Stephen Colbert recently interviewed Stanford psychologist Philip Zimbardo about his new book, The Lucifer Effect. (My two biggest passions - psychology and theology - combined!) I have been trying to find a working video clip for this interview, so if you see one, send me the link. The best I could do was to copy the transcript below. This aired on "The Colbert Report" on February 11, 2008. My favorite part of this interview is Colbert's closing retort: if that shows up on a t-shirt, I am totally getting one (despite Natasha's very good point: "But ... where would you wear it?")!!!

Stephen: My guest tonight is a professor at Stanford University who wrote The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. But is he here, or is his evil twin? Please welcome Philip Zimbardo!

I’ve gotta say, with a name like “Dr. Zimbardo” and that goatee, you could be your evil twin!

Zimbardo: I actually brought you a present from Stanford: a Lucifer T-shirt.

Stephen: A Lucifer — Now, is this their mascot at Stanford?

Zimbardo: Ah, yeah. It could be. Now, Lucifer was God’s favorite angel –

Stephen: He was the Light Bearer.

Zimbardo: He disobeyed God and he became the Devil.

Stephen: He disobeyed God and became the Devil. So, therefore, I guess what you’re saying is that, to be good, you must obey authority.

Zimbardo: Ah, that’s what the authorities tell us.

Stephen: Yes. That’s what this authority tells you.
What is the “Lucifer Effect”?

Zimbardo: The “Lucifer Effect” is just that, the reason I titled it that is we’re interested in ordinary people that get caught up in new situations and slowly, over time, go down that slippery slope.

Stephen: Now, you have an interesting experiment here that you did at Stanford University; tell, tell the kids out there what happened to twenty-four students at Stanford.

Zimbardo: It’s a very simple experiment where you put good kids in a bad situation, kids we chose because they were normal and healthy, randomly flipped a coin: guards and prisoners. And in less than five days, we had to end the study. The ‘guards’ got into their role so extremely that they began to psychologically abuse their ‘prisoners’, all the way to sexual degradation of the kind we saw at Abu Ghraib.

Stephen: This could happen to anybody; is this just the United States, you’re saying, or anywhere in the world this could happen?

Zimbardo: There was one kid from Canada.

Stephen: [laughing] Oh, well. There’s — well, that blows the experiment! That is, there’s your bad apple; right there!

Zimbardo: [laughing] No, it could happen to anybody. It could happen anywhere, to almost anybody. There’s a small group of people who resist the pressure to conform, to comply.

Stephen: Are you saying that you should not conform, to be good?

Zimbardo: You shouldn’t conform mindlessly. And you shouldn’t obey authority — unjust authority.

Stephen: But how do you know what authority is just or not? I mean, you do what people tell you to do ...

Zimbardo: Wrong.

Stephen: ... who are in power, and then you have to trust that that was the right thing to do. What else is society based on?

Zimbardo: It’s based on being mindful and doing critical thinking. Because a lot of authority is unjust, a lot of orders are wrong orders –

Stephen: If they were unjust, they wouldn’t be authorities. I mean, like, I tell these people to do all kinds of crazy things. And they know, they know it’s the right thing to do because I told them to do it. Are you saying that they’re evil?

Zimbardo: Only in this situation. See, the whole point is, we underestimate the power of social situations. We think everything comes from within us, that we are born with good or bad genes, we have good or bad personality characteristics –

Stephen: Garden of Eden.

Zimbardo: Absolutely.

Stephen: That’s where, that’s where Good and Evil started.

Zimbardo: Why did the Devil make Adam and Eve eat the apple?

Stephen: Because he disobeyed the authority of God! He was non-conformist, doin’ his own thing, lettin’ it all hang out, did not want to serve the ultimate Authority like you say he shouldn’t, and he turned out to be the ultimate Evil! I’m sorry, the title of your book turns the argument on its head.

Zimbardo: Oh, no no no no no no!

Stephen: Oh, yes yes yes yes yes yes.

Zimbardo: No … Lucifer is God’s favorite angel, right?

Stephen: [faux disdainfully] Until he disobeys, go ahead.

Zimbardo: But why does he disobey? Because God says, I have created this perfect creature, Adam, and everybody has to obey him. And Lucifer says, wait a minute, he’s a mortal, mortals are corruptible. We’re angels; I refuse. And that’s disobedience to authority. So the reason Lucifer — as the Devil — seduced Adam, is to say, God, I’m right, and you’re wrong. This guy is corruptible; he’s not somebody we should respect. He is just an ordinary mortal.

Stephen: But in that case, Lucifer was right.

Zimbardo: Lucifer was right, and God was wrong.

Stephen: [laughing, backing away] Okay, okay!

Zimbardo: If God was into reconciliation, He would say, I made a mistake, okay? God created Hell. Paradoxically, it was *God* who created Hell as a place to put Lucifer and the fallen angels. And had He not created Hell, then evil would not exist, so you would not ...

Stephen: No, evil exists because of the disobedience of Satan. God gave Satan, the angels, and man, free will. Satan used his free will, and abused it by not obeying authority. Hell was created by Satan’s disobedience to God and his purposeful removal from God’s love. Which is what Hell is: removing yourself from God’s love. You send yourself to Hell, God does not send you there.

Zimbardo: Obviously, you learned well in Sunday School.

Stephen: I teach Sunday School, mother@%#&er!!!

[Still laughing] Dr. Zimbardo, thank you so much for joining us. The book is, The Lucifer Effect. We’ll be right back!