Colbert Interviews Philip Zimbardo

Great interview by Colbert. There are two things discussed in the interview, maybe three: what is legitimate authority and under what conditions should we submit to authority, and secondly, why did Lucifer fall from grace? Amazingly, Colbert defends with incredible strength the orthodox position of Lucifer's fault in that ancient conflict, causing Zimbardo to say, "Wow. You really learned a lot from Sunday School," to which Colbert said, "I teach Sunday School, mother f***er!" which got of course a huge laugh and smiles. Colbert actually does teach Sunday School, too.

This guy Zimbardo is describing research that sounds an awful lot like an old 1960s experiment, but I'm too lazy to look it up. Maybe it's the same guy. The project found that when put in positions of authority, regular students playing the role of prison guards immediately because abusive towards the prisoners. I'd never heard that it turned into sexual abuse, though, because in that original study, the experiment was discontinued after about a day because of the physical abuse towards the prisoners (also college students). But, it sounds nearly identical, so maybe Zimbardo is the same psychologist, or maybe he's describing that old study in his book, The Lucifer Effect.

Update: MP tells me it was him. I was going to say, too, but didn't, that these very old, well-known experiments in psychology and sociology probably need careful scrutiny before we accept them wholesale. And it sounds like some replications have case some doubt. Doesn't mean it's settled, though.