IT was a happy coincidence that yesterday morning The National” had an article about the re-running of the Milgram experiment, while last night BBC2 showed I, Daniel Blake, a fictionalised account of life under the Universal Credit regime.

In the report into the work done on the Milgram experiment, studying people applying pain when instructed, it had been found that people are quite happy to harm others if they think that it is justified in furtherance of a worthy cause.

When the experience of Universal Credit is raised with the government or a spokesman, the line which is inevitably taken is that something like 3.3 million people are in employment because of it, and that something like 80% of the population on benefits are quite happy with the situation.

The truth is much more disturbing. Clearly pain is being imposed upon a large percentage of people who claim Universal Credit, and the fitness-to-work assessments are badly flawed.

While it is tempting to blame the wage slaves carrying out the work and are oppressing their own class, they know that if they do not do the work there are unemployed who can replace them. The responsibility lies with the framers of the philosophy behind the policy.

By passing Acts and making regulations, ministers can make the actions of these people legal in terms of the law of the land. However, they can never make them moral.

Just before the 2015 election I had the pleasure of confronting Danny Alexander with this fact, and answer came there none. I don’t think he had ever thought of the moral component of his actions.

There is still no satisfactory moral justification of the Universal Credit mess apart from the implied excuse that it has forced otherwise lazy people back to work – a dubious claim. While of course the government is not acting against national law, they are acting immorally and this is something which it is important that we emphasise.

This is much more important than a party political dispute – for one thing, all the main Unionist parties have had a hand in either imposing the system or not opposing it. It cuts back at the very philosophy of what kind of society you want to live in.

Edward Andrews
Nairn

TS Eliot wrote: “And the end of all our exploring/Will be to arrive where we started/And know the place for the first time”. I recalled these words when reading the report on the work of Prof Stephen Reicher, a leading expert in the psychology of leadership.

His work refined the classic Stanley Milgram experiments, which demonstrated that people apparently focus on doing what is asked of them, disregarding the consequences of their actions. But Reicher finds that “the reality is even more disturbing: we can harm others despite caring for them, because we think it is justified in furtherance of a worthier cause”

Which – bang on cue – takes us up to our present nightmare. On July 19, 2016 George Kerevan asked Theresa May if she would press the button and kill 100,000 men, women and children. She answered without hesitation: “Yes”.

This from a vicar’s daughter and a professed Christian. A woman who (whatever other faults she may have) would probably never personally harm another human being.

For all that we are dealing with a uniquely contemporary question (nuclear genocide), the issue is in reality primitive in its simplicity. A good end does not justify an evil means. We cannot do evil that something good may come of it.

This is why Hiroshima is the greatest single-act war crime in history, for all the (historically nonsensical) rationalisation that “it shortened the war and saved allied lives”.

We are back to where we started – literally. In the Old Testament we are told: “I call heaven and earth to witness this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Choose therefore life, that both you and your children may live” (Deut. 30 19). But we have chosen death.

In the New Testament, Jesus tells us: “Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you; and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you” (Matthew 5). If only we stopped acting as if he was only kidding when he said this, and could find the courage to grasp the awesome truth that he actually meant what he said, then peace and justice might reign on earth.

But we have learnt nothing. That’s why we bless Trident, and will fire it, in the name of the Prince of Peace – and don’t die laughing hysterically.

Brian Quail
Glasgow

SANDY Allan paints a bleak picture of how Scotland could be treated post-Brexit by this UK Government (Letters, January 4).

Too harsh a picture? Not credible? Well, let’s never forget that such a reaction has happened before, when an English government reacted to “Scottish upstarts” by outlawing Highland dress and the playing of our national instrument, and building English-only schools.

Post-1745, the Highlands of Scotland were effectively conquered by England, although it was part of the “union”. The effect of it was to attack the Gaelic language, depress the Highlanders’ dignity of independence, break up the clan culture and subdue their contempt for what was a foreign government. Not to mention the resultant emigration and de-population.

As Westminster’s contempt for Scotland is obviously still at “active volcano” level, Sandy Allan is right to throw up this warning.

Dennis White
Blackwood

IT’S just amazing how much outrage has been stirred up by a few vegan advertisements on buses and a vegan “sausage” roll. A tiny drop of vegan propaganda against an ocean of meat propaganda, and all hell breaks loose. Well, I don’t mind saying it the way it is. The meat farming industry has inherent environmental, ethical and human health problems. Crop farming can be improved, but is streets ahead in all three categories. There is no way of improving meat. And veggie or vegan food is tasty.

Derek Ball
Bearsden