character – Engaging Peace

The world is honored and made a better place by your presence among us and by the lessons and leadership you have provided throughout a life of courage and character.

I am grateful that despite all the horrors of apartheid, all the violence that was done, your life was preserved because that life has been a gift to all life on earth.

You are the role model most needed in a world where too many people rush to destroy anyone they have decided to call an enemy. You are a mensch.

Here, in the 100^thpost of this blog, I want to share with all of our readers, some of your enduring words of truth, justice, wisdom, and empathy:

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

“For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. ”

“If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner. ”

“We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right. ”

Dear Readers, if you want to see a wonderful movie that says a lot about the kind of man Nelson Mandela is, see the film Invictus and enjoy this fine poem by William Ernest Henley:

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

(Poem in public domain)

Continue reading “Happy birthday, Nelson Mandela” →

Photo of 3 monkeys in "hear, speak, see no evil" poses — Hear, Speak, See No Evil. Toshogu Prefecture, Japan. (Unconditional permission granted by photographer, via WikiMedia Commons.)

Psychologist Albert Bandura has devoted his life to the study of human aggression and violence. It is his theoretical constructs that we begin considering today.

Bandura recognized that shame and guilt are uncomfortable emotions and that people will utilize a variety of strategies to avoid feeling them.

For some people, feelings of shame and guilt resulting from bad behavior may lead to positive character development, mature intimacy, generativity, and integrity.

Other people use strategies of “moral disengagement” to help them avoid shame or guilt while continuing to behave badly.

According to Bandura, “mechanisms of moral disengagement” can serve to satisfy their users that they are behaving morally because they are conforming to the values of their role models, spiritual guides, or political leaders.

Unfortunately, many leaders, often with the help of the media, promote the development and use of moral disengagement in order to insure their followers’ compliance in acts of horrifying violence against others. For example, they encourage viewing “the enemy” as someone evil, inferior, and deserving punishment or even elimination.

Bandura has identified several types of moral disengagement that allow ordinary people to tolerate and even contribute to behaviors like torture, rape, and murder–behaviors that violate the ethics of reciprocity, the teachings of love and brotherhood in all major religious texts, and the human rights laws endorsed by the United Nations.

These mechanisms of moral disengagement include:

“Moral” justification–which we prefer to call “spurious moral justification”
Euphemistic labeling
Advantageous comparison
Displacement of responsibility
Disregard or distortion of consequences
Dehumanizing or demonizing the other

In upcoming posts, we will explore each of these mechanisms in more detail, and give common examples of their use. We will also introduce the mechanisms of moral engagement that allow individuals to resist spurious calls to violence in the name of peace.

Be sure to check back to learn more.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Note: This post was adapted from my previously published article in Peace Psychology (a publication of the American Psychological Association), Spring, 2009.