Who pushed me?Around the time of the hearing regarding the release of Etti Alon, the banker who raised a quarter of a billion shekels for the Commercial Bank, archive films were shown of her various court appearances, handcuffed and dressed in a prisoner's uniform.
These pictures included the all-too-familiar scenes in visible The prisoner enters from the side door, the camera focuses on a close-up of his face, his eyes darting around, the lawyers in their ridiculous robes whispering to him, a quick glance at the audience in the courtroom, then a retreat out the brown doors that close as the judge enters.
But in the random video that floated in the background of the narration by Danny Kushmaro or Yaakov Ayalon (there were many of them), I noticed a number of movements that caught my attention.
A young girl in an IPS uniform walked up behind Etti Alon, pushed her slightly towards her seat, and then motioned for her, not too gently, to sit down.
Alon, for her part, did not express any resistance, she 'absorbed' the slight push, and seemed to obey it without paying any attention to it.
She moved forward, and sat down exactly as she was instructed. It was almost automatic behavior ('habitus' in sociological language), and she responded to it exactly as was expected of her, and as she probably already expected of herself.
How likely are you, young people in your 20s, to obey a gentle push on your back and sit down in response to a humiliating hand gesture?
Just try to imagine your reaction.
I assume she is unpleasant. Eti Alon should be remembered. She studied for a bachelor's degree in economics at the university, was deputy investment manager at a commercial bank, was selected several times as an outstanding employee, won fat bonuses and even a certificate of appreciation for her diligence and efficiency, and here she is being pushed and shoved by a young woman, perhaps a sergeant major in the service.
How did this happen? How does a person become obedient, and devoid of resistance mechanisms?
My diagnosis seems to be the purest expression of Zimbardo's famous experiment in 1971. Without further ado, I will simply say that Prof. Zimbardo and his students placed an ad in the newspaper through which they recruited 21 subjects, who were completely randomly assigned to be 'prisoners' and 'guards.' They asked the participants to play their part in an improvised 'prison cell,' and after a few days the results were shocking: the "guards," who were overwhelmed with a sense of power, abused the "prisoners" more and more.
They harassed them, searched their bodies, isolated them, worked them hard, and frequently woke them up in the middle of the night for checking and counting. The prisoners, in turn, suffered from depression and became apathetic and passively obedient.
All this after only six days of experimentation, which ended abruptly in light of the deteriorating condition of the 'prisoners'.
Zimbardo developed the theory of 'role entry' based on the findings. Accepting and internalizing the role helps a person overcome their moral inhibitions, and they feel that it is not they who act but 'the role', and in Zimbardo's words: "It was scary, we couldn't tell where the person ends and the role begins.".
Of course, I'm not blaming all IPS employees here, or even those who guarded Alon in that brief video, who probably performed their duties properly, but we can't ignore the thought: What do 'real' prisoners go through in prisons around the world? How do they manage to maintain their self-respect?
In other words: Does Moshe Katsav's refusal to wear prisoner clothes in public now seem more legitimate?
It's coming along nicely. G.A. My friend. Your Honor received a letter from a well-known Sephardic rabbi, who signed his name with the letters "S" and now he wants to know what they mean?
Well, my intuitive answer is 'pure Sephardi', pure in relation to what, attribution, behavior, I don't know, but the Gram Mazuz Rosh Yeshiva of Kishat Rachamim claimed that the meaning also means 'sin and tin', or in Hebrew translation - slime and clay.
To say: The seal of the 9th, as if he said, I am the little one, I am ashes and dust [and thanks to Dr. Avshalom Kor for the reference].
But Rabbi Mazuz says, how were letters found in which the following is printed at the top of the letter: 'Dear friend of the perfect sage, Shimon 69'? Does the sender of the letter address his friend and say to him: Peace, my friend of the 'sin and tin', the ash and dust? It is not clear.
The "sat" in this case is an acronym for the blessing "May his end be good," something like "Yahweh [May God preserve him and give him life]," "Yazou [May God preserve him, preserve him, and give him life]," "Nero Yair," and so "sat," which means "May his end be only good.".
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