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4.2: "Articles" - Page 4-5

literature: Articles BACK TO CONTENT Is human rights literacy relevant to us? (by John Leese) (follow up on discussions after the "Report from India" on http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EQEE ) Dear Usha and others, Thanks for your comments on my Holocaust Memorial Day speech... I see that Usha emphasises hers is a "very Eastern" perspective and yet also describes her "Western" tradition education! I guess that makes her well able to judge what the distinction between Eastern and Western really means. I have read the "Reports from India" and recommend it to anyone who has not yet done so. I have in the past enjoyed the benefit of learning from Dhyan and other educators in the Netherlands and have also visited the sub-continent on three occasions. So I also recognise that I have little to teach Usha and others who have experienced the trip described. It may be however that I can share with you some things which may not be well enough known: Below is an extract from a book (I'm not sure if it has been published) written by Arthur Dobrin of the American Ethical Union on what distinguished those who helped victims of the Holocaust during World War 2: "The most extreme example of tyranny is the Holocaust. We wonder what we would have done if we had lived in that time and knew what was going on. Many questions arise. How would I have acted? Would I have stood up for others? Or would I have just turned away? Would I have risked the well-being of my children for the sake of a stranger? During the Holocaust there were people who, at great personal risk, saved Jews marked for annihilation. In a place where giving just a piece of bread to a Jew could mean immediate execution, imagine the commitment it took to hide a Jew, possibly for years. And add to it the danger that this meant to their families as well. Who were these rescuers and why did they do it? Social psychologist Eva Fogelman sought to find the answers. Fogelman, a founding director of the Jewish Foundation for Christian Rescuers and co-director of Psychotherapy with Generations of the Holocaust and Related Traumas, wanted to know whether there were factors held in common by those who saved Jews. She wondered if the rescuers were a particular nationality, social class, religion, political affiliation or gender. No, is her answer. Some were intensely religious, others atheists, and others non-practicing Christians. Rescuers came from all classes and occupations — farmers, executives, doctors, blacksmiths, social workers, dressmakers. Gender and politics were not factors either. So, if none of these were determinants, what was? Character, she says. "[It was not] just a haphazard collection of individuals who chanced to rescue Jews, but people who have surprisingly similar humanistic values. It was not a whim that led these people to risk their lives and those of their families, but a response. . . that came from core values developed and instilled in them in childhood," Fogelman said at a speech at an Amnesty International Chapter on Long Island. As children they experienced one or more of the following: a nurturing, loving home; an altruistic parent or beloved caretaker; a tolerance for people who were different; a childhood illness or loss that tested their resilience; an emphasis upon independence, discipline with explanations, and caring. The values they shared were altruism, independence of mind and respect for differences among people. As children, the rescuers were taught these principles as part of daily living. "This made virtue a habit," says Dr. Fogelman. She tells us that the parents of some of the rescuers had involved them in helping others by bringing food to a sick person or sleeping over at a house where a neighbor was about to give birth and her husband was not there. Dr. Fogelman says, "Learned altruistic behavior, seeing all people as equals, gave the rescuers the ability to transcend the propaganda against the Jews and to see them as human beings just like themselves. They took the responsibility to help because they knew that unless they did something that person would die." Her research confirms an earlier study by Samuel and Pearl Oliner. The Oliners questioned over 400 non-Jewish Germans whose names are registered in Israel at Yad Veshem, the center dedicated to the memory of the Holocaust. These were people, who at great personal risk, rescued Jews with whom they had no personal connection. Over 125 Germans who were not rescuers were also interviewed as a control group to see what differences there may be between those who acted heroically and those who did not. As a group, the rescuers had a greater degree of empathy for the common humanity of all people. They were more accepting of pluralism and of various groups. They believed that the values which they prized most highly — justice, equality and respect — were to be applied universally. Their values were not held and acted upon only for those who were like them or were to be applied only to those with whom they had previous loyalties and ties. Rather the ethical value was to be applied to everyone. Also, the extent to which they cared and were moved by pain was significantly greater than that expressed by non-rescuers. The Oliners note, however, that the rescuers weren’t a monolithic group. In fact, they divide into three groups. About half were moved to action because they believed that they could not live with the guilt that would ensue if they did not live up to the standards and expectations of those most important to them, their family and friends. To stand by idly, feeling but not acting, would be a crushing blow to them. They became rescuers because only such action would allow them to live with themselves. Their concept of what it meant to be a human encompassed being a moral person. Inaction would forever tarnish their character in their own eyes. In Jean Paul Sartre's terms, they acted authentically, true to themselves and, in this case, being true to themselves meant acting ethically. Another group of rescuers, representing about 10% of the total, put their lives on the line because they were moved by ethical principles. They were mainly indifferent to the opinions of those around them. Instead, they had firm ideas about the correctness of moral principles, and their own integrity as thinking, independent people required that they act upon those principles. Since the principles were reasonable in the first place, they couldn't exempt themselves from the duty which flowed from those principles. Ethics wasn't a mind game but a passionate belief that doing the right thing was an absolute requirement, a demanding and now harsh imperative. What was abstract before the Nazis became the motivation for heroics when presented with a concrete situation. Those whose principle was justice were filled with anger, they hated the Nazis because they treated Jews as things instead of as people, as means rather than as ends. Those moved by the principle of care exhibited kindness. About a third of the 400 became rescuers because they couldn't deny that Jews who entered concentration camps did not come out. They knew that when one person is taken away, arbitrarily, brutally, no one is safe. They identified with the strangers they saw marched off. Their sense of sympathy, compassion and pity moved them to risk their own lives to save theirs. Was there anything held in common by rescuers.? The Oliners conclude that the rescuers were people who believed they could influence events — in psychological terms, they possessed an internal locus of control. What they did or didn't do mattered a great deal. They viewed themselves people who had some influence over the course of their lives. While they couldn’t completely control their destinies, neither were they pawns in the hands of Fate. Many other Germans viewed themselves as victims, subject to the psychic wounds of defeat after W.W.I and the ensuing economic chaos. Psychologists refer to attributing events as beyond one’s ability to influence events as an external locus of control. [reference] Furthermore, the Oliners write, "An examination of the early family lives and personality characteristics of both rescuers and non-rescuers suggests that their respective wartime behavior grew out of their general patterns of relating to others." Many of the German non-rescuers who stood by while Jews died didn’t necessarily remain passive because they overtly rejected or hated Jews or other outsiders. Their acceptance of tyranny was mainly one aspect of their personalities. The non-rescuers were people who distanced them from any relationship they considered burdensome. Non-rescuers had constricted personalities, while the personalities of the rescuers were extensive ones. Non-rescuers hunkered down and closed up; rescuers opened their arms and took others in. How did rescuers get to be the people they were? The Oliners point to their parents’ method of discipline. Rescuers parents relied upon reason and explanation. When their child harmed another, they suggested ways to remedy the hurt. Physical punishment was used sparingly. Instead they made great use of persuasion and advice. The major lesson from Fogelman's and the Oliners’ research is that altruism can be learned. Morality doesn't emerge from a vacuum. What the children learned every day from their parents through acts of kindness and tolerance and through encouragement toward independent thinking helps explain why they became rescuers. These values became ingrained and habitual. Altruistic behavior had been so instilled in them that personal risk was not a consideration. They had to do what they did in order to be true to themselves. Being a rescuer was almost a natural outcome of their upbringing. Says Dr. Fogelman, "At a time of worldwide upheaval, when civilized norms were held in suspension, a few individuals held fast to their own standards. They were not saints. Nor were they particularly heroic or often all that outstanding. They were simply ordinary people doing what they felt had to be done at that time." The implications of the Holocaust findings can instruct parents seeking to raise moral children. We can help our children to be good people. We teach them every day by word and by example. When we assist others, we help our children to be caring. When we see people as individuals, we teach respect for differences. When we encourage independent thinking, we help keep them from being swayed by the mob. These are values worth passing on to our children in any time. As Eva Fogelman concludes in her book, ". . . it is appealing to contemplate a day when those seeking moral heroes need only look as far as their mirror." To my understanding this extract complements the comments from Dhyan and Josh regarding the quote from Hannah Arendt on the banality of evil. It also shows the crucial value of emotional intelligence. I don't think cognitive and emotional elements can really be separated when it comes to understanding actual individuals. We are rational whatever our material circumstances. The latter determines much of what we think about but our values and attitudes are always a mixture of both. Usha says: "What and how much should be absorbed - in India we ape everything we see from the West - live in relationships, one night stands, drugs, smoking, fast cars, alcoholism - you name it we have it - do we see the other qualities worth emulating - no way." I wonder what "other qualities" she had in mind. We must however beware of assuming there is so much of a polarisation between West and East. The dysfunctional elements of Western culture listed are as much a problem in the West as elsewhere. In his very interesting book, "Culture of Complaint" subtitle "The Fraying of America", Robert Hughes (1994) condemns the role of television in raising the current generation of Americans to be increasingly illiterate and helpless. Regarding the new student intake to colleges he writes, and I quote: "Rather than "stress" the kids by asking them to read too much or think too closely, which might cause their fragile personalities to implode on contact with college-level demands, schools reduced their reading assignments, thus automatically reducing their command of language. Untrained in logical analysis, ill-equipped to develop and construct formal arguments about issues, unused to mining texts for deposits of factual material, the students fell back to the only position they could truly call their own: what they felt about things. When feelings and attitudes are the main referents of argument, to attack any position is automatically to insult its holder, or even to assail his or her perceived "rights"; every argumentum becomes ad hominem, approaching the condition of harassment, if not quite rape. "I feel very threatened by your rejection of my views on [check one] phallocentricity/the Mother Goddess/the Treaty of Vienna/Young's Modulus of Elasticity." Cycle this subjectivization of discourse through two or three generations of students turning into teachers, with the sixties' dioxins accumulating more each time, and you have the entropic background to our culture of complaint." This is an interesting view of how America is destroying itself from within and that allowing young people to avoid real knowledge through misguided beliefs about maturity or rights is not necessarily good for them or anyone else. Josh may well argue that "feelings are not false" but it is necessary to understand the difference between the two very different meanings of feelings used here by Josh and Hughes. Cognition informs and attributes the meanings we attach to feelings. I wish network members every strength in their endeavours. Best regards John Leese BACK TO CONTENT Back    Next European Network on Emotional Quality © 2002-2008