Stanley Milgram's The My Lai Massacre: The Perils Of Obedience

Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist, in the “Perils of Obedience,” writes about his experiment on obedience to authority. He explains how the subjects he used were asked, by a mock scientist, to administer shocks to the learner when they answered a question incorrectly. Milgram was shocked to find that a majority of the subjects administered the highest voltage, simply because they were told to by what they assumed was an authority figure. Writing also on the perils of obedience, specifically in the military, Herbert C. Kelman, professor at Harvard University, and V. Lee Hamilton, a Yale professor, write the article “The My Lai Massacre: A Military Crime of Obedience,”. They write about one of the worst atrocities committed by the United

States military, where hundreds of innocent Vietnamese were slaughtered during the Vietnam conflict. Solomon E. Asch, a social psychologist at Rutgers University, writes “Opinions and Social Pressures” about obedience from the perspective of people doing so out of compliance to a group. He explains how a group of subjects was pulled together and shown a series of lines and told to decide which two were the same. All the subjects but one were told to lie about which ones were the same and a majority of the subjects who were not told to lie went along with the rest of the group because of social pressures. In the film A Few Good Men, there are many situations in which obedience to authority is a crucial decision that each character must face. Markinson faces this conflict when he is given an unethical order from Jessup. Dawson and Downey find themselves obeying an unethical order, putting aside their individual morality, because they are marines and find it honorable to do what they are told.
Complying with an unethical order given by their commander, Dawson and Downey give Santiago a code red, which ends up killing him.

Milgram would argue that the two men are innocent simply because they were following the orders of someone above them. Comparing Dawson and Downey to the teacher in his obedience experiments, he would say that even though they knew what they were doing would bring harm to the subject they did it anyways because they were told by an authority figure. Milgram states in his article that “the experimenter’s physical presence has a marked impact on his authority” (Milgram 88). This is a huge factor as to why Dawson and Downey obeyed the dishonorable order. Milgram would state that because of the physical presence of their commander, and also being marines, they were more prone to obey the order. He effectively states that in his experiment a majority of the subjects obeyed the experimenter whose authority was fragile in many respects (Milgram 89). Chris White, a former marine, writes an article “A Former Marine on the Marine Motto” on the desensitization that occurs in the marine training camps (White). This is an important factor as to why Dawson and Downey obeyed the order. Desensitization and the authority of a marine general have much greater influence than just that of an experimenter in a lab coat. Milgram believes the “experimenter’s authority to be much less than that of a general, since the experimenter has no power to enforce his imperatives, and since participation in a psychological experiment scarcely evokes the sense of urgency and dedication found in warfare” (Milgram 88). The subjects in his experiment obeyed the orders of the experimenter who does not have half of the authority a general in a war has. The Marine Corps website says it simply as Semper Fidelis, Latin for always faithful, which guides Marines to be faithful to the mission, to each other, to the Corps and to the country, no matter what (“Semper Fidelis”). The

Mai Lai massacre is a very similar situation to what happened in the movie. Orders are passed down to the next person in line and nobody is going to question them since they were given by their superior. Kelman and Hamilton would agree with Milgram in that Dawson and Downey were simply obeying orders. They quote Calley, the officer charged for the crimes at My Lai, saying that “all orders were to be assumed legal, that the soldier’s job was to carry out any order given him to the best of his ability” (Kelman and Hamilton 136). Calley goes on to say that anyone who disobeyed an order could be sentenced to death, and that if a soldier had an issue with an order they are to first carry it out and then come back to make a complaint (Kelman and Hamilton 136). Carrying out the orders given is something that not only Dawson and Downey did, but Markinson as well.
The relationship between Jessup and Markinson is one of control. Markinson must obey the orders of Jessup and feels that he has no control over his own life. This situation from the movie relates a good deal, in terms of obedience, with the My Lai Massacre incidence. Orders were passed down to the next highest ranking officer in each situation. Kelman and Hamilton effectively explain how Barker was the original giver of the orders and he then passed the orders down to Captain Medina (Kelman and Hamilton 133). Medina then passed those orders down to Calley and the orders were unclear from the beginning (Kelman and Hamilton 133). Much like the orders given at My Lai, Kelman and Hamilton would argue that the order to give the code red was passed down from many people and was unethical. Markinson knew the order went against his own moral values but went through with it because he felt that he did not have a choice, much like Medina and Calley did not have the choice to question the orders given to them. Kelman and Hamilton would argue however that Calley, even after being convicted of murdering hundreds of innocent people, still did not feel guilty for his actions. While Markinson felt so guilty about not helping Santiago and agreeing to give him a code red that he committed suicide. He felt so guilty for not acting upon his own moral values that he believes taking his own life was his only option. Solomon Asch would argue that Markinson, instead of acting independently, went along with the majority. When a group of people all say that something is right even if it is wrong, Asch logically explains that most people will go along with the majority (Asch 144). He states that in his experiment of social pressure, that under group pressure the subjects swung to acceptance of the misled majority’s wrong judgment in thirty-six point eight percent of the time (Asch 144). Sharon Presley, a lecturer in psychology, would agree to the social pressure that Asch speaks of. In her article “The Present and Future of Obedience to Unjust Authority” she writes that the power of authority to claim people's allegiance and obedience has remained strong over the years and most people do what they are told by authority (Presley). Authority and social pressure has the power to change the way people think and act in any situation. Asch would refute Kelman and Hamilton that while yes he followed orders because he is in the military, but it also hard to do with the social pressure he was faced with from the people who surrounded him. Saul McLeod, a teacher assistant at the University of Manchester, agrees with Asch in his article, “Obedience to Authority,” by saying that obedience is a form of social influence where an individual acts in response to a direct order from another individual, who is usually an authority figure (McLeod). McLeod goes on to say that it is assumed that without an order the person would not act in the same way (McLeod). Both McLeod and Asch would agree that acting alone, Markinson would not have gone through with the order, but because of his situation he was pressured to obey.
There are many factors that contribute to whether or not people decide to obey authority. While disobeying the unethical order could have caused many repercussions, they also had to face the pressures of their surroundings. Obeying an unethical order ultimately depends on the situation that a person is faced with.