The general argument made by Philip Meyer in his work If Hitler Asked You to Electrocute a Stranger, Would You? Probably is that human beings, as a whole, are an obedient, dangerous group, using the Milgram Experiments to explain and support his belief. More specifically, he argues that there is not nationality, gender, nor race that is inclined to violence or conformity, instead that near every person, no matter how kind and mundane, are severely compliant. He writes, “...65% of subjects, 20-to-50-year-old American males, everyday, ordinary people, like you and me, obediently kept pushing those levers in the belief they were shocking the mild-mannered learner.... Who was chosen for the role because of his innocent appearance, all the way up …show more content…
More specifically, I believe that we are hard-wired to mold into a specific construct, those who defy it being outside the norm, yet also the one we are most inclined to follow- this structured obedience numbs us from others, ourselves, and our morals, resulting in behaviors or actions we would never perform otherwise, such as holding a person down, electrocuting them in spite of their protests. For examples we can simply look throughout history; the holocaust was a time of murder, violence, and rape, many German citizens horrified by their actions, ashamed, only after the system was abolished; the Philippine-American war, in which both sides committed heinous war crimes, had numerous men chalking it up to following orders; though it is true that many attempt to simply offset blame, the study Meyer discusses in this piece, among others, proves there is more at work than hate. Although the author might object that associating war crimes with obedience may be taking the experiments too far, I maintain that they still prove a crucial behavior that is definitely seen in soldiers: frankly, it’s trained into soldiers. Therefore, I conclude that this study reveals deep, dark traits of human nature, this obedience of humans that has lended a huge part into the atrocious miseries of this planet- but now, I must wonder- if we
In the Article by Philip Meyer’s “If Hitler Asked You to Electrocute a Stranger, Would You? Probably” discusses the Milgram experiment, and the readiness to obey authority without question.
In the pursuit of safety, acceptance, and the public good, many atrocities have been committed in places such as Abu Ghraib and My Lai, where simple, generally harmless people became the wiling torturers and murderers of innocent people. Many claim to have just been following orders, which illustrates a disturbing trend in both the modern military and modern societies as a whole; when forced into an obedient mindset, many normal and everyday people can become tools of destruction and sorrow, uncaringly inflicting pain and death upon the innocent.
It is human nature to respect and obey elders or authoritative figures, even when it may result in harm to oneself or others. Stanley Milgram, an American social psychologist, conducted an experiment to test the reasoning behind a person’s obedience. He uses this experiment in hope to gain a better understanding behind the reason Hitler was so successful in manipulating the Germans along with why their obedience continued on such extreme levels. Milgram conducts a strategy similar to Hitler’s in attempt to test ones obedience. Diana Baumrind, a clinical and developmental psychologist, disagreed with Milgram’s experiment in her article, ”Some Thoughts on Ethics of Research: After Reading Milgram’s “Behavioral Study of obedience”, Baumrind explains
At first Milgram believed that the idea of obedience under Hitler during the Third Reich was appalling. He was not satisfied believing that all humans were like this. Instead, he sought to prove that the obedience was in the German gene pool, not the human one. To test this, Milgram staged an artificial laboratory "dungeon" in which ordinary citizens, whom he hired at $4.50 for the experiment, would come down and be required to deliver an electric shock of increasing intensity to another individual for failing to answer a preset list of questions. Meyer describes the object of the experiment "is to find the shock level at which you disobey the experimenter and refuse to pull the switch" (Meyer 241). Here, the author is paving the way into your mind by introducing the idea of reluctance and doubt within the reader. By this point in the essay, one is probably thinking to themselves, "Not me. I wouldn't pull the switch even once." In actuality, the results of the experiment contradict this forerunning belief.
Comparative Analysis The power of blind obedience taints individuals’ ability to clearly distinguish between right and wrong in terms of obedience, or disobedience, to an unjust superior. In the article “The Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal: Sources of Sadism,” Marianne Szegedy-Maszak discusses the unwarranted murder of innocent individuals due to vague orders that did not survive with certainty. Szegedy-Maszak utilizes the tactics of authorization, routinization, and dehumanization, respectively, to attempt to justify the soldiers’ heinous actions (Szegedy-Maszak 76-77). In addition, “Just Do What the Pilot Tells You” by Theodore Dalrymple distinguishes between blind disobedience and blind obedience to authority and stating that neither is superior;
This theory is put in question, when a variation of Stanley Milgram’s original experiment is described. This experiment enables the subject, not the experimenter, to choose the level of shock for incorrect answers. The results confirm that the majority of subjects did not pass the first loud protest. Stanley Milgram believes the most basic lesson of this experiment is that common people with no particular aggression, will carryout their jobs and become instruments of an evil operation.
The motion picture A Few Good Men challenges the question of why Marines obey their superiors’ orders without hesitation. The film illustrates a story about two Marines, Lance Corporal Harold W. Dawson and Private First Class Louden Downey charged for the murder of Private First Class William T. Santiago. Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee, who is known to be lackadaisical and originally considers offering a plea bargain in order to curtail Dawson’s and Downey’s sentence, finds himself fighting for the freedom of the Marines; their argument: they simply followed the orders given for a “Code Red”. The question of why people follow any order given has attracted much speculation from the world of psychology. Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist, conducted an experiment in which randomly selected students were asked to deliver “shocks” to an unknown subject when he or she answered a question wrong. In his article, “The Perils of Obedience”, Milgram concludes anyone will follow an order with the proviso that it is given by an authoritative figure. Two more psychologists that have been attracted to the question of obedience are Herbert C. Kelman, a professor at Harvard University, and V. Lee Hamilton, a professor at the University of Maryland. In their piece, Kelman and Hamilton discuss the possibilities of why the soldiers of Charlie Company slaughtered innocent old men, women, and children. The Marines from the film obeyed the ordered “Code Red” because of how they were trained, the circumstances that were presented in Guantanamo Bay, and they were simply performing their job.
Many people believe they could never commit the crime of torture; yet, Milgram, along with many others, have discovered that the converse is true. At the beginning of his piloted experiment, Milgram predicted virtually all the participants would refuse to continue. He was proven wrong when twenty-five out of forty participants continued past the point of 150 volts (80). He surmised, as the experiment progressed from the piloted study to the regular series, the total out come of average persons response was the same as they had observed in the prior study--solidifying the thought even your "average Joe" is capable of torture (81). While Milgram supports this legitimate thought with facts, stories, and examples, news and world reporter Szegedy-Maszak simply states "...Everyman is a potential torturer"(76). In correspondence with both Milgram and
According to Wes Bertrand, author of "Abstract", states that "the degree of self- responsibility practiced by a person drastically affects his or her level of obedience to unjust commands" (Bertrand). Milgram related his experiment with Hitler 's Germany by relating that "the man in the camp who actually dropped Cyclon-b into gas chambers was able to justify his behavior on the ground that he was only following orders from above" (Milgram 89). Baumrind supports his statement coming from one point of view; she argues that because Hitler made the Jews sound subhuman and not worth the extra effort, a subordinate officer slaughtering the Jews has no need to feel guilt because he was acting right within his frame of reference" (Baumrind 93). In agreement with Baumrind claiming the Jews were made subhuman, the article "German Jews during the Holocaust, 1939–1945" explains how they took their belongings claiming to use them to produce weapons for the war, the level of obedience and officers acting as they were ordered to by their superiors was necessary or tragedy might strike them as well.If what Diana Baumrind says is true, she is supporting Milgram by saying that the officer was acting right because he was told so, rather than disputing him; like the experiment when the experiment when the experimenter asked the teacher to continue with the
He observes that most people go against their natural instinct to never harm innocent humans and obey the extreme and dangerous instructions of authority figures. Milgram is well aware of his audience and organization throughout his article, uses quotes directly from his experiment and connects his research with real world examples to make his article as effective as possible. Stanley Milgram selected 40 college participants, aged 20-50, to take part in the experiment at Yale University. Milgram says, “The point of the experiment is to see how far a person will proceed in a concrete and measureable situation in which he is ordered to inflict increasing pain on a protesting victim” (632). Although the 40 men or women thought that they were in a drawing to see who would be the “teacher” and the “learner,” the drawing was fixed.
In Gwynne Dyer’s article “Anybody’s Son Will Do”, the conversion of civilians to killers is being explained in stages. This articles focuses more on male psychology and malleable people. The author’s belief is that people can be easily brainwashed if they are put in constant stress. To support this idea, the author gives examples of military training around the world which psychologically destroys individual values and loyalties and rebuilds them to make combat troops that will do exactly what has been ordered and defend his groups to the death.
Fromm explains that humans obey orders because of “fear, hate, and greed”, which, in the end, harms humanity (Fromm 125). Agreeing with this idea, Zimbardo states that “self-aggrandizement” is accomplished by “self-deprecation” of others (Zimbardo 109). Christopher Shea’s experiment also backs up the claim that people act for themselves. Shea would concur with Fromm that humans behave greedily (Shea). In contrast, Shea would not believe that people behave to put others down, which is Zimbardo’s beliefs (Shea). Jessup wished to express his authority by giving orders and allowing himself to advance even higher. Jessup harmed Santiago to advance personally; in addition, Dawson and Downey obeyed orders to gain approval from Jessup. Fromm may argue that Dawson and Downey followed commands due to fear. Zimbardo would believe that they thought completing the order was the correct action to be taken. The article “Human Obedience: The Myth of Blind Conformity” also connects with Zimbardo’s viewpoint. The article explains why people become passive and eventually deem their actions as correct (Human Obedience: The Myth of Blind Conformity). Zimbardo would not consider humans to be passive just blind to the truth. “Human Obedience: The Myth of Blind Conformity” would reply that individuals need to rely on their mind and not listen to commands. Both authors believe the marines’ actions
Obedience is a widely debated topic today with many different standpoints from various brilliant psychologists. Studying obedience is still important today to attempt to understand why atrocities like the Holocaust or the My Lai Massacre happened so society can learn from them and not repeat history. There are many factors that contribute to obedience including situation and authority. The film A Few Good Men, through a military court case, shows how anyone can fall under the influence of authority and become completely obedient to conform to the roles that they have been assigned. A Few Good Men demonstrates how authority figures can control others and influence them into persuading them to perform a task considered immoral or unethical.
Summary of the Experiment In Stanley Milgram’s ‘The Perils of Obedience’, Milgram conducted experiments with the objective of knowing “how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist" (Milgram 317). In the experiments, two participants would go into a warehouse where the experiments were being conducted and inside the warehouse, the subjects would be marked as either a teacher or a learner. A learner would be hooked up to a kind of electric chair and would be expected to do as he is being told by the teacher and do it right because whenever the learner said the wrong word, the intensity of the electric shocks increased. Similar procedure was undertaken on the teacher and the results of the experiments showed conclusively that a large number of people would go against their personal conscience in obedience to authority (Milgram 848).... ...
...g factors such as fear of consequences for not obeying, human nature’s willingness to conform, perceived stature of authority and geographical locations. I also believe that due to most individual’s upbringings they will trust and obey anyone in an authoritative position even at the expense of their own moral judgment. I strongly believe that Stanley Milgram’s experiments were a turning point for the field of social psychology and they remind us that “ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process”. Despite these findings it is important to point out it is human nature to be empathetic, kind and good to our fellow human beings. The shock experiments reveal not blind obedience but rather contradictory ethical inclinations that lie deep inside human beings.