Step Silences The Voice Of The Conscience example essay topic

"Thus conscience does make cowards of us all" - William Shakespeare. Is it true? Does the conscience actually regulate our behaviour and make us timid and humble as Shakespeare suggests? Does the conscience have the power to make cowards of us?

Or would it not be able to prevent us from becoming tyrants? More importantly, does the conscience actually exist? The Oxford Dictionary defines 'conscience' as, "a moral sense of right and wrong especially as felt by a person and affecting behaviour (my conscience won't allow me to do that) [or] an inner feeling as to the goodness or otherwise of one's behaviour (my conscience is clear; has a guilty conscience) " The concept of conscience has had a presence in literature throughout time. We particularly find themes relating to the conscience in classical literature.

In Shakespeare's Macbeth, we see a powerful scene where Macbeth is shown struggling and fighting with his conscience whilst he ambitiously considers killing the present King and thus claiming the crown. Eventually, in the inner tussle between the conscience and the ambition, the conscience loses. The theme of the vocal conscience ness is not just debt with in literature, but is a predominant thesis prevalent in all human thought. In Philosophy, ancient Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle don't explicitly mention conscience, but their discussions of virtues, practical wisdom, and weakness of will form the backdrop to medieval discussions of conscience. From here on the concept of conscience was developed in philosophy.

Later on, the famous eighteenth century philosopher Bishop Joseseph Butler made autonomy of conscience the central concept of his theory on ethics and morality. In the science of psychology, prominent psychologist Sigmund Fred talks about the development and the role of the conscience in his theory. Other later psychologists also use the concept of conscience in their cognitive and behaviour al theories. The conscience is not tangible and it is a complex idea to which different theorists have presented different ideas. I shall not delve into the details of what these different theorists say about conscience as that would be beyond the scope of this paper. However, since the concept of conscience has significant presence in literature, philosophy, and psychology it would be logical to conclude that the conscience does exist.

Taking this as our basic premise this paper will now go on to analyze human behaviour. It was Intezar Hussain's story, 'City of Sorrow' that stimulated me to write this paper. I was inspired to study and analyze what may have been going on in the minds of the characters in this story. What role did their consciences play (or not play) in the story?

The story, City of Sorrow, is set in the sub-continent at the time of partition. During the story, there is a reference to a prior partition that makes us think that this is a story about the partition of Bengal. However, according to the writer himself, the story reflects the time of both the first and the second partition of the sub-continent. The story is a dialogue between three men. Three men, who have no names, whose faces have been disfigured, and who are completely lost. They don't know where they are.

They think they are dead, but don't seem to be sure. During the dialogue they tell each other of their wrongdoings. These men have left their hometown behind after taking part in a large scale massacre, which caused devastation to the people on whom it was inflicted, and are now in the City of Sorrow. These three men took an active part in the massacre and committed heinous war crimes.

The first man was part of a gang that forced a brother to strip his sister naked before them. Later in the story his daughter is also made victim to a similar fate. The second man is guilty of raping a woman himself. The third man, cannot seem to remember anything about what happened to him, except that he turned his back on his own people. These three characters could all be the same person; however that is left to the reader's imagination to decide.

The story symbolizes what actually went on during the time of the partition. In fact the actual events of 1947 and then again in 1971 was more appalling. It is horrifying how people who shared the same land, a greater common culture, people who have co-existed in harmony for centuries could suddenly act so inhumanly brutal toward each other. Neighbours, childhood playmates, friends all turned against each other and all past relationships were severed. Why did this happen? How did these people become bestial all of a sudden?

Did their conscience not stop them? Thinking about the characters in Hussain's story, I realised that not only were these characters real but that they were not some people who existed in distant time, in a far off place. This is my own country's history. These characters represent people who existed only one generation before me. Existed right here where I live, not too long ago.

Our own history is stained by people who have inflicted immense misery out of rage and ferociousness. One imagines that only truly evil people can be so ruthless, but it scares me to think that these people were my own people. It makes me wonder even more how they could be capable of these acts. It makes me wonder if I too am capable of stooping to this level. This paper aims to carry out an analysis of the behaviour of these people.

In order to help me carry out this analysis, I shall be using the results of a series of experiments shown in a BBC 2 programme called Five Steps to Tyranny. Five Steps to Tyranny is a powerful and disturbing documentary by a woman called Sheena McDonald that left me contemplating the malevolent capacity of human nature. "The documentary features a number of ground-breaking psychological experiments, and conducts a few new tests of its own in order to prove how easily people obey orders and do harm to others". The experiments range from the initial creation of 'out-groups' to the final acts of vicious behaviour. The series of experiments show what are called the five steps to tyranny. Step one: 'US AND THEM " The first step is to establish 'in-groups' and 'out-groups'.

The documentary shows a famous experiment conducted by an American schoolteacher. The teacher tells her primary school pupils subjects that blue-eyed children were smarter and got privileges while the brown-eyed children were stupid and were correspondingly deprived. Within minutes, the blue-eyed children became bossy, and developed rude behaviour towards the brown-eyed ones, even if they had been close friends before the start of the experiment. The brown-eyed children suddenly became withdrawn; some of them even started crying. This highlighted the in-group / out-group phenomena. Applying this to the analysis of the behaviour of the characters in Hussain's story, I noticed how at the time people of the sub-continent developed an "us" and "them" mentality.

There was a dichotomy between Indians where they became "Hindus" and "Muslims". The development of this dichotomy was not sudden. "Throughout their rule, the British consciously exploited Hindu-Muslim antagonisms in a divide-and-rule strategy". . They endorsed the "us" and "them" mentality. However, it would be wrong to blame all our faults on the colonists.

Hindu and Muslim nationalist leaders also played a big role in creating this feeling amongst the Indians. When this feeling is exploited, former friends and neighbours can become violent enemies within a relatively short period of time and as a result of a largely insignificant trigger, as was illustrated during partition. Hussain's story depicts this very situation. Step Two: 'OBEY ORDERS' In another experiment, actors asked people travelling on the train to give up their seats, simply because they were being asked to do so; half of the people got up from their seats. However, when the actors were accompanied by a man in uniform, everyone immediately vacated their seats. "This experiment showed that the danger from society comes not from rebels or deviants but from the mindless unthinking obedience of the majority".

Step two applies to the characters of the story as they join gangs and blindly follow the actions of the gang. They silently obey orders as the gang leaders ask them to rape, molest and kill. There is a factual example of a man who raped his childhood friend and playmate along with the rest of his gang during the mayhem of 1971. It was after the frenzy ended when he realised what he had done and was horrified by his own actions. This is exactly what the characters of Intezar Hussain's story are experiencing as they narrate their own crimes, the realisation of which results in their spiritual death. These characters have not been physically killed in the story; they simply cannot live with the realisation of what they have done.

Step Three: 'DO THEM HARM " In this experiment a group of older students were divided into 'prisoners and guards'. The 'guards' were made to downgrade the "prisoners". Gradually, the "guards' " degenerated to sadistic behaviour. This step to tyranny was to demonize and de humanise the opponents, to the point where those who think of themselves as "us" no longer think of "them" as human.

At the time of the partition, the Hindus dehumanized the Muslims and the Muslims dehumanized the Hindus. Each took the other's name with respite and thought of them as beings below them. Emotions of disgust were infused and attached towards the 'other'. These emotions were then taken to a heightened pitch through emotional speeches made by gang leaders. Muslims thought of Hindus as dirty people.

Muslims were thought of as disgusting meat eaters and violent people by the Hindus. The voices of their consciences were stifled by these emotions of disgust as they did not even feel they were committing these atrocities towards fellow men and women, they were committing them towards a "Hindu" or a "Muslim". Step Four: 'STAND UP OR SHUT UP " The programme included a video footage of the Speakers' Corner in London's Hyde Park, where people can come and give their opinion on any topic while a crowd gathers around to listen. The video shows that most people passively listen, but a minority shout back their own opinion. As speakers come up and leave, it tends to be the same people shouting back no matter what the subject of debate. This experiment was to show that there are two types of people; the silent followers or the dissenters.

The dissenters unfortunately are in the minority. "Tyrannies thrive when dissenters are in the minority and bystanders are the majority."We must always fear evil men. But there is another kind of evil that we must fear the most, and that is the indifference of good men". The characters in Hussain's play were people who had become by-standers who did not question the actions and orders of the gang even if it did not appeal to their own moral reasoning. It is impossible that none of the thousands of men who raped women during the partition felt a pinch of guilt from their conscience. There have been cases reported of men who said they did not agree with what their gang was doing and making them do, but they joined in anyway.

This is how the mob mentality forms during mayhem. As I interpret the story, the character in the story who says he dies after his daughter gets raped does not die solely of the shame that his daughter has been dishonoured, but also due to the added guilt that he was a silent by-stander to so many rapes. He felt he could be a silent spectator as long as it did not affect his own honour. When he returns home that night to find that his own daughter has been dishonoured, he dies, if not a physical death then at least he dies in spirit. The third man in Hussain's story doesn't seem to have committed a crime on his own but rather seems to be ashamed of his inaction. Step Five: 'EXTERMINATE " This last step shows a shocking (pun intended) experiment.

For this experiment, volunteers had been told they were taking part in a test to see if administering electric shocks to subjects would improve memory. One man was asked to memorize words from a list. The second man was taken elsewhere and sat at a desk with a row of switches. Via a microphone he then asked the first man to repeat the list of words when a wrong answer was given, the man with the switches was told to press a switch that transmitted an electric shock to the other man. Each wrong answer meant that the man would receive an electric shock. The man pressing the switches could hear cries of pain from the victim's room.

As the voltage increased the torturer questioned the safety of what he was doing but was told to go ahead. After being told that the person in charge took full responsibility for whatever happened, several of the people were willing to continue pressing switches transmitting shock which they thought were in excess of 400 volts. At the end of the experiment we are told that in fact no voltage was transmitted and the victim was an actor. The experiment proved how people went on committing an act that they thought was causing huge amounts of pain to someone else simply because they were assured that they would not be held accountable later.

The characters in Hussain's play, as did the real people who formed mobs at the time of partition, had the advantage of anonymity during war. They were going around the streets randomly raping women and assaulting men who belonged to the opposite sect. They were simply part of a Muslim or a Hindu gang, not recognized individually by their names. Also, since they were part of a gang, they did not feel like this was solely their decision and responsibility.

This relates to how people in the experiment described above, were comfortable causing pain to others as long as they were anonymous and could not be held accountable. An analysis of this documentary makes some fascinating revelations about human behaviour, and about the conscience whose function is to regulate human behaviour. While watching the documentary one's initial reaction may have been to think that one would not act in a similar way to the people who are part of the experiments. However, the documentary includes people from around the world who have acted in tyrannical ways either during controlled experiments or during major events of history. The experiments are also conducted on a range of age group starting from primary school students to older people. This proves that these are inherent weakness in human nature across cultures and age groups.

There is some overlap in how these experiments are related to the scenes and situations described in Hussain's 'City of Sorrow'. Some of the steps to tyranny overlap with one another in terms of what goes on in the sub-conscious as these steps are taken and how each step silences the voice of the conscience. However, what this paper aims to hypothesis e is that ordinary people who could not imagine themselves to be capable of such acts are only five steps away from becoming tyrants. The characters in Hussain's story were also such ordinary people who took these five dangerous steps. The first step before the partition of the land was the partition of the people into the two different groups.

The division of "us" and "them"; these Indians internalized their separation into Hindus and Muslims and bonded with their 'own' groups making the 'other' the out-group; the enemy. This is the step that has the largest impact on the role the conscience. These people then became silent spectators, if not participants in acts of extreme brutality. They learnt to obey orders without questioning and through compliance of these orders they treated the 'other' violently. Before they knew it these people become so deeply entrenched in this hatred that they broke into a frenzy of violence against each other, almost as if to completely exterminate and destroy the 'other's' existence. Rape was particularly used as a form of assault because it leaves scars for a long time to follow.

With each step, the conscience was silenced more and more, until it completely lost its voice and allowed these people to commit such horrific acts. Under such conditions, with the introduction of certain situations that allowed people to dispense their moral judgment, and resort to such viciousness, the conscience losing its voice naturally leads to the formation of tyrannies and the abuse of power. This leads the paper to it's conclusion that Hussain's characters were actually ordinary people who committed these horrific acts of violence, when their consciences were silenced by one or all of the five steps to tyranny. How this came about has been explained by using the example of the documentary. I go back to the quote where we started from "Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.".. the conscience would perhaps make cowards of us all, if it influence over us had substantial strength, however the conscience is weaker than that.

It is shocking how easily it loses its voice. Rather than controlling us by making cowards of us, it allows us to degenerate into persecutors. Thus, conscience does make tyrants of us all.

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