himself, though. Situations can make people devils, but they can make them also heroes or saints. People are not inherently, genetically, bad or good. Most people can do well and can do bad, and what they’ll do depends on the situations they are in and on the pressure exerted there on them. However, as just said, it is not only the circumstances that make who you are and what you do, and Zimbardo doesn’t say that. Also your personality, your moral compass, your views, etc. play a part in what you do. Nevertheless, circumstances have an important influence on what you do. They can make you both a devil and a hero, or something in between.

Sources: Old blogs; Wikipedia, especially here (about Zimbardo), here (about the Stanford prison experiment), here (about Abu Ghraib), and here (about Stanley Milgram).

Random quote
Everyday man tends to respect power more than knowledge; when knowledge opposes power, it loses all prestige in this opposition that was once prestigious.

Henri Lefebvre (1901-1991)

Eternal glory

Heraclitus wrote:
αἱρεῦνται γὰρ ἒν ἀντὶ ἀπάντων οἱ ἄριστοι, κλέος ἀέναον θνητῶν· οἱ δὲ πολλοὶ κεκόρηνται ὄκωσπερ κτήνεα (Fragments B29).
Again, like in my last blog, I give different translations of this Greek text:

- For even the best of them choose one thing above all others, immortal glory among mortals, while most of them are glutted like beasts. (Source)
- The best of men choose one thing in preference to all else, immortal glory in preference to mortal good; whereas the masses simply glut themselves like cattle. (Source)
- The best of men refrain from everything for one thing, so that they continuously get respect from mortals, but most people glut like cattle in the yard. (This is the re-translation into English of the text in my Dutch edition of the Fragments, ed. by Ben Schomakers (Source))

Again we see here, like in my last blog, some striking differences in the translations. However, I think that the essence of Heraclitus’ text is this:
- The best of men look for eternal glory from the mortals, while most people glut themselves like cattle.

How should we interpret this? According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Heraclitus “recommends” here “the conventional Greek goal of seeking fame: ‘The best choose one thing above all, the everlasting fame of mortals; the many gorge themselves like cattle’ ” This should be in line with other texts by Heraclitus like “Gods and men honour those who are slain by Ares.” and “Greater deaths win greater portions.” (B24 and B25) On the other hand, Heraclitus speaks about glory given by the mortals (κλέος θνητῶν), and that he speaks of mortals, and not, for instance, of men, or that he doesn’t simply say “eternal glory” without any specification, may have a reason. According to Schomakers (Source, p. 70) the word “mortals” puts the text into another perspective: Glory given by mortals is transitory. It doesn’t last forever and will fade away. Actually, there is not much difference between the “external” satisfaction of glory given by mortals and the “external” satisfaction given by stuffing your stomach. (the word “eternal” is used by Schomakers) Implicitly, the text may suggest that it is better to follow your internal morality, your internal values and norms, than to keep yourself busy with this external satisfaction. Don’t be fascinated by the superficial.

This makes me think of what Montaigne tells us in his essay “Not to communicate one’s glory” (Essays, Book I-41; discussed by me in a blog two years ago): “Of all the follies of the world, that which is most universally received is the solicitude of reputation and glory”. Although I think that there is much truth in Montaigne’s view that glory is a folly, nevertheless, I think that to strive for some glory or fame can be practical. For a small amount of glory or fame, can help to open doors. Often people cannot reach their goals because nobody knows them and because just for this reason they are not taken seriously. Once people know you, or rather have heard of you, they tend to listen better to you and are more disposed to help (and maybe they even think that they can profit by helping you). And this can make realizing your personal values and norms easier.

A heap of waste

Heraclitus wrote:
σάρμα εἰκῇ κεχυμένον ὁ κάλλιστος, φησὶν Ἡράκλειτος, [ὁ] κόσμος.
The website “The fragments of Heraclitus”, where I copied this quotation, translates this text this way (see here):

“The most beautiful universe is (a) pouring out (of) sweepings at random.”

In a note it says that “The text for this fragment is very doubtful and should be handled extremely carefully”, and it explains why. Therefore, “with the text being such a problem to start with, any significant information pulled from this fragment will have to be conjecture.”

Nevertheless, I want to give it an interpretation. For this, I’ll use my Dutch edition of Heraclitus’ words (see Sources below). Here, the text quoted has been translated by Ben Schomakers in a somewhat different way (in which, just like in the translation above “φησὶν Ἡράκλειτος”, i.e. “Heraclitos says” has been ignored). Re-translated into English it reads:

“a heap of waste arbitrarily swept together
the most beautiful order”

Although translations by different translators are often different, in this case the difference is remarkable. However, I am not in the position to judge which translation or interpretation of Heraclitus’ words is best. My Greek has become rusty through the years and I am not a Heraclitus specialist. Anyway, Schomakers’ translation is in keeping with other translations I found elsewhere on the internet (for instance here (see #40), here (see #124) and a few more), so I’ll follow Schomakers’ version.
In a first interpretation, I think, one can take the text as it is: simple, banal things or events of everyday life are beautiful. Or: simple, banal things or events of everyday life are also beautiful. It is one reason (though not the main reason) why I take pictures of ordinary objects found on the street. See for example here on my photo website: Left or lost.
But let me look at the interpretation of Ben Schomakers’ of Heraclitus’ words. Following Schomakers, one interpretation of this text could say that the Greek philosopher wants to tell us that the cosmos has no order or structure. The cosmos is not more than a hotchpotch of things swept together. According to Schomakers, this interpretation of what Heraclitus says is unlikely. It is not in line with the other remaining fragments of what Heraclitus has said and with the little we know about him. More likely is, so Schomakers, that Heraclitus wants to ridicule this view. He wants to say: Isn’t is ridiculous that the cosmos is like a heap of things if not of waste simply swept together? There must be at least some order in the world. It is impossible that the cosmic order is like a heap of stuff swept together. Rather, we should see the cosmos as an orderly unity steered by a god.
Maybe this is so, but I think that an interpretation of the text depends also on which level the cosmos is considered. When one considers the physical cosmos, the idea that there is order in the world is inescapable. However, when one considers the human cosmos or even more the political cosmos, isn’t then the first idea that pops up in the mind that it is a mess? That there is no order? How else should we judge the present situation in the world?

Sources
- The fragments of Heraclitus, https://heraclitusfragments.com/files/e.html  
- Heraclitus, Alle woorden. Amsterdam: Boom, 2024.

Random quote
You're insane until you're a genius.

Johan Cruijff (1947-2016)

Fine-tuning the moral compass

I think that everybody has it (or so I hope): An internalized set of values and objectives that helps to navigate through life and to act ethically and to take moral decisions. In short: I think that everybody has a moral compass. However, how you fill it in, so what your individual moral compass is, is a personal affair. Fundamentally, each person has personal values and objectives, and they may be different from those of other persons, though broadly for groups of persons they more or less agree. But it is one thing to have a moral compass, it is another thing to act on the basis of it. For personal affairs and decisions that have only consequences for yourself, it’s an individual matter and you owe responsibility only to yourself. But much individual behaviour has social consequences. Then it is important that people act in the right way and sometimes that they act anyway, even if they have no personal interest in doing so. How can we make that people do so; so how can we influence their moral compasses?
In the Dutch daily De Volkskrant, I read an interesting article about investigations at the Utrecht University about this problem. Do people help others they don’t know, if it is not in their own interest? How to make car drivers adhere to the speed limit, which is useful for the group of drivers as a whole, but not for the individual drivers? How to make streets safer? In such situations, the moral compasses of individuals are relevant, and it is important to know how to change them in the right way, if necessary, or at least how to influence them so that people behave in the socially appropriate way.
Rewarding and punishing are important instruments for guiding behaviour, although they are not the only ones. What the investigators at the Utrecht University want to find out is how we can reward people best. Of course, during the years much research has been done already in this field, and what the investigators want to do is to fine-tune the rewarding approach for the problem at hand, namely public behaviour. Because the investigations just started, results are not yet known, but on the basis of a literature study something can already be said about it. In order to stimulate social behaviour, you can appeal to someone’s ideals or to his or her obligations. What is most effective? Although public campaigns often set out the obligations people have towards each other, investigations have shown that it is better to point to their ideals. For instance, in a recent campaign in the city of Utrecht street harassment is dismissed as loser’s behaviour, but maybe it should be better to stress that a harassment free city will make it safer for everybody and isn’t this what everybody wants? Or a charity campaign should not stress that you have an obligation to contribute to a better society, but it should point to the ideal that everybody wants a society free of misery. In my words, in order to stimulate socially desirable behaviour one should not point to the bad side of human beings or say that some things just have to be done, but one must point to the good side; to what people wish that will happen and to what they strive for. Be positive, not negative, but hasn’t this always been so?