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.