Phillip Zimbardo's The Lucifer Effect

During this paper, I will portray the impressions I had while reading The Lucifer Effect. Phillip Zimbardo, in his book, famously explores temptation and morality in humans. Everyone would like to say that they know the line between good and evil and often will portray themselves to be on one side of the line. The others will be deemed evil or bad. Zimbardo tells his readers just how wrong they can be and that the line between good and evil is more permeable and blurred than one might think. In short, good can go bad, but evil may also recover.

The book’s title is what had drawn me in. In religion, it is a reference to a biblical angel turned antichrist. Lucifer was one of God’s most beautiful and most favored angel. Lucifer became lustful

Those that put on the uniform are viewed as a hero. If you have seen the movie “Hacksaw Ridge”, it is a true story of young Army Corporal Desmond Doss who served as a Combat Medic in Guam, the Philippines, and Okinawa during World War II. Doss was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for his actions in the war. He saved 75 wounded soldiers under intense fire during the Battle of Okinawa. Plenty more men and women since then have been entered on the list of recipients for medals of heroic service. Only some soldiers are heroes though. Those soldiers are rewarded for their individual actions on the battlefield, not just because they were present. A nice clean suit does not represent an honest businessman yet, when someone in uniform walks by, society automatically raises that person to the status of a demi-god. The phrase “Break you down to build you back up” is often associated with the military and how their training methods turns someone into a better, more selfless man or woman. Yes, it is true that we admire soldiers because not just anybody would sign up to protect and defend our country with their life. The reality is, they are just like the rest of us and they are also vulnerable to evils.

Phillip Zimbardo served as an expert witness in the Abu Ghraib trials consisting of select United States Army Reservists accused of engaging in torturous acts of evil natures during the Iraq War. Zimbardo was granted access to the investigative reports, photos, and a guard. In this half of his book, Zimbardo convincingly argued his hypothesis that it was not the soldiers themselves, but it was the military system that failed to provide oversight which in turn created the conditions in which such abuses could