Another important issue that he raises is the role of the bystander. By this he means those outside of the organisation who observe events unfolding and although these witnesses have free will they react with indifference. Darley relates this to his and Lantané’s earlier work on bystander intervention, that the indifference of bystanders signals a lack of protest and allows atrocities to grow in scale unabated. During this continuum, (Darley paraphrases Staub here) bystanders rationalise what is occuring and thus justify their own inaction. It is therefore often other ‘elements’ within the society that call a stop to the escalation of unjust acts into a full-blown cataclysm.

Returning to the broader context of ‘evil’ social organisations, Darley states that there are three kinds of evil in an organisation, those that are genocidal and evil from the outset (two examples are; the Nazi regime led by Adolf Hitler and more controversially Christopher Columbus and the invasion of the New World, see the aforementioned 1997 W. Churchill book); social organisations with intentional destructive motives; and other destructive social organisations that grow unintentionally. In this camp are included manufacturers (selling vehicles that have a known dangerous fault), pharmaceutical companies (selling drugs that are found to be harmful after sales have occurred), and military groups under specific orders (such Lt. Calley and his Platoon involved in the My Lai massacre in Vietnam). What all of these unintentional destructive organisations have in common is that they did not set out to deliberately cause harm but unintentionally through a variety of occurrences, such as miscommunication, neglect, stress, hurried work etc, terrible things eventuated. Cars were built with an engineering fault that caused horrifying deaths; drugs were prescribed to pregnant women that caused a high percentage of cancer for the baby as it grew older; orders were carried out with the wrong intelligence that caused slaughter of innocent people, but these things were not intentional from the outset. What is considered evil though, is when these things are discovered that a cover up is used to avoid admitting the past harm and in doing so the organisations commit themselves to future harms.

‘Intentional harm’ social organisations have ethics that are so suspect that they are intentionally abusing their cliental or rival organisations (enemies) in order to financially profit. These organisations corrupt their members by convincing them to act in accordance with the organisations own highly questionable ethics.

Darley suggests that individuals can avoid the social pressures that lead to participation in evil (by being an intervening bystander), but what of social organisations, particularly those outside of the military (the military has guidelines in place already, although they are perhaps questionable)? Darley has no clear answer to this question but summarises that there are several social psychologists working on such answers. As I have already mentioned there are anthropologists also working on this question, as well as prescribing accountability where it belongs for the actions of those that violate human rights. The human givens ideology (as stated in their charter) as an evolving, holistic organisation is working to instill social change on a vast level: addressing government bodies, companies/corporations, education, as well as mental health systems that it cannot be anything but a potent example of how to combat ‘evil’ in our world. Implementing healthy organisational systems that do not limit the innate physical and emotional needs of the individuals works to achieve this. In the case of unintentional social organisations that find themselves in horrifying situations, if there had better systems in place for their staff, perhaps there would not be so many variables collating to create the negative circumstances. I would say that the human givens movement is one of those ‘other elements’ of society that combat evil in our world.

That human givens therapists are willing to give up their personal time and money to train people on the front lines of trauma (see: http://mindsalot.wordpress.com/2007/01/26/a-human-givens-team-is-to-train-trauma-counsellors-in-rwanda/) is in my view is a clear statement of a social organisation devoted to the highest good and not the gain of the organisation. That members of the organisation coherently and without emotional arousal speak out about organisational behaviour that they see as detrimental to the health of their nation (and by natural extension, in this world of glaobalisation, global health) shows a commitment to being interventionist where events are unfolding in a precarious way. That the Human Givens Foundation is charity steadfastly focused on resarching and implementing ways in which to improve mental heath, education, and social services further demonstrates this organisation’s exceptional intentions. In my view those that involve themselves in the human givens approach are dedicated bystanders unwilling to allow the continuation of the detrimental path humanity has been undertaking. Of course I am guilty of being a hopeless idealist but I am happy with this position.

Fiona Gillespie
16 April, 2007