In our view, accepting responsibility for our own actions (and failures to act when action on behalf of peace and humanity is needed) requires the moral engagement mechanism that psychologist Albert Bandura calls proactive moral agency (See Moral engagement, part 2, September 6, 2010).
Consider Albert Einstein, the famous Nobel-prize winning physicist who could have proceeded comfortably with his work in the United States following his escape from Nazi Germany, but lived instead under constant FBI scrutiny and harassment because of his active opposition to racism and war. He was victimized because of statements like the following:
“There are two ways of resisting war: the legal way and the revolutionary way. The legal way involves the offer of alternative service not as a privilege for a few but as a right for all. The revolutionary view involves an uncompromising resistance, with a view to breaking the power of militarism in time of peace or the resources of the state in time of war.”
“It is characteristic of the military mentality that nonhuman factors (atom bombs, strategic bases, weapons of all sorts, the possession of raw materials, etc.) are held essential, while the human being, his desires, and thoughts – in short, the psychological factors – are considered as unimportant and secondary…The individual is degraded…to ‘human materiel.’”
“Nationalism, in my opinion, is nothing more than an idealistic rationalization for militarism and aggression.”
“I should much rather see a reasonable agreement with the Arabs based on living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish state.”
Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology