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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A brilliant read that makes you think,
This review is from: The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil (Paperback)
I'm slightly ashamed to say that I initially picked this up because if it's cover: Odd, I thought, for a book with Lucifer in the title NOT to have a leering demon or a vista of hell as a backdrop.Then I thought about it for a bit. We try to separate evil from ourselves (i.e. the good) and the mundane as best as we can but this book seeks to show us how apparently good and honest people can turn into the worst that humankind has to offer. I.e. it shows us how akin we are to those people that are classically termed as being evil (Pol Pot, Adolf Hitler, Elizabeth Bathory, assorted comic-book villains, etc). Zimbardo, most famously known as the principal author of the Stanford Prison Experiment, seeks to divest us of our sensationalised view of evil and bring home to us how easy and ordinary it can be to slide down that slippery slope. I had barely gotten 50 pages into the book when I found it impossible to put down: reading it was at times a harrowing experience, but if I wanted a pleasant read I wouldn't have picked up a book that is, for all intents and purposes, a window into the mindset of Evil. This is precisely what makes it so interesting. It pulls no punches and doesn't try to give you a warm and fuzzy feeling inside (until the final chapters, that is). Most important of all, it seeks to make you challenge what you think you. I feel compelled to give it full marks because it is one of the best books I have ever read; the fact that it makes you put your brain into gear and use your thinking muscles makes me want to add a 6th star.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A great Lesson in the Human Spirit,
By
This review is from: The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil (Paperback)
I bought this book over two years ago after a discussion with some people who had read it and were discussing the Rwandan crisis outlined in the first chapter which describes how neighbours killed each other and their children.This was hard reading but well worth it. Zimbardo draws on extensive research to make the case for situational evil where systems conspire to produce evil actions by individuals who are morally culpable but generally at the bottom of teh chain. He makes the case against the US administration in the Abu Ghraib atrocities and shows how those at the bottom were pillored by the administration who had a responsibility to ensue systems were in palce to prevent abuse. His last chapter on heroes is well worth reading and describes how ordinary people are often heroes. He has a useful chart about this and describes the attributes of heroes
5.0 out of 5 stars
Chilling to understand how easily people are manipulated by systems,
By
This review is from: The Lucifer Effect (Kindle Edition)
This is a tough book to review.On one hand, I'd like to give it five stars. Everyone needs to understand the effects of Group-Think and situational/opportunistic evil. The way Zimbardo exposes both his own failings in this regard, the Stamford Prison Experiment and Abu Graib are chilling to read. But from a readability perspective, this is a three star book. It's difficult to hang in there and keep reading until the investigation of the Iraqi prison fires up, and I almost didn't make it. This reads more like a university textbook, a cure for insomnia, than anything else. It is well worth the read, though, as you really don't know quite how you'll act personally until you're in a situational/authoritative position. Power corrupts. A lack of power imprisons. Few have the strength of internal moral compass to navigate these treacherous waters without falling into one hole or the other. Both, ironically, are victims of human nature.
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