Philip Zimbardo has passed away this week, and I would just like to take the time to acknowledge the massive influence he had on my work, my thinking, and my ideas about social psychology, and the social construction of abusive and violent behaviour.
Zimbardo wrote ‘The Lucifer Effect’ based on the extremely famous Stanford Prison Experiment.
He argued for decades that violence and abuse was not caused by innate personality traits and mental disorders, but by social environments we are placed in which encourage, reward, benefit and groom us into these behaviours.
When I was 24, I read his book in one day, as I couldn’t stop reading it.
His ideas and arguments stuck with me, and set me off in a direction in which I explored the world, our cultures, our systems and our socially constructed structures and norms around power, violence and abuse.
My work on abuse, violence and trauma - especially my work on the deliberate pathologisation of both victim AND offenders of abuse and violence (so we never need look at our abusive society and governments), has been read and used all over the world - and I think it vital to pay respect to those who influenced our thinking and ideas.
Thank you, Philip Zimbardo.
@Tozierswhore @thisgir32651924@GeorgiaMcGraw Thanks for clarifying. I don’t think that those who find it offensive know or care about the difference. Nor do I think they deserve any special consideration in this regard. My opinion.