23 Years after the Hillsborough Stadium disaster, when 96 people were crushed to death, a government-commissioned Independent Panel has concluded that police failures contributed to the tragedy; more lives could have been saved; and after the event the South Yorkshire police mounted a concerted cover up, throwing blame on the fans. What can we learn about the underlying mind-set? And how does group pressure lead ordinary people to do wrong?
Talk on Good Morning Wales 14/9/2012
The report into the Hillsborough deaths told us that the disaster was caused by a string of cock-ups followed by a conspiracy. There was carelessness about safety and failure to respond effectively. Then came the impulse to close ranks, protect colleagues and evade responsibility by lying, doctoring evidence and defaming the victims.
These revelations are reminiscent of what we’ve also recently learned about tabloid journalism and investment banking. In each case problems have grown from a cynical and collusive institutional culture. Certain actions, even illegal ones, seem to have become acceptable within the institution only to look very different when they’ve been exposed to public scrutiny. That points to an important ethical issue that affects us all: how group pressure leads ordinary and even respectable people to act in ways that are clearly wrong.
The human desire to belong seems to be inbuilt. We want to be liked by other members of the groups we’re in, whether that’s a group of friends, the local community or a profession. We want to fit in and, if possible, be respected and receive the rewards of success. Groups also shape our beliefs, our perspectives on life and our views of what’s right and wrong. As a result we can come to think that something’s OK if it’s acceptable within our group. I suspect something like that happened in the South Yorkshire Police where ordinary people acted unethically to protect the group as a whole.
As a Buddhist it’s important to me to remember that moral responsibility lies with each individual. Yes, the culture we inhabit is bound to influence us, but I believe that developing as a person really means learning to think and act from your own values and convictions. Becoming an individual in that sense doesn’t mean rejecting what others think out of hand; but it does mean a willingness to question received wisdom and decide for yourself what’s right and true.
Sometimes, challenging group attitudes might mean abandoning success, money, comfort or a good a pension. So it’s easy to see how people find themselves going along with things they know are wrong, even when the injustice is on the scale of what happened after Hillsborough. Issues like that are rare in most of our lives, but the challenge of individuality is constant: seeing more fully what our values really are, and learning to act from them, whatever the group may say.
There is a significant point here that you have missed. It now seems that political ideology also played its part in the cover-up. Hillsborough came on the heels of the miner’s strike, and the South Yorkshire Police were Margaret Thatcher’s favourite. At the time, and during the first enquiry, she was told by one of her aids that there was something not quite right with the way the police were reporting the events of that day. She chose to ignore that information. Is it beyond the bounds of probability that the police boldness in the conspiracy, right at the very top, was due to the fact that they knew that they could get away with it? She owed them a favour for so effectively smashing the strike! Yes, of course it is true that morality in the last resort comes down to individual responsibility, but that should not blind us into not making a critique of the circumstances and forces that lead to that situation arising in the first instance.
Hi Padmadipa, I hope that not making that critique isn’t necessarily a sign of blindness; it’s just not what I chose to write about here.
Fair enough. But while Triratna teachings promote the value of the individual, members ironically often encounter a sense of personal conflict if their thinking departs significantly from that of the founder, Sangharakshita. It is an unwritten and unspoken contract, a sort of family secret – common to many religious groups – that is at odds with how Triratna’s members prefer to think of themselves.
It’s true that it’s hard to negotiate between individuality and the pressures, commitments and obligations of collectivity in the Triratna Community as elsewhere. It’s hard having a teacher and also wanting to think for yourself. I hope that it is possible for people to acknowledge their disagreements with Sangharakshita – I certainly hear a lot of people doing so in private, though of course doing so may bring with it a sense of personal conflict. Perhaps doing so publicly is harder.
For me, to be part of the Triratna Buddhist Order you have to agree, on the big things, with what it stands for. But that doesn’t imply an obligation to agree with everything. The key is seeing what the big thing are.
“It’s hard having a teacher and also wanting to think for yourself.” I think the role of a teacher is to get the pupil to the point of functioning independently – at a metaphysical level if you like, confident in their ability to guide themselves – and then move the pupil on, if it doesn’t happen naturally. There are plenty of examples of this in Buddhism. Not many teachers, however, seem able to do this: too often they don’t seem to understand this necessity, this essential part of their role, and often I think it’s because they come to depend themselves on the presence of pupils, it becomes part of who they are.
Of course, it is hard to do this and build an organisation, but maybe they are different things.
Hi Casey,
Actually, I think Sangharakshita has been quite exceptional in acting as the kind of teacher you describe. But that’s not to say that this is easy. Yes, I wrote ‘It’s hard having a teacher and also wanting to think for yourself,’ and my point is that there is an inherent tension here, but not necessarily a problem.
For me, there is value in opening oneself to the influence of others, especially very strong people like teachers, and being influenced by them; and there is value in thinking independently. Trying to do both is hard, but I think the tension is essential if one is to develop.
It’s also true that there’s a tension between the demands of collective cohesion and the merits of diversity; but you have to work with that as a creative tension, I think. Some Triratna people manage that better than others, and I think we need to do a bit more as a colllective in this regard. I see that as work in progress.
I think the point about organisations misses the mark. I would never describe Triratna as an organisation: the word simply doesn’t fit the reality.