Why do some people manage to step up to do heroic things while other people merely keep their heads down too fearful to assert their constitutional rights?

     It is evening in a middle class neighborhood in New York City.. The streets are still busy with the hustle and bustle of cars and people. Windows of nearby apartment buildings are open and the sounds of people enjoying their time at home can be heard up and down the street. Suddenly, a woman screams out in pain and fear. She has been attack by a man who takes up the evil task of raping her. At least a hundred people on the streets and from the windows watch in horror as she is beaten and violated. Not one person in the nearby homes or those milling in the crowd that watches her plight comes to her aid or lifts a finger to call the police. She is left beaten and unaided on the sidewalk.

      A woman is attack by a bear, a man who happens to be hiking by the campsite rushes over to her rescue, attacking the bear and ends up being mauled and mutilated for the rest of his life. However, the bear content to take its anger out on the man has left the woman alone and ambles off.

     These two scenarios seem strange in light of the fact that in the first the unarmed thug was outnumbered by almost one hundred to one. If a small portion of the first group of people had intervened, danger to any of them would have been almost non-existent.

     In the second case, the one hundred and seventy pound man acted alone against the six hundred pound terror, armed with only a stick, while the bear had long sharp claws, teeth, backed up with one hundred times the strength and almost four times the weight of the heroic man. Clearly he did not have much of a chance to win... much less survive. It was later that the man said the he knew the odds but was compelled to help the woman, burying his fear of his own personal safety.

     When you compare both scenarios, it becomes apparent that the disparity of risk and actual danger to both the victims and the onlookers was astronomical and the action taken by the onlookers was as well. Psychologists say that in the first scenario, there was a dilution of any sense of responsibility among a large group of people causing each individual to expect that someone else will do something. They would say that in the second scenario, the suddenness of being confronted alone with the woman being attacked by the bear did not give the single man a chance to think about diluting his responsibility. They would say he acted instinctually. Many of these people would say that in a sense his instincts compelled him to act, made his act less heroic.

     Psychologist say that the longer people stand by without acting the less likely they will as time goes on.

What I understand and what fascinates me is that these reactions are not written in stone, they are just averages.

Crowds of people are known to act without the dilution of responsibility phenomena regardless of how little or how great the danger. Single individuals often do nothing also regardless of personal risk. Knowing this is also a source of frustration for me.

     With regards to the length of time that it takes individuals, groups of people or organizations to act can also vary greatly. This is also a source of mystery and frustration for me.

      What determines who acts courageously, and who acts craven? What factors are involved? Is it a person's intelligence or level of education. Does a person's level of physical competence and capacity to fend for themselves in any martial conflict determine how courageous they are? What about their personal moral code of conduct or what some people would call character? Does a person's own self interest or any affection felt for friends and family have anything to do with how courageous a person may act.

      I have had a chance to study many variations of these phenomena for much of my life.

     I have also lived in a bizarre dysfunctional culture ripe with bitterness, self -loathing, hatred and dehumanization.

Sounds like I worked at a prison, doesn't it? Not really. I actually worked for an agency of the Federal government. A job that paid well, had good benefits and compare to most jobs in the private sector a cake walk. Yes that's right, I have had almost thirty of years of watching federal employees operating both as individuals and as group mentalities in various scenarios; in a wide range of risk levels to both their coworkers and to them as observers and bystanders.

     The years of what I have observed has left me dismayed and befuddled as to how people...educated intelligent people would give up their rights and personal power and allow themselves to be mistreated, even to the point of criminal mistreatment.

    As I have mentioned on the both My Mission Statement page and My Bio & Philosophy page I use to work for our Federal Government. In my youth it was the U.S. Marines during the "Vietnam Conflict"; later it was another federal agency. An agency that in my opinion still mishandles bio-hazards, thus putting my ex-coworkers and the American public in unnecessary risk. An Agency that in my opinion makes it easier than necessary for terrorist to harm our country as well as others. In addition to these past and present dangers, I have personally witness laws broken intentionally from more than a few federal administrators or people ordered to break laws at the direction of more than a few federal administrators.

    I have grieved many times over the deaths and the forced early retirements of more than a few of my coworkers, all of which in my opinion has been unnecessary harmed and in addition has cost the local communities and the American taxpayers untold millions of dollars.

     I have witnessed the complaints from the majority of my coworkers about the widespread alleged sexual misconduct and harassment on many of the female population for the agency I worked. Many of the complaints came from people who not only witnessed their coworkers harassed, but their wives, daughters, nieces, sisters and girlfriends as well. (I say alleged, because while I have witnessed other illegal or simply dangerous stupid acts by administrators, I have never witnessed or heard conversations that were sexually harassing to the people I work with.

     However, if asked for my opinion in a court of law as to how certain I was that some of these federal administrators actually did the dirty deeds, I would say I am 99.8% certain. I say this because of my long years of observing these people at work and in public away from work and with other women. One of these managers I have had the opportunity to live with). Yes in a court of law, or if a gun was put to my head forcing me to determine yes or no the guilt of some of these people and that my life would hang in the balance based on the decision, I would say yes.

     The question that many people have asked is, "Why did my coworkers allow this behavior? What kind of man would allow his wife, sister, daughter, niece, or girlfriend be sexually harassed and live constantly in an atmosphere of fear and humiliation?

     Perhaps I would be able to understand if the men were faced with the danger of physical harm to themselves or their loved ones. Perhaps if their jobs were at risk and therefore their ability to provide for themselves or their families.

     Even perhaps if they simply were cowed and befuddled as to how to take actual effective steps that would stop the sexual predators.

     Early in my career I would have understood the second and third possibilities, (the chance of actual physical danger to the men is actually next to nothing from the administrators). I have learned that in the second scenario, it is very tough to get fired if you work in the government sector...particularly the federal sector. You may be pressured or force out of work under specific circumstances, as I was for a two year period, (Perhaps one day I will address this in complete detail at a later date), but getting fired takes almost an act of congress. The obvious fact is the loss of their jobs or fear of physical attack was not an issue to worry about.

     This leaves the possibility that they were unawares as to how to effectively address their sexual harassment situation. A situation where you would think that their own self-interest and the interest of people they should have affection for. A situation where most rational people in the private sector would assume that since my former coworkers self-interest as individuals and as a collective was at stake, my coworkers would have done everything in their power to take the steps available to them to stand up for the safety and welfare of these women.

     Sadly and to my initial disbelief, this was not the case. Let me explain. During the two years I was forced out of my position in the federal government, I looked into all of the avenues that were at my disposal...avenues not explained to me by my lawyer, my union, or for that matter, anyone. Finally, I found the formula for justice; a formula that does not require lawyers and I forced the government to bring me back by utilizing many of the avenues and techniques available to all American citizens.

     Since I had survived my trials and tribulations, I had the opportunity to educate my coworkers on the best way of protecting themselves. I gave them a blue print of what would work...if and only if they would follow the through with the blueprint. They rationalized the fear that they would be fired and feared not being able to provide for their families.

      I tried using reason with them. I told them that if the federal agency had not fired me; a person fighting alone, then their was no chance that they would fire them...thirty strong, the very people who were bitching about the sexual harassment that they personally witnessed. I outlined a half a dozen water-tight enough for any court of law methods with which they could collect information, create infallible paper trails, and show a willful intentional, and yes criminal neglect of the federal administrators with the side benefit of building their arsenal of protection. I went further to tell them that our local congressman had shared with me a story of other employees who worked for the same federal agency (in a neighboring town) had come to him in force along with them their extended family and friends from the community to back them and were able to stop certain abuses.

     I told my coworkers that this congressman mentioned with sadness in his heart that if people won't even come to him for help, he was next to helpless to help them. In the end, I found out that the main stumbling block for most of my coworkers who complained about the sexual harassment was that if they stood up, the federal administrators would talk harshly with them and discipline them when they happened to take an extra five or so minutes on their breaks.

     So their it was....the lives, dignity, and safety of their coworkers and even their loved ones was bought easily and cheaply for the price of a few extra break time minutes and occasional reprisal from harsh tones from their bosses.

I was left feeling lonely for the likes of Jeffery Wigand, (see JeffreyWigand.com Official site and Marie Brenner Article about Wigand), Ralph Nader, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Karen Silkwood and all of the whistle-blowers who did not have the safety net of federal employee...who knew what they were up against, and went forward anyway to do what was right. (CLICK HERE> To Read About Other Heroic Whistle Blowers).

     Once again, I feel that it is necessary to assure the reader that I am not out to grind an axe or to humiliate any particular individual with this confession of observations. If what I have witnessed was only a freakish anomaly that I have had the misfortune of living, then I would not have taken the steps or spent the enormous time and money on my mission. But the sad fact is, what I have witnessed is only the tip of the iceberg. It is so commonplace and aside from random or poor parenting it is the next and largest core reason why our country has become such a mess and is sinking fast. It may still be a great country, perhaps one of the best, but I can hear the loud sucking sound of our country and it's citizens confidence zipping down the drain.

     What I have observed, experienced and learned is that if the type of dysfunctional culture that permeates the government sector continues, the fiasco with FEMA, the 9/11 attack that the U.S. Postal Services failure to stop,  the terrorist use of anthrax in our mail system the Abu Ghraib abuses and tortures in Iraq  is actually a portent of want will continue to happen unless the what we have observed is openly discussed, analyzed, and dealt with in meaningful way.

    If you want to better understand the malaise that cripples our federal agencies then I suggest that you read a book from the famous psychologist Dr. Phillip Zimbardo, 'The Lucifer Effect". Also, look to the work of Yale University's Stanley Milgram and his work on obedience and social conformity. Stanley Milgram wanted to measure the willingness of people to obey authority figures who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience. (At least their stated values). He became interested in this study just three months after the beginning of the Nazi war criminal trials. He devised the experiments to answer one question: " Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders. Could we call them all accomplices?"

     He published his disturbing findings in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. Later he talked about his findings in much greater detail in his book "Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View"

     In short - Milgram wanted to see what percentage of people would be willing to give a person increasingly powerful and painful electrical shocks to other participants of the experiment based simply on the fact that an authority figure, (in this case a University professor) instructed them to do so. In fact the participants were told that beyond a certain voltage level the shocks could be dangerous and possibly fatal to the people they were administering the shocks to. It did not matter how loud or how often the people receiving the shocks screamed or pleaded for the pain to stop. It did not seem to matter if the victim in the other room went deathly quiet. No one bothered to go into the other room to check on the person receiving the shock. Even the people that finally refused to keep applying shocks did not recommend that the experiments be stopped, nor did they check on the victim.

No one refused before the voltage reached the 300 volts level.    

     Dr. Thomas Blass of the  University of Maryland Baltimore County performed a meta-analysis on the results of repeated performances of Milgram's experiments. He found that the percentage of participants who are prepared to inflict fatal voltages remains remarkably constant, between 61% and 66%, regardless of time or location.

     I feel that one thing that must be stated about the people chosen to participate in these experiments:

The participants were tested and interviewed to screen out people with mental disorders and any other quality that may raise warning flags that could taint the experiments; particularly in Dr. Zimbardo's experiments.

In essence, the participate were generally found to enjoy better mental health, intelligence and stability compared to most of the population. (In my mind this raises the question of what humans can mask or parrot and what is considered healthy).

     After you read Dr. Phillip Zimbardo, Dr. Stanley Milgram, Dr. Thomas Blass, you will learn about the darker side of many human beings.

     You will be surprised at how easy it is for Humans to fall into a state of learned helplessness.

     In the federal employee culture the evil that exists is more insidious. Learned helplessness implies that the people learning to be helpless are passive recipients, when in the fact in the federal sector the learned helplessness is actively and openly worked towards by the very people who complain the most. Also perverse is the very people that actively pursue union office in the guise of helping their constituents are ironically  the ones that contribute the most to teaching them to learn helplessness. (I am not implying that they are doing this consciously or purposely)

     If you are interested in learning more about the dysfunction of federal workers and the agencies they work for, then CLICK HERE>, otherwise, please check out the fascinating links to some of the work of the people I have previously mentioned.

CLICK HERE to see the Letter that I am sending all of the 2008 Presidential Candidates to ask them how I can send money to the troops.

If you are interested in reading some of my experiences in life that compels me to help alleviate poverty and hunger then CLICK HERE>

Homepage

Milgram's experiments on conformity and obedience to authority

• Stanley Milgram Redux, TBIYTB - description of a recent iteration of Milgram's experiment at Yale University, published in "The Yale Hippolytic," Jan. 22, 2007.

• Behavioral Study of Obedience - Milgram's journal article describing the experiment in,                       Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1963, Vol. 67, No. 4, 371-378

• Synthesis of book A faithful synthesis of "Obedience to Authority" – Stanley Milgram

• A personal account of a participant in the Milgram obedience experiments

• Summary and evaluation of the 1963 obedience experiment

• The Science of Evil from ABC News Primetime

• Documentary filming of the Obedience experiment - on Google Video (45 minutes)

• When Good People Do Evil Article in the Yale Alumni Magazine by Philip Zimbardo on the 45th anniversary of the Milgram experiment.

• The Milgram Obedience Song Audio clips of the experiment set to music by Dan Wegner.

• A Virtual Reprise of the Stanley Milgram Obedience Experiments Comparing responses in a virtual simulation with real-world responses.

If you are interested in what I have observed for the past thirty years then CLICK HERE>

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Wiesel, E., & de Saint-Cheron, M. (2000). Evil and Exile (J. Rothschild & J. Gladding, Trans.). Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.

Wiesel, E. (2006). Night. New York: Hill & Wang.

Wrightsman, L. S. (2006). Psychology and the Legal System (6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth and Thomson Learning.

Ziemer, G. A. (1972). Education for Death, the Making of the Nazi. New York: Octagon Books.

• 'Road Less Traveled' Author Dies at 69" - obituary from the Associated Press, September 26, 2005

• "Gin, cigarettes, women: I'm a prophet, not a saint" - interview in The Times, May 10, 2005

• "Pop psychiatrist who ignored his bestselling advice on adultery" - obituary in The Guardian, September 25, 2005

• M. Scott Peck home page

• Foundation for Community Encouragement home page

If you are interested in what I have observed for the past thirty years then CLICK HERE>

If you are interested in reading some of my experiences in life that compels me to help alleviate poverty and hunger then CLICK HERE>

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