Tuol Sleng Guard Tells of Executions, Thwarted Rebellion

[phuketrichard]

Just reading this makes me wonder what went thur their minds knowing that death was going to happen
and the guards, to live knowing that showing humanity would mean they would be killed as well.

“We were told that everyone who was arrested was an enemy of Angka [the ruling body of the Khmer Rouge],” Mr. Huy said. “[Duch] said that anyone who was brought to S-21 wouldn’t have the chance to go out, and that the person would be killed.”
....At the same time, any of the guards who showed kindness or concern for a prisoner would be punished. “If anyone paid close care or attention to prisoners, they would be placed under monitoring,” Mr. Huy said. “We had to obey, we were the children of Angka, not of our parents.”

http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/24620/ ... rebellion/

Man is mans worst enemy

[LTO]

I'm not sure how to think about the guards. Terrible position to be put in - commit terrible atrocities or suffer it yourself. Still, I don't think I could have done what they did, even under that threat. Not necessarily out of some great moral conviction, though I like to imagine that I am so strong that I could choose humanity over self-preservation, but that I don't think my 'sub-conscious/involuntary self' (if that makes sense) would allow me. It would choose insanity or or some sort of breakdown before I could bring myself to do it. Which is perhaps why they choose young people as they are more flexible and trainable.

[kiwiincambodia]

Whenever I think about this I am always reminded of the Milgram experiment and how the subjects reacted. I would like to think that I would not just follow orders, but I'm sure many of the test subjects thought the same thing.

From Wikipedia;
Milgram experiment
The Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures was a series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram. They measured the willingness of study participants, men from a diverse range of occupations with varying levels of education, to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience; the experiment found, unexpectedly, that a very high proportion of people were prepared to obey, albeit unwillingly, even if apparently causing serious injury and distress. Milgram first described his research in 1963 in an article published in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology[1] and later discussed his findings in greater depth in his 1974 book, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View.[2]

The experiments began in July 1961, in the basement of Linsly-Chittenden Hall at Yale University,[3] three months after the start of the trial of German Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Milgram devised his psychological study to answer the popular question at that particular time: "Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?"[4] The experiments have been repeated many times in the following years with consistent results within differing societies, although not with the same percentages around the globe.[5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment



I honestly don't know what I would do if I were in the guards position. As I said above I would like to think I would not just blindly follow orders but I have a feeling I would, and IMHO I think most people would just follow orders.

[ruralvoice]

How to.be virtuous when obeisance is owed to a genetico?

[LTO]

I've grown a bit weary of the Milgram study. It was an interesting study with some important and suggestive results, but it was just one study, 50 years ago, done in a post-WWII reconciliatory atmosphere. (A time when our whole space program was founded in Nazi scientists and movies like Enemy Below were showing how good men on both sides were just doing their duty.) Evil may be, in part, banal, but I think there is more to it than just that.

Anyway, that aside, I wondered above not so much about whether I (and others) would do it, but whether I could do it. I think most men can be coerced by authority and duty into doing the terrible things that e.g. soldiers sometimes have to do, but I wonder whether, on that basis, most can be made to herd children into gas chambers. That would seem to take well chosen subjects. Or am I giving too much credit to our shared humanity?

How to.be virtuous when obeisance is owed to a generic?

If it is a matter of 'virtue,' just as one would (or wouldn't) no matter the age of the authority. The air of authority flows from more than just age.

[Anchor Moy]

I think most of us would have obeyed. They order you to kill someone or you will be killed, then once you've crossed that line, further resistance makes no sense.

[LTO]

I think most of us would have obeyed. They order you to kill someone or you will be killed, then once you've crossed that line, further resistance makes no sense.

Disagree. There is a difference between being a soldier told to kill someone and working in a torture chamber full of women, children and civilian men.


German soldiers after the war, forced to view films of concentration camps.

[kiwiincambodia]

I've grown a bit weary of the Milgram study. It was an interesting study with some important and suggestive results, but it was just one study, 50 years ago, done in a post-WWII reconciliatory atmosphere. (A time when our whole space program was founded in Nazi scientists and movies like Enemy Below were showing how good men on both sides were just doing their duty.) Evil may be, in part, banal, but I think there is more to it than just that.

Anyway, that aside, I wondered above not so much about whether I (and others) would do it, but whether I could do it. I think most men can be coerced by authority and duty into doing the terrible things that e.g. soldiers sometimes have to do, but I wonder whether, on that basis, most can be made to herd children into gas chambers. That would seem to take well chosen subjects. Or am I giving too much credit to our shared humanity?.

It was actually rerun recently (maybe 4 - 5 years ago) and the results were the same. I think it was something put on by discovery channel.

On my phone at the moment but will try and find the video next time I get to a PC.

[LTO]

It was actually rerun recently (maybe 4 - 5 years ago) and the results were the same. I think it was something put on by discovery channel.

On my phone at the moment but will try and find the video next time I get to a PC.

That will be interesting to see as the Milgram study is famous not only for its results but for being an classic example of unethical experimental techniques. Further, I don't think it (at least the original study) addresses the lengths to which such obedience extends.

[Anchor Moy]

Repeating his testimony yesterday, Mr. Huy said he and his men did not personally assist in these killings at Choeung Ek, and that the executions were overseen by Ta Theng. When asked directly if he personally had killed any of the prisoners, he refused to answer.

http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/24620/ ... rebellion/

Is it more inhumane to actually kill people than to organize their executions ? Thoughts ?