A Psychological Experiment: The Abuse Of Power

Ever Since the development of societies, governments have been put into place and a sense of power has existed. People have gone to extreme ends in order to obtain and keep their positions of power. This is seen in ancient history with the assassination of Julius Caesar, and in recent history the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. These are examples of the psychology of power taking advantage of people. All people who are given an ounce of power are bound to abuse it when put in a political position instead of protecting people’s rights. The abuse of power was demonstrated in the a psychological experiment called the Milgram Experiment. This was an experiment that had authoritative figures tell subjects to deliver a shock to what they thought was a real person. The subjects complied to giving shocks to a point of killing a person (Hollander 56). When the subjects refused to shock a person anymore, the people leading the experiment

These experiments paralel what has occurred in political history in relation to the abuse of power. Such government include that of China in the time of Tiananmen Square. This demonstrates the abuse of power because the Chinese government went to extremes in order to conceal the truth of Tiananmen Square. They censored the internet, books, and all articles to practically erase it from history. A different abuse of power was also seen in Nazi Germany. The people of Germany were almost brainwashed to believing in Hitler’s ideals in relation to the Holocaust. This was made possible through propaganda and Hitler’s manipulation of Orwellian speech. His abuse of power was built on convincing people that everything he did was always correct. Both instances in history are similar to 1984. China’s controlling government and Hitler’s persuasive nature is similar to The Ministry of Truth where the people change records to make Big Brother always seem right (Orwell