CBC The Big Picture
The Human Behaviour Experiments

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THE DOC
Answers to these contemporary questions can be found in past social psychology experiments. The Milgram obedience experiment shocked the world by proving that most people were willing to kill fellow human beings if an authority figure was held accountable. A famous diffusion-of-responsibility experiment sought to understand why 38 people who witnessed a brutal murder in New York did nothing to help. Finally, the Stanford Prison experiment showed how the world of the jail could transform a decent, moral person into a brutal, sadistic guard.

Documentarian Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) revisits these three famous behavioral studies to explore some perennial questions about why human beings commit unethical acts under particular social conditions. After seeing this film, you may never say "bad apples" again.

THE TALK
Avi Lewis: "When the infamous Abu Ghraib photos first came out, I had a wicked case of déja vu. We had seen gruesome trophy photos of soldiers posing with tortured corpses before: Canadian soldiers in the Somalia Affair of 1993. Watching Alex Gibney's latest film, I realized that this pattern keeps repeating. We put ordinary people in what are called "atrocity-producing situations", and they are capable of things they would never have thought possible. But there is also a fierce debate about just how much the situation - or the system - determines our actions, and how much individual personalities are to blame.

This is a critical debate in a time of war. From the My Lai massacre in Vietnam to the slaughter of civilians by U.S. troops in Haditha, Iraq, to the uncertain fate faced by prisoners captured by Canadian troops in Afghanistan, this topic is begging for deeper discussion. Wherever you land in the debate afterwards, the film will challenge you to ask yourself what you would do if you were put in a situation where enormous moral courage was required to avert horrific acts. And in keeping with The Big Picture's perpetual focus on solutions, we'll also grapple with how we educate people to give them the moral strength to step up, or speak out, when life and death are on the line."

SPECIAL GUESTS:
Ret. Colonel Chris Corrigan, Trained Canadian officers leading Afghanistan mission
Sherene Razack, Author, Dark Threats and White Knights
Alex Gibney, Filmmaker, The Human Behavior Experiments
Chris Hedges, Author, War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning
Aidan Delgado, Former Soldier at Abu Ghraib prison
Janis Karpinski, Former Brigadier General in charge of Abu Ghraib prison
Barbara Coloroso, Author, Just Because It's Not Wrong Doesn't Make It Right
Deepak Obhrai, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs
Omar Samad, Afghanistan Ambassador to Canada

[From cbc.ca The Big Picture]