Inspired by the anti-Vietnam War activism of Dave Dellinger and David Harris, a group of my fellow college students and I started a draft counseling service for young men in Putnam County, southern Indiana, in 1968. We prepared ourselves by learning the essentials of the 1967 Selective Service Act supplied to us by Ann Fagan Ginger of the National Lawyers Guild, based in Berkeley, California.
Armed with some legal knowledge and with the moral support of the American Friends Service Committee, we began operations. Our organizing principle as a group was the shared belief that the war must end and that we had a joint responsibility to stop it by helping young men to refuse service in the armed forces.
I just spent the day with Hector Aristizibal, the Colombian psychotherapist and performance artist now living in Los Angeles but traveling the world with his special kind of magic. Hector is the creator of the powerful video, “Night Wind” or “Viento Nocturno,” the story of his courageous resistance and resilience in the face of torture. He works with people who have heroically survived torture and have become extraordinary persons with a deep sense of who they are and where they are going. Hector embodies the New Heroism that Phil Zimbardo and I speak of. He enlists the help of others to courageously challenge those authorities who dismiss the legal and binding significance of Article I of the United Nations Declaration and Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment and Punishment. I admire and respect Hector for his personal commitment to this cause.
Our new video, “Psychology and the New Heroism” was honored to be chosen as a premium by Mickey Huff and Peter Phillips for their Project Censored show on KPFA RADIO 94.1 as part of the station’s winter fund drive. We will also have an opportunity to share information about our video and our INDIEGOGO campaign at the Project Censored event, Thursday, February 21st at 7 PM, Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland, California, featuring Dan Ellsberg in conversation with film maker, Oliver Stone regarding his new book with Peter Kuznick and his ten part television documentary film, The Untold History of the United States.
In terms of systems theory, the group dynamics for our first meeting with young people on May 4, 2013, has already begun. Isomorphy, often called parallel process, means that in a complex system there are similar organizing structures that operate beneath the diverse contents of any system. We are not just creating a video called “Group Dynamics and the New Heroism” but creating a movement–and that movement begins with the formation of many subgroups.
As the co-leader subgroup, Phil and I are working through our anxiety about leading a group that no one has ever led before and finding the funds to make the video. Our process anticipates the anxiety that our group members will surely experience as they form their subgroups of network support and face the uncertainty of how they can act nonviolently and courageously in the world and how much risk they are willing to take. As the production subgroup, my film director and I are working through the anxiety of taking on the difficult task of how best to capture images of our group members’ interaction on camera with limited resources. Our camera people and crew must form their own subgroup as well to meet the challenge of filming a spontaneous, unscripted group that is moving and shifting at will.
At each level, our subgroups face the essential work of the new heroism: Being willing to take calculated risks and spontaneously act in concert with others in situations they have never faced before. In this sense, our research is measuring the capacity of our subgroups to mitigate our fear of failure. It will be a test of our sophistication and humility as leaders and participants that we can persevere in the face of high uncertainty and low predictability.
It is not immediately obvious why psychologists and group therapists should be interested in the group processes that lead to torture. It is an historical truth, as Alfred McCoy states in his book, A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror, “–torture research had involved three of the ‘100 most eminent psychologists of the 20th century’ –Hebb, Milgram, and Janis–as well as several presidents of the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association ” (p.33)
Amrit Singh, the senior legal officer at the National Security and Counterterrorism program at the Open Society Justice Initiative, has just authored a disturbing report entitled, “Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition.” The report identifies 54 countries in the international community that aided the CIA with its torture operations. The implication here is stark and will be used by those to justify the use of torture and excuse those who practice it. Those who support the use of torture will
say that it is an international phenomenon, unavoidable and inevitable, due to the inclination of human beings to commit such abuses. They will point to Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment and other obedience studies to justify such behavior on the grounds that it is some how in the human nature to torture.
However, it is a distortion of Philip Zimbardo’s prison study to say that torture is an inevitable part of human behavior. Those of us who have spent our lives studying group behavior know that torture and abuse depend on the kind of leadership a group is provided and the group norms that emerge as a consequence of that leadership. In the case of the United States government, it is the political leadership at the highest level that sets the norms for subordinates in the military, the FBI and the CIA to follow.
United States citizens must hold their leaders accountable when they fail to comply with United States law and International treaties which condemn and forbid the planning and practice of torture by U.S. operatives or anyone acting on our behest.
Bill Roller
Note: Amrit Singh is co-author with Jameel Jaffer of the book Administration of Torture: A Documentary Record from Washington to Abu Ghraib and Beyond.
A friend and colleague is very enthusiastic about the video we shall produce with the help of our many donors. He is a psychiatrist and he wants to form and lead a group like the group we shall conduct and capture on the video, “Group Dynamics and the New Heroism.” He is excited to think he can replicate the results of our process research, looking specifically at our method of teaching group members to act nonviolently and heroically even at personal risk to themselves. It will be an opportunity for him to follow what will be a pioneering study.
Many studies have been made researching how to get people to obey authority–but next to nothing until now has been spent researching conditions which allow people to obey their conscience.
May this be the beginning of a new worldwide trend.
Phil Zimbardo and I will create a new social psychology experiment that we’ll make into a video called, “Group Dynamics and the New Heroism.” The video will show us co-leading a group of young people–encouraging them to take courageous nonviolent action in defense of their ethical principles.
It’s something that’s never been done before.
Although governments have spent a lot of money researching how to get people to obey authority–next to nothing has been spent researching the conditions which allow people to obey their conscience.
Our video will help individuals practice civil obedience to the values enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the laws of the United States.
Today, we went “live” on our Indiegogo crowd funder, GROUP DYNAMICS AND THE NEW HEROISM.
Keep your eye on my blog for frequent undates on the progress of our crowd funder, including events and parties you can attend to support our cause.
And please keep your donations to our crowd funder coming!
Philip Zimbardo and I are excited to be creating a new social psychology experiment that will challenge a group of young people to take courageous nonviolent action in defense of ethical principles they hold dear.
Professor Zimbardo, creator of the Stanford Prison Experiment, has spent his career studying how people can be induced to behave badly. In this project, we’ll be encouraging people to behave admirably and ethically. The Heroic Imagination Project and the Berkeley Group Education Foundation intend to produce a video series, Group Dynamics and the New Heroism. In that video we shall help young leaders become attuned to the new heroism that is sociocentric and not egocentric, focusing on the cooperation of many and not the idealization of one. It is not the lone figure acting in isolation that epitomizes the hero but the individual who can effectively enlist the help of others in accomplishing a task of ethical importance. And the action a person takes may involve considerable personal risk and may not offer any tangible reward.
We shall be looking for the social forces and contexts which allow ordinary human beings to act in extraordinary ways in the service of other human beings and the support of ethical causes. How can our group members transform themselves and create a social network that mutually supports courageous actions? Philip Zimbardo and I will model for the group members the key to heroism—a willingness to take calculated risks and to spontaneously act in situations you have never faced before. As co-leaders, we will stitch together the edited segments of the videos with commentary that anticipates developments in the group process, building expectations for the viewers to keep them watching.
We shall gather ten aspiring young leaders, ages 18 to 25 years, and meet for 10 hours across two successive Saturdays to teach the skills of ethical leadership. The group will be unscripted, spontaneous and will be captured by state of the art video and sound stage equipment. The video footage will be edited to produce a four hour video series, for sale and dissemination to high schools and colleges.
We are appealing to the public to support our video project.
Look for us soon on Indiegogo, the crowd funding website.
I am happy to announce that the Second Edition of my book— THE PROMISE OF GROUP THERAPY: HOW TO BUILD A VIGOROUS TRAINING AND ORGANIZATIONAL BASE FOR GROUP THERAPY IN MANAGED BEHAVIORAL HEALTHCARE—is now available for free on-line for the common good and the benefit of all.
Hopefully you've checked out the site and now trust in my qualifications and expertise as a therapist. But maybe you're undecided. Which is best for you? Individual, couple's or family therapy? Give me a call and we'll discuss your options.
Mind made up, and ready to go? Great. Contact me and we'll schedule our first session together. The cost is $190 an hour.
We are in Berkeley but can meet in Zoom so you can be anywhere.
