The Critique Of "The Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal: Sources Of Sadism"

The Critique of "The Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal: Sources of Sadism"

In the article "The Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal: Sources of Sadism," Marianne Szegedy- Maszak discusses the horrifying acts of our American soldiers against the Iraqi detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison. The American guards photographed themselves torturing and humiliating the prisoners. Marianna presents the idea that maybe these few guards aren't just 'a few bad seeds' but in fact any average person would commit similar acts given the situation.

Marianne Szegedy- Maszak purpose in this article is to persuade us to believe that everyone has an evil side, and is capable of committing unthinkable crimes. Marianna supports her theory by referencing psychological experiments. She discusses a study performed at Yale, were a group of students are assigned to be guards or prisoners. After a few days the 'guards' actions became fairly similar to those of the American soldiers. They also began to torment and humiliate the prisoners. She also talks about a previous experiment about a group of students that were instructed to shock an actor sitting in a chair that they think is wired to electricity. *** I can't think of a better way of talking about this experiment*** Both of these experiments support her proposal that everyman can and will commit torturous acts.

Marianne Szegedy- Maszak lacked enough evidence in this article to persuade people to believe that the average person is evil. She had valid points; however, she didn't use a variety of supportive material. Marianne didn't use any facts to back up her peculation besides psychological experiments performed in the early 1970s. All of the facts in this article are bias favoring her theory that everyman is evil and not presenting any thoughts that these soldiers aren't just your everyday people. There are a lot of emotional loaded words