Dot org I'm Maria are moody and in this hour who are the people who can be kind even in the face of genocide a claim Psychology Professor Irvin stop joins us to discuss the roots of goodness but 1st a look inside the arms trade and its affects on politics and society we're joined by Dean and professors who's it grew a lot she's the dean of the College of International Studies at the University of Oklahoma and she has authored several books on the subject including the international arms trade arms control and the environment and arms on the market reducing the role of proliferation in the former Soviet Union welcome Susette drew a lot thank you so much for you it's great to be here fascinating research why don't we start with How did you decide to research the subject of the arms trade in the 1st place well it's a little bit of a story but let me let me start that my academic work as a graduate student really began on weapons of mass destruction I focused on trying to control arms control basically a weapons of mass destruction I spent a lot of time in Ukraine Belarus and Russia to write a dissertation on Ukraine's decision to give up its nuclear weapons so this was back in the early to mid to late ninety's and so I was doing a lot of work on export controls and dual use technology and you know I mean that's that's really how my interest I guess in arms got started out of my interest in human rights I was kind of interested in human rights in particular that part of the world and so I started looking at weapons issues as the Soviet Union was coming apart so it really wasn't the arms trade per se and certainly the conventional arms trade which is where I spent most of my later academic life until I graduated my Ph d. I came to the University of Oklahoma and was asked to write a chapter for a book on the environmental impact of disarmament and so that's one of the co-edited books that you you mentioned there was arms in the environments and I was asked to write the chapter on conventional weapons which I knew I knew nothing about and so you know but of course being assessed and this is a professor I said well sure I needed help. So I went and started a whole new project on conventional arms and this was in the in the late ninety's and I was just fascinated then by the conventional arms issue again particular from a human security perspective and then of course the just the global flow basically of small arms and light weapons of particular because conventional weapons in general so I really made the shift from weapons of mass destruction to what we call weapons of individual destruction weapons that have actually killed more people overwhelmingly than any weapon of mass destruction has and so that's kind of how I got into it was just being asked to write this book chapter and taking that leap and then kind of was just caught up by the importance of that issue at the time and kept pursuing it from there on since you mention the environmental impact that is something that I've often wondered about so the environmental impact of course of war is awful but of disarmament Yeah so that so the project involves disarmament from all perspectives so nuclear disarmament chemical biological disarmament tearing apart missiles I mean obviously we are we are heavily militarized around the world certainly in certain parts of the world and there are significant environmental consequences not only of war as you mentioned and the destruction that causes to our environment but but when you get rid of these weapons right so you want to disarm and dismantle your nuclear arsenal or at least scale back which we've done of course is with them what do you do with all this facade material where does it go and how do we protect the environment from this this radioactive material that lasts for thousands and thousands and thousands of years and the same for chemicals I mean what do you do with chemicals when you take chemical weapon and dismantle it you know what how do you protect the environment from those chemicals it's not like you can just bury a port on the drain or you know it's not that simple you have to really think carefully about how you dismantle these these weapons and so in the case of conventional weaponry there's perhaps less of an environmental impact except for the fact that you do have you know a lot of scrap left around and a lot of for example. Take land mines for example and and the environmental impact of land mines when it comes to after war you know there's a lot of land mine perhaps a lot of land mines left behind that then prevent us from being able to use territory and access that whether it's farm land or homeland or whatever it is but that's and have real environmental impact not so much of disarmament for say but the after effects of war and then trying to disarm those things so that you can have access to your environment so those are the kinds of things that we were discussing and that book a student of mine a former student had sent me an article just yesterday about Fallujah and the super high cancer rates and how truly horrific it is on the public health the aftermath of the war so apparently they haven't even cleaned it up very well at least to protect the generations that are continuing to live there how do you conduct research on something like the arms trade when there is so much that is not really in the public documents so much of it is sort of a little bit on the radar a little bit below the radar this is an excellent question and something obviously as a researcher we deal with often I mean there are people that don't really study the arms trade because it is really tricky in terms of the data there's official arms trade date at official government to government transfers and sales so that stuff is you know for the most part above the rest there I guess is that what you call i v above board and within the radar I mean you can definitely see it countries like the United States for example put out in your reports about their weapons sales maybe not to the great detail that one might want but certainly you can find values and and recipients and that sort of thing on the illicit side which is really where I've spent a significant amount of my time it's much more challenging and you know that stuff is not transparent it's not like there are gun runners and others out there keeping a book so I mean they may be keeping books but there's a way to tell you all right with that and they may be keeping books that they may not. You know be sharing it but interestingly you go out and you meet some of these people which is exactly how I've had to do my research you have to go out and find and meet these people and they do want to tell you about it strangely they do want to tell you about it and so they'll kind of lay out for you maybe not specifics but in generalities kind of what they have where it goes what they're shipping and how they're shipping it how they're getting access to these things and then what they're using it for so it's pretty interesting how you have to go about doing this kind of research now there are organizations like the Small Arms Survey for example that do a lot of research again on a topic that isn't very transparent by doing a lot of calculations and gun multipliers if you will they'll do as much research as they can of what they can kind of find that is above board and then they'll feel they've developed these major models of how they can then calculate what the closer number is right because I mean what you're seeing is really what you're able to see what you observe so when I've been out in the Balkans for example and I go and I observe you know weapons out in the in the hands of rebels that's only you know a certain percentage of what they really have available to them so then they come up with these force multipliers if you will that will allow them to better estimate what kind of guns are out there and where they're going my interest even though I've done some bean counting I guess if you want to call it that gun counting it's been more like trafficking flows patterns where things are moving to and from you know and then kind of the motivation of people obviously you know gun runners are mainly motivated by money just like anybody else who smuggling something whether it's you know whether it's guns drugs or people for that matter their profit motive or they're motivated by profit and and they'll tell you that and that they're capitalists and that they're making a buck just like anybody else and as long as it's profitable for them to to traffic in this kind of commodity they will do so it's a really difficult and tricky to study because of all of this and you know sometimes sketchy and concerning. But for the most part you just have to kind of dig dig and dig and dig and triangulate However you can and talk to people are working in the field journalists N.G.O.s and international organization members and kind of try to put 2 and 2 together and see what you got I've been reminded of you it's been a while since you published this book so you may not going to remember this particular vignette but at the beginning of your book you have been yet about some health care workers that were released from the Libyan prison and the argument was no there there was no exchange money for prisoners or anything like that but shortly thereafter there was a gun deal with Libya how does this fit into the whole scheme overall Sure well that was one particular example I think there on many examples you can find of of where there is kind of a tit for tat you know you do this and all transfer you some weapons and you know governments aren't are in a sense there I mean we've all heard of things like Iran contra and other types of . Gun dealing. You know where gun transfer in deals So again these aren't on the front pages these aren't things that are easily you know regularly advertised and promoted but they certainly do happen regarding you know let's let's do this prisoner exchange or something and in exchange you know you'll be paid off not with cash or not with you know commodities of any other source other than than weaponry right so then if you could give assist sense of the scope what are we talking about in terms of how big is the weapons trade and especially if there been any trends has it been changing so as you mentioned Maria it's been a while since I've published the book so today's date i'm not as familiar with it but here's a good I think the general trend so since the 2nd World War when really let's go back even further since the 1st World War when. Private companies were really engaged in the in the arms trade without much government regulation that was kind of reigned then and so governments are very much involved and monitoring and licensing gun deals obviously private companies are involved they make these guns and they make the artillery and whatever it is that that's being traded sold and traded so we're talking about tens of billions of dollars every year in guns and weapons deals around the world tens of billions the United States has been for a long time the world's leader and in that the got the weapons market Russia was always its complete main competitor but countries like France and the u.k. The Belgians the Germans. You know have also competed significantly in this area but nobody even comes close anymore really to sniffing the the value of the weapons that are that are sold from the United States but that's all on the kind of again they aboveboard side the the illicit trade again it's very difficult to calculate but it's probably around $5000000000.00 or so per year proximately again if this is a major approximation because it's it's hard to know for sure but you know it's a certain percentage of that in terms of the value per year that of these types of weapons in terms of numbers and again I rely on Small Arms Survey numbers I having spent most of my time focusing on small arms and light weapons in terms of the the numbers of guns there are about a 1000000 or so maybe a little bit more that they estimate that are in circulation every year overwhelmingly in the hands of individuals civilians not police and military forces so that that's an interesting factoid I think is that you know we kind of think of military and police forces law enforcement as being kind of the primary keepers of weapons obviously in the United States that's not actually a case where obviously it. A gun owning country you can own guns here but there are a lot of countries where you can't own guns like Legally there are a lot of countries where you know guns are not likely to be found they just don't have the kind of gun culture but around the world we do have about a 1000000 or so small arms and light weapons that are in circulation and that includes everything from you know pistols to you know shoulder launched you know rockets I mean it's anything that's small and light and easy to carry and trading conceal and smuggle that's that's kind of the estimation for that. And so when you say that a big chunk of that are held by civilians or by individuals and then sometimes people kind of go whoa this is this might be troubling in the sense that you know if you have kind of a militarized society particularly owning and potentially using military style weaponry. That this the civilian population owns and operates a lot of military style weaponry then that's where some suggest that's that's problematic maybe not so much the ownership itself but you know the kind of rules and regulations that they're subject to right so there so maybe that moves us to a discussion of the law on this issue in terms of how many guns you can own what kind of guns you can own who you can sell them to you know these kind of we call secondary sales you know where people buy weapons and then sell them you know to other individuals of course are trafficked them so I mean there's a lot there is a lot going on within this issue and sometimes it's hard to pick out you know again that kind of the legal stuff that's that's you know acceptable kind of following rules and regulations and is monitored and you know you're legally you know license to own this weapon versus those that you know are procuring them in a in an illicit way or an illegal way and and doing who knows what with them so the problem is is that we it is so complicated by all of these different issues not to mention the different laws. Different regulations that different countries have but that it's hard to kind of categorize all of these these weapons and to the these are legit and these are and you know how does this this work and how do you prevent the the you know the legitimate arms to become you know from becoming illegitimate arms because you know overwhelmingly weapons begin as legal legally sold weapons legally procured weapons that then find their way somehow some shape or form either through faffed or you know improper sales or procurement in to the illicit market so. This is this is why I think I'm raising these issues because this is why I think many choose not to really study this from an academic perspective because it is really messy Yeah well one of the things I thought was really important that I read in your work was about how this trade affects all aspects of our lives that we don't even see you know. Democracy itself so governance culture or security and so I thought it would make sense to understand how it affects these aspects of our lives that we don't see so the consequences are significant and again I think as you're suggesting I just reiterate they're kind of invisible I mean in the sense that you can't easily draw a connection between some of those consequences and you know as. An armed society but you talked a little bit ago about the student that sent you the article about public health I mean there are significant public health consequences to you know an overly armed society not just here and again I don't study the but I will study guns in the u.s. It's not like no benefits of studying guns in the u.s. I study weapons trade and weapons flows in other parts of the world and particularly post conflict societies so let's just focus on the consequences of weapons and post conflict societies because that's really what I know best and that is there are significant health consequences obviously in society. Days that are post conflict that already struggle with with dealing with their health concerns and crises and general and then you add an enormous amount of gunshot you know wounds and gunshot activities that really put it put a lot of pressure on their public health system so so significant consequence there obviously having a significantly armed society particularly civilian population in a post conflict society really does have hender you know peace and conflict resolution processes and the ability to you know to resolve the conflict that began in the 1st place so that's why disarmament of this sort is usually written into conflict agreements whether it's in the Balkans as I'm most familiar with or whether it's and Ireland between you know the the Protestants and Catholics in Ireland is that there was a you know there's always some sort of disarmament plan involved because weapons in the hands of those communities in a post conflict environment will hinder process toward toward peaceful discussion and negotiation and they're out there can always be this temptation to run back to your guns and I've seen that so many times in my time in the former Yugoslavia and in the Balkans so you have you have public health you have you know peace and conflict issues you know we touched on environmental issues just because of the use of these types of weapons that then prevent you from being having you know true access to to your of lands and the ability to cultivate it you have educational consequences so multiple social consequences and health consequences but also you know political and economic consequences and in the sense that you know development really requires investments and you know things that will create jobs and ability to you know set up a new business and all of those kinds of incentives Well if you're if you're if your government fun. Ends are being drained by trying to clean up post conflict armed messes trying to deal with the public health consequences trying to deal with it with the you know other educational and social consequences then it's where you know that the money is going to that and then can't you know properly be funneled into you know better governance or you know economic the creation of economic opportunity and things like that so there are there are multiple consequences political economic social and otherwise that particularly in post conflict societies where again we may not draw that line directly Ok there are lots of guns and these things happen but certainly there are lots of guns there's war and conflict there's a lack of trust and therefore all of these other consequences that drain the society of its ability to recover from that you think that there's also on the economic side they incentive to keep conflicts going. Well sure I mean Ok so there's a huge literature written on kind of the you know the economy of war and obviously major wars where you have weapons producers and others that are benefiting from that type of activity I mean I would say on the on the small arms and light weapons side when we're talking about post conflict societies and certain parts of the world that's a that's a harder argument to make you know I mean there are those certainly that are going to benefit economically from illicit activities as I was mentioning earlier that the gun runners and other smugglers that are benefiting from a lack of rules a lack of good governance and you know and are moving down that path largely because of a lack of economic opportunity that's where they're getting their payoffs government officials that perhaps are getting their payoffs and you know from illicit activity and black market activity I mean certainly there's a huge connection here between what we're talking about with weapons and arms and organized crime that's the other thing and again the kind of organized criminal network that this perpetuates and and kind of facilitates violence and. Violent activity you know among organized criminals so I think it's hard to make a strong argument that there's. That there's that economic motivation. To perpetuate conflict in these kinds of conflicts that I'm talking about in places like in various countries in Africa and the former Yugoslavia perhaps some places and in Latin America certainly there's been this argument made in the past particularly among developed countries that war economies are sometimes good for you. But seriously that's a major trade off right it's a major trade off and blood and treasure you know to to engage in war and conflict you know for that that economic payoff so what are some of the ways that the international community has tried to. Keep the gun trade under some kind of control what are the resolutions and agreements and that type of a thing and have they had some success so again an excellent. You know an arms control is this is obviously you know almost my whole academic career has been spent on arms control of some in some way shape or form small arms and light weapons or conventional arms control is of course extremely difficult. Nuclear weapons control chemical and biological weapons control me a pretty solid international agreements and there's a pretty solid taboo about weapons of mass destruction for the most part I mean there are few if you violators here and there but overwhelmingly people around the world countries around the world buy into the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty the Chemical Weapons Convention the Biological Weapons Convention we have just a few defectors on the conventional weapons side look I mean the problem is is that conventional weapons do have legitimate uses right military and police forces need to have think that they have to be armed in knots just that so that there are there are those who argue that there are legitimate uses for conventional weapons of all sizes big and small. So that being the case you can't talk about a ban you can't talk about any kind of international agreement or or anything that will will will will ban these types of weapons we have a few examples of things that been banned anti-personnel land mines that have been banned there's a pretty strong international norm now about the production in use and sale of anti-personnel land mines cluster munitions is another conventional weapon that that has been there's a global convention on a cluster munitions cluster bombs that do a lot of damage particularly to civilian populations so you know there are a few examples of where you ban this weapon was a lot like conventional weapons as a category are going to be banned and it's certainly not like you're going to ban you know fire. Arms and small arms like that and so that being the case you have to you have to pick off little bits of things at a time so the international community has focused largely on illicit trafficking on the illicit production and trade of of weapons. Small arms and light weapons military style in particular mall arms and light weapons so there is an arms trade treaty that you know was signed overwhelmingly in the international community. That outlines principles about controlling or at least you know maybe edging because again you're not going to stop the trade but you're going to manage minimize the trade I mean there everybody can just in agreement that we need to do that but again it's on the illicit side right trying to eliminate illicit. Production So again just every you know every day since it's new wants to go in and legally a procure a weapon that's still you know totally open for debate and not really part of any global discussion or treaty and purposefully So organizations like the National Rifle Association for example which of course is an American interest group that focuses on guns in the United States primarily but in order to protect what they consider to be one's kind of global rights to own arms created it is a global organization and has led a global campaign to keep civilian ownership or maintain civilian ownership and the legality of civilian ownership in international documents like the global arms trade treaty so the that the n.r.a. Has gone global and has set up its counterparts around the world and have actually worked hard to defeat referenda for example in Brazil which has had a significant problem in the past with you know ownership of weapons and use of weapons among criminals many criminals and Brazil the n.r.a. And its counterpart in Brazil worked very hard in a very short period of time actually to defeat. The referendum there where the people were slated a few years ago to vote for or against being able to own guns and and so it's it's a it's a more and more of a global issue that is being brought you know out by N.G.O.s or an interest groups like like the n.r.a. But also the United States government in some ways some have you know failed to or refused to fund for example disarmament methods in Sierra Leone the United States actually refused to provide $200000.00 from the United States government that had been committed to helps the Sierra Leonean disarm after their major conflict their civil war suggesting that civil Sierra Leonean have a constitutional right to own a weapon just like Americans do so there are that that this again reiterating the conk of them reiterating their very complicated nature of this issue as you have very people that are really wanting to control weapons and particularly illicitly produced and traded weapons and then there are those who don't and they're battling it out in terms of you know how are we going to manage this issue trying to find some common ground so that we can we can get at the right things and really just kind of the lowest common denominator being illicitly trafficked weapons seems to be where they found the common ground I had read a little bit about this long before you and I started talking and I had understood from what I had read that even the above board transactions generally have some things that are illicit within them and there was a black market but also a great market what is that important point is that what defines the great market being its unintended consequences it's the unintended nature of I guess about grey market sales specifically you've got the regular market you've got the black market the grey market is somewhere in between in the sense that you have producers of whatever it is but in this case weaponry that are then exchanged in a way that. The producer means for it to be legitimate but yet somewhere along the way it ends up at kind of there's some unintended consequences and some unintended usage of those materials so there may be complicit with the producers and sellers may become somewhat complicit or maybe turning a blind eye or whatever but in the sense that they kind of becomes a halfway mark right it's a gray it's a really it's kind of you know we don't really fully understand exactly how it happens but that somehow that transaction which perhaps was meant to be legal and above board ends up being less so in terms of the recipients and how it's used the technical definition being unintended but who knows I mean those who engage in the gray market aren't necessarily going to admit that that they're in caged in great market sales illicit transfers or illegal transfers that perhaps are our sales made again government to government or government to non-state actors that aren't fully reported and that aren't necessarily fully transparent and how they are produced in other words that there are some potentially questionable operations the legit market is the biggest I mean by far the above board sales are huge the black market of course is also pretty substantial the gray market it's hard to really tell exactly what fits in which category but it is fully covered and that's maybe why we don't know as much about is kind of it's just a shady area that isn't quite fully above board but you know some might say well they need those weapons for this purpose or whatever and it's so it's just kind of you know you look past it you had mentioned the manufacturers of the greatest number of these arms and you did mention China and I thought I remembered also China being one of the leaders in sort of this more black and gray market is that the case definitely China is a major player it's becoming more and more of a. Major player still not as large as you know the United States which of course you know takes the gold medal every time Russia and and our European players because particularly for the United States and the Europeans there are a lot of private enterprises right that produce these weapons and sell these weapons so it's a big part of our economy the Russians you know it's more it's more government production some production not really and then of course in China it's not really private private production it's state produced weaponry but nonetheless they are participating more and more as weapons exporters they are also a major importing countries so unlike the United States Russia and those in Europe China does both exports and imports and high levels but Chinese made pens have still not quite reached that quality level I guess that you haven't a original you know Russian Kalashnikov although the Chinese have their version and there are lots of you know knock offs if you will of the Kalashnikov but but the Chinese are more and more important players and in fact I spent 4 months in China trying to learn as much as I could about the arms trade and I learned absolutely nothing about the arms trade because no one will even talk about the arms trade in China not even just to give their perspective or just to put a smiley happy face spent on it nothing at all they would really refused and if I spent 4 months in Europe or Russia or anywhere else in the world I could gather a lot of information about their arms trade practices and in China it was absolutely impossible I had to focus most of my attention on port security there which they were happy to talk about but arms the arms trade in their arms production and arms sales absolutely no response whatsoever so they're also very quiet about what it is that they're doing the last question where we should leave this is where should the international community go with this trade I'll tell you what that the biggest players on this issue are non-governmental organizations they're the ones that moved governments on the landmine issue those are the ones that moved on the cluster munitions issue those agreements would have never happened among governments if it hadn't been for N.G.O.s. There are a number of N.G.O.s faith based and otherwise you know that are really concerned about the global arms trade and are working very hard to try to keep it on the agenda for states because obviously you know state actors have to be involved mean there are there are the I say are quote here legitimate owners of weaponry really in the sense that they license whether things can be sold or not and so it's not least the big time sale so the so N.G.O.s are really really active on this issue around the world for from a human security perspective in particular the so they just are they have to keep at it and they have to keep the international community engaged on this issue as far as like what kind of new agreements I mean these the agreements we have the the u.n. Protocols and the the arms trade treaty I mean we just need we really need to work on implementing these things and providing some more ability to to some teeth and that my guess for lack of a better way of putting it so it's to be able to implement them and hold people accountable for complying with these things so that's the big challenge new agreements I don't think are going to be coming in if they are going to be specific to certain weapon systems but they need to work on making sure that these agreements are implemented and people are abiding by the rules it's great to have you thank you so much for your time Suzette gridlock is the dean and vice provost of international programs at the University of Oklahoma she has coauthored 6 books including the international arms trade arms control and the environment and arms on the market reducing the role of proliferation in the former Soviet Union when we come back who are the people who can be kind even in the face of genocide a claim Psychology Professor Irvin stop joins us to discuss the roots of goodness. Hello and welcome to the scholar circle scholar circle dot org I'm Maria armory and our next guest has long studied the roots of violence genocide in other destructive acts his work then turned to the roots of what he called goodness when people rescue one another even at the risk of their own lives and with that he has turned to how we can establish societies that are built on altruism and moral courage or even stop joins us now his latest book is called the roots of goodness in resistance to evil inclusive caring moral courage altruism born of suffering act of bystander ship and heroism Welcome back to the scholar circle Irvin stop it's great to have you back with us it's very nice to speak to you again well before we get into this latest book that you have published the roots of goodness and resistance to evil you wrote in the introduction about how your own experiences as a Holocaust survivor shaped your work can you 1st tell us what happened to you and how this has impacted your work well when I was 6 years old it was the worst of times in Hungary certainly for Hungary and you was there and you're in government and active anti-Semitic laws for quite a long time it started even before it's there are appeared on the scene in Germany so over the years there was quite an anti semitism and Hungary was a problem to the ally of Germany rather than many other countries which were occupied at 1944 Ah early when the Germans found out that there aren't any in the older West trying to establish a separate peace with the allies because he realized that it was being lost they occupied Hungary in March not in 44 and then. 50 s.s. Officer that by come on the infamous Eichmann. Came to Hungary and with the help of something like 200000. Police men and John d'armes people from the population they gathered all the Jews from the countryside put them on the sands these incredibly crowded terrible trains and took them to Auschwitz and most of them were killed right away. The jewels in Budapest were left they were the last ones. But to do war was coming to an end number that was the Germans darn Garion helpers were trying to get the aid of all the Jews so we were 1st in a house that was designated as a house with Jews in it and it had to have a yellow star on it and then we had to wear yellow stars and then there was a ghetto established and a lot of Jews have to be moved in there now some are after all Hungary and Jews were killed that was Refugee Board stablish that on that time in the United States it should have been established much earlier Bob It wasn't the stabber is that and finally it was one of his 1st acts forced to oust Swede to go to Hungary and try to save Hungary and Jews and it was a sweet because Sweden was a neutral country and so a Swedish diplomat was OS 1st called Burma that bought the hand gave us would not accept him and the role Wallenberg who was not a diplomat was hostile because he was a partner in the. Export import business with the head of gayety enjoy living in Sweden and so he had to go to Hungary and he acted with the determination very cleverly and very heroically in many ways to save lives and he succeeded to persuade Hungary and government to a law to feed 4 thaws of these protective passes that sad that the people who hold these passes off to the will are will go to Sweden and so they are not under the protection of Sweden and in addition to these 4000 passes he created many more and so my mother I'll see cousins my sister and I were able to. Get these protective passes had left our apartment pushed a little caught during the night with a few belongings to go to the so-called protected house that well number set up not just one but a number of them and my father who was in a forced labor camp when his group was being taken to Germany they had a stay over in Budapest and some old military barracks and he as caved and for various reasons he knew we had we were and he came to that house and the superintendent allowed him and he was in hiding in that house he survived several really it's on the House by hanging to Nazis who would have been the Germans and soul although flaws survived in that house not in terms of what influenced my work and all that important person was a woman who worked for my family and rather than leaving God's she came with dogs to be perfected House this was a Christian woman and she did all kinds of amazing things to try to help folks. One of them was to make the dough and take it to a bakery and having to dig into bread and then bring it back and she did this a number of times once she was stopped she was told that because she is helping Jews she is a traitor and they made her stand with her hands up and standing against the wall and he thought that she would be finally somebody from the neighborhood who was also a Nazi and who knew her came by and said Oh she's all right let her go and she needed to continue to do what she did and actually it's possible that my father had the courage to escape because she took to the forced labor camp a copy of this so-called protective pass and had someone call him to the fence and handed him a copy of this. We don't know this for sure but this may have given him carnage so anyway we survived in this so-called protected house and I think that that inspired really everything that I did you know I escaped from Hungary 956 and lived in Vietnam and came to United States and studied and got a Ph d. At Stanford in psychology and then my 1st job at Harvard I started to study what leads people to help others and what leads people not to help when they see other people is a need I've done and later wrong I started to study already answer genocide and mass killing and Prevention and reconciliation and I worked at various places like the one the where I had a number of projects for many years on reconciliation between groups that have harmed each other and so on but I think these early experiences clearly shaved my work life a lot of the studies that you cite including some of your own looked at actually different behaviors of children responding to say cries of distress but also adults I wonder if you could walk us through what some of these studies tell us about people who respond to others who are distressed or in trouble versus those who do not about the 1st focus in this area which were by psychologists and Dolly foreclosed on the situation. And fall under that logic the number of people who are present are more likely that any one person the less like that any one person to really help and I was inspired by the start is and I studied both the circumstances that influence people's behavior but also the personal characteristics that make it more or less likely that they will have fathers you were asking rather personal characteristics or special rate and I farmed in a series of studies most need these studies of personal characteristics with adults that do more people had a feeling of responsibility for other people's welfare the more likely they were going to help somebody in distress and this was true when the person was in physical distress they would hear a song so distress from another room date could go into the other rule if they didn't go into the other room that person from that room and ask for their help and the more they had this what I actually called it's a big word but pro social value orientation which has several elements one of them is a positive view if you want being close to know about others without fear and I think the central part of it is a feeling of a sponsor going to do for others without fear or they had this the more likely they were ordered for help by going into the other room or use a person came into their home by doing something more effortful that would provide more immediate help and the same was true also of how think somebody in psychological distress somebody as people work together in the same room on some task gets upset about something that she reads and then tells this other person something that upsets her or that happened to her. Or just the day before and the more people have this orientation course or in about August feeling of responsibility the more likely that the engage in a helpful way not so this is an important person orientation and I think that they don't it includes empathy feeling out there is the stress to some degree bought it has an additional element which I think is crucial beyond empathy in order for a person to take action and that is that feeling of responsibility and some studies we fought that when the fetal responsibility is combined with the belief that I am capable to influence others welfare some sense of competence belief that one can actually make a difference that people are even more likely to help and environment makes it such that people do not think they can make a difference in particular say political environments where things seem overwhelming for example or if a society is highly individualistic like personal responsibility rather than thinking of other responsibility it seems like those would counter act wanting to help. You know that's an important point that the immediate circumstances that people are in have an effect but the larger social situation also has an effect so if the largest social situation is such that it makes people feel helpless or it makes people feel very intensely on themselves it creates divisions between people rather than connections and all of these things are going to affect people and they are going to in some way module age change that orientation towards others including their feeling of responsibility so the social world as such is very important and makes a difference you know in the last chapter the invisible is creating kidding societies and in order to feed kidding societies that have to be action by people on the top ideally action by people on the bottom the population all the flaws and also action by people in the middle by people in the middle I mean people like the media that can influence voters the words or it's true richly Douras that have a potential influence dong word some upwards all of these and if there is a society in which people don't care to know what it takes positive actions if that has a tendency to cooperate to compete primarily the good then to cooperate with each other. When people don't join together to try to exert the influence that force it may feel help for. There are 2 things you said in this that I wanted to see if you could elaborate a little bit further one was when you said people focus too much on themselves and of course we're talking also about an individual istic sort of culture but there was also an example in your book of people who were in Nazi controlled areas and you interviewed these people at length including some who had been involved in the so-called euthanasia program it seemed the way you described it that they were so involved in their own lives they didn't even notice what was going on around them yes I mean one of the things that I have tried a bought in the book. A group of Germans that interview in quite a while that going on in 987 I was invited by a German university to give a talk on their decision that they knew I was doing I have been doing on all 3 of them and how it can be here but I asked them to start to talk about the origins of genocide and I asked them to speak with an age for me meeting with a group of Germans who were at these teenagers in the Hitler hero and they did and I met with about 25 people like that and we had a very good conversation partly because I spoke in all German to communicate with them since I lived in Vienna for a couple years before I came to the u.s. Bought the coals of my German was not that good it's kind of the quote all relationship Valens dog relationship so rather than being the professor which is a big thing in Germany you know we were kind of equal people talking to each other and joining this conversation it was difficult for them to get away from dissatisfaction of their life. Under Hitler when they were in use cabs and singing songs together and sitting at campfires together and they were soil Raul's with their own lives that they didn't look at all in the world that owned them of course they were also young people and that is somewhat characteristic of young people but not all of them were that young and it took us a long time for them to finally say oh yes I remember one of them said that the local guest Aprile him to my father who was renting gotten to people and told my father not to let rooms to Jews but they started all saying oh you didn't notice I didn't remember your I don't know what was going on but it was so evident in Germany but it was pretty much impossible not to know what was going on but I think the it wasn't that they were in denial it was that they were so focused on their lives that they just didn't pay attention to the larger world so then people can develop a sort of tunnel vision depending on what's going on in life. People can develop a tunnel vision so that they don't even notice and on Fortunately date can also depending on who they are they can also easily shift that attention away so that they don't take in what is happening you may remember a study that I described that we did on the streets of Cambridge Massachusetts while I was teaching at Harvard and I had the Harvard student collapse on the street when some passer by was moving toward saws and was a bought 50 yards away and he quite labs grabbing his knee or grabbing his heart or for some reason or another and some people as they were approaching on the other side of the street in this case took a single glance and rushed over other people loomed over and then they were hesitating and they were slowing down and they were looking back and often somebody else came by by that time but there were some people after the single glance looked away and they never looked back and some of these people turned off the street at the next corner and I think that people do this they try to avoid taking in information that would make them feel that they need to take action and that it would make them feel responsible I don't think that these are there people who have these personal disposition to feel responsibility for others welfare Voght there are people who do this and also circumstances in force people to do this one of the things that I talk about art is all our value is even if it is how high in our hierarchy of values are kidding values our moral value was can be subverted when the end. Vironment very strongly calls on other values so let's assume that I got a member of the Presidential Advisory Group and develops as strong tone I thought attacking another country and that is a strong influence within the group for that and when somebody leaves any question about anything then that's person's loyalty is questioned so under these circumstances values morals values care and values can beauty pleased by values of loyalty and values of responsibility to my leader and other kinds of things and areas ult people I don't need any more by feeling of responsibility for others welfare they are guided by that loyalty to the group that they are part of so there's a sort of canceling out of what might arise as responsibility or caring for others based on personal need to belong or be loyal or whatever that other thing is the other part of what you mentioned you also wrote about in the book was about empathy and the studies that you mentioned in your book that I find most compelling and baffling are the studies that show who tends to have empathy for whom So for example very wealthy people people at the very top tend to not have empathy for poor people as an example and this was some of the things that you wrote about whereas poor people do tend to have empathy for all kinds of people how do we make sense of this well there isn't a really good research on trying to help to understand why this happens but how likely reason is that people justify that wealth and position in. Iraqi people pretty much justify whatever they'd do and one of the things that they justify Is that route and that projection and they justify it by that hard work by that intelligence by their special qualities and for all these diseases they deserve the position that the occupier and in fact I believe that one of the reasons that people protect that privilege is not only because they love the fruits of that privilege that money and power but also because they have developed a belief system at courting to which they have a right to their privilege not if that is the kids then the people who are poor or who haven't accomplished anything they see them as not having taken responsibility for their lives as not being the daily Genting of being intelligent enough not being deserving get off and I think that explains why they look good on them and once you look at the hard on people and what you see is a division between us and them they are different they are. Less deserving you feel less empathy for them there is research that shows that the more similar we see people to ourselves the more we feel empathy for them so this is a real problem really because if you want to see the society in which people in general care for each other caring society then we have to see the humanity of everybody and this kind of looking to be on people also means that we see them as deserving and in some ways that's human that concludes part one of our conversation with doctors and stop author of the lists of good looking to you our conversation next week and. Support Today Show thank you to all of our guests and to those who make this program possible to Saddam Gray Our webmaster you know Haas young Melissa chipper and Mike Hirst Tim Page most of all thank you for listening if you missed part of the show you can check out our archives it's color circle dot org dot org And please like is on Facebook follow us on Twitter and our movie and and we'll see you next week. a realtor and surveyor in the. It's the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. Welcome to Ralph Nader radio My name is Steve Grove analog my co-host David Feldman Hello David we're having our own personal town hall today exactly and it's very exciting and we also have the man of the hour who'll be 80 interlocutor Ralph Nader Hello Ralph but we have a member of Congress that's right and that's why I'm not going to take too much time with my intro today because I'm very excited we have on the show a member of the squad representative Rashid its lead joins us Representative to lead is a true progressive who focuses on issues that we highlight every week on this program environmental justice corporate greed economic justice and we're going to talk to her about a whole range of issues including her aboard. Trips to the Palestinian territories poverty in southern Michigan Israel Palestine and I don't know maybe the issue of impeachment may come up I understand that representative to leave is on the record as having some rather strong opinions about that he still needs his. Representative to leave will be our only guest today but as always we'll also check in with our relentless Corporate Crime Reporter. And then spend some time making our way through the Ralph Nader Radio Hour in boxes Ralph answers your questions a 1st let's hear from one of the most progressive members of Congress on the scene today David congresswoman Rashida tallied represents Michigan's 13th Congressional District which includes the city of Detroit and many surrounding communities congresswoman Sally was a well known progressive warrior who made history in 2008 by becoming the 1st Muslim woman to ever serve in the Michigan legislature she is beloved by residents for the transformative constituent services she provides and for successfully fighting the billionaires and corporations that try to pollute her district Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour representative Rashid it's elite thank you for having me welcome and then before we get into what you're trying to do in your district which you've described as one of the very poorest congressional districts in America I know you're working hard to get the minimum wage for universal health care for public works jobs and other things I want to raise the issue because I don't think the circle is closed President Trump doing what Northern American president has ever done. And the head of the Israeli government Prime Minister Netanyahu urged him to block you and Representative I'm armed from going to Israel and going to the West Bank exercising your congressional oversight duties authorized by the us constitution and I don't create it.
Related Keywords
Radio Program ,International Law ,Human Rights Instruments ,International Relations ,Arms Control Treaties ,Arms Control ,Public Health ,Health Economics ,Firearms ,Health ,Human Rights ,Retail Markets ,Weapons ,Crime ,Explosive Weapons ,Security ,Morality ,Sociology ,Social Psychology ,Criminal Law ,Non Proliferation Treaties ,Treaties ,Health Fields ,Chemical Weapons Demilitarization ,Personal Weapons ,Organized Crime ,Informal Economy ,Radio Knsj 89 1 Fm ,Stream Only ,Radio ,Radioprograms ,
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.