When I taught social psychology, I was always most eager to make students think carefully about the dark side of social influence. The Milgram studies, undertaken in the aftermath of The Third Reich, which showed that people would — despite their obvious misery and discomfort — administer a probably fatal shock to someone in another room, because they were told to (note: there wasn’t an actual person in the other room). My students said “oh, that was the 1950s, it wouldn’t happen now.” The Zimbardo prison study, which was shut down much sooner than anticipated because the students randomly assigned as prison guards became sadistic, and those randomly assigned as prisoners became profoundly withdrawn, depressed. My students said,”oh, that was the 1970s, it wouldn’t happen now.” “Not me, I wouldn’t have gone along.” “Not me, I wouldn’t have become sadistic.” “Not me.”

In a way, this gets at the essence of social psychology; especially in our western culture, we like to believe that we ourselves, our minds, our choices, are responsible for what we do and believe. Me, I decide. We become uncomfortable when told that the situation is leading us to behave in a particular way; we resist believing that something outside us influences us without our ‘knowledge’.

I think it’s extremely important to recognize that it’s not just those people back then, those people in that country, those people in that culture, those people. Them. We are them. (Of course people are also capable of rising above the situation, of acting from a thoughtful place; I’m not making an “always” claim here.)

Because this is important to me, I have been drawn to thinking about the horrors of the Holocaust. I tend to read about it if I hear of a good analysis, or fictional work. I tend to watch the movies – fiction or nonfiction. I was so moved by Everything Is Illuminated, the book and the movie.

So I watched a movie last night that was recommended by Tammy, a ravelry friend and regular commenter on my blog — Conspiracy, which is about the meeting outside Berlin in which the “final solution” was laid out and set in motion. Tammy mentioned it because Colin Firth is in the movie, and I’d just written about another of his movies, A Single Man. I looked up Conspiracy and saw that Colin Firth, Kenneth Branagh, and Stanley Tucci were in it – I love all three of them! It wasn’t available for instant streaming, so I moved it to the top of my regular queue, and I watched it last night.

The actors were wonderful, without exception. I wondered how they dealt with the roles they were playing – Tucci especially, who did a truly incredible job playing Eichmann. I felt a cold shiver all through my body and in my stomach when he came on the screen. Eichmann. The cinematography was beautiful, the direction subtle, the performances very strong. I have to see more movies with Colin Firth, and soon!

But I find that as I get older, it’s harder and harder to bear these things. It’s harder and harder for me to listen or watch as a people are described and treated as ‘vermin.’ As inhuman. Not human. Less than human. I never found it easy to bear, but I could bear it because I wanted to think, understand, remember. Now I’m not so sure I can bear it. I cried throughout the movie. I was so nauseous I thought I’d be sick. Often I couldn’t even look at the screen. Almost the entire movie was set around a long table, with the parties to the meeting simply talking – no actions were performed, nothing actually implemented, just talking. And I couldn’t watch.

It’s a very powerful movie, I highly recommend it. I didn’t know anything about that meeting, I didn’t know this part of history at all. When I was a little younger, I could’ve watched it more easily.

Now, I need a lot of knitting and contemplation to get myself back in order. Hello, Peasy.

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