Brownstone Institute BYÂ
Late in the summer of 1971, a young man was taken from his home in Palo Alto, California. Then another. And another. Nine in all, they were each spirited away. Eventually brought to a place with no windows and no clocks, they were stripped and they were chained. They were costumed in dress-like gowns. They were given numbers to be used in place of their names. Minor pleasures were redefined as privileges, as were such basic acts as bathing, brushing oneâs teeth, and using a proper toilet when one pleased.
In essence, they had become the playthings of the nine other young men who now kept them in that windowless place. Uniformly dressed in khakis pants and shirts, along with large reflective sunglasses, wearing whistles around their necks and brandishing clubs, these nine other young men could have been their classmates, their co-workers, their friends had they met in another place or time, but instead now possessed near absolute control over them, often exercising it for no other purpose than to humiliate and emasculate, to remind their prisoners of their subordinate state.
These uniformly dressed young men in khakis and sunglasses were the guards of the âStanford County Prison.â They were acting at the behest of Dr. Phillip G. Zimbardo…
