The Stanford Experiment
(For six days in mid-August, 1971, at Stanford
University near San Francisco, a psychological
experiment was conducted in which students
took on the roles of prisoners and prison guards.
The experiment had to be cut short, because the
guards were indulging in unhealthily sadistic
behaviour.)
"Never again," we say.
Those things can't be repeated.
"We set our face against him,
and Hitler was defeated."
Are you sure?
If sweet-talking you
could make it come true,
I would hand you the world
right now on a silver platter ...
but what would it matter?
Life isn't always Garry Keillor.
It's Rwanda, too. Sabra, Shatila.
The key you're holding
won't fit my door.
And you're not welcome
any more.
Just picture this, my friend.
Almost in sight of the Alcatraz ferry,
that sunny August of seventy-one,
a couple miles from Haight-Ashbury
something funny has begun
- and we're not talking Tom and Jerry.
You used me and abused me
till I felt like I wanted to die.
You created a need in me
that only you can satisfy.
Well-heeled campus kids
don’t quibble at the pay rates
make fifteen bucks a day
playing guards-and-inmates
- but is it really play?
I wondered hard
'tween twelve and one:
I asked my God,
"What have I done?"
These guards love Cohen, Dylan,
Che Guevarra, Mao, Durruti -
but now they're volunteering
for unpaid extra duty.
He spits into my food tray
for nothing more than spite.
Hear him whip the women
just around midnight.
You'd be surprised
what humans do.
Hippies can be Nazis, too.
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