In society, fear is a very prevalent reality. Everyone is fearful of something or someone. Day to day something terrible happens causing people to become more cautious and distressed. The real difference in people’s fear, is what stimulates it. It could be insects, heights, small spaces, war or even a certain someone. In the movie A Few Good Men directed by Rob Reiner one can see the pattern of how rank can trigger fear throughout the unfolding of the story. Lt. Daniel Kaffee defends two U.S Marines who are charged with the killing of a fellow marine. Lt. Cdr. JoAnne Galloway convinces Kaffee that there is a case to be told. She believes the accused marines were ordered to give a Code Red to Pfc. William T. Santiago. Throughout the movie, …show more content…
Sam Weinberg all go down to Cuba to meet with Col. Nathan R. Jessup, Lt. Col. Matthew Andrew Markinson, and Lt. Jonathan Kendrick to discuss the case surrounding Santiago. Throughout the scene JoAnne keeps her head down and tends to play with her spoon. She never once looks Jessup in the eyes when Kaffee is talking to him. Even though she is of high rank, Jessup 's presence ignited her fear because he has so much influence. When JoAnne does ask a few questions, Jessup undermines her and dismisses her questions. One can recognize Jessup’s influence when he smoked the cigar because cigars are considered a symbol of power. While the movie depicts the influence of a high ranked officer over an individual with meager power, the article “The Stanford Prison Experiment” by Philip G. Zimbardo similarly relates to the message of, rank stimulating fear. Zimbardo illustrates his prison experiment in his article and describes his mock prison of guards and prisoners. He says, “as the guards became more aggressive, prisoners became more passive” (109). Comparing the movie to Zimbardo’s experiment, the prisoners infact became afraid of the guards even though they knew it was only an experiment. Zimbardo created an environment to test the ability of individuals to resist authoritarian or obedient roles, if the social setting requires these roles (105). They were subjected to vilify and curse each other publicly, but they began to …show more content…
At this moment it seems as if rank vanishes because Kaffee has the control of the conversation because he is asking all the questions. Jessup’s rank disappears when he is up there because he is under the law where no one is seen higher than anyone else. Although Kaffee is nervous at first to begin his examination, once the air marshals arrive in the courtroom, it seemed as if Kaffee then became more confident with his questions to Jessup. Kaffee disregards Jessup 's rank because he wants the truth to come out. The barrier is broken between the two characters once Jessup shows his fear when the air marshal 's walk in. Jessup no longer holds power over Kaffee. The camera specifically focuses in on his face to capture his reaction to seeing the two men walk in. Jessup 's face stiffens up and he seems to become more tense than before. He becomes more defensive to questions that Kaffee is asking him and tries to undermine him. When Kaffee begins getting deeper into his questions Jessup smiles and chuckles, a reaction that also happened to some of the participants in the Milgram experiment. In the article “The Perils of Obedience” by Stanley Milgram he discusses the peculiar reactions of some of his subjects in his experiment. One man began to laugh to the point that he could not control his laughter no matter what he did. He would have to rub his face to hide his laughter (83). It seems when someone is faced with
The Dangers of Fear Irish Playwright, George Bernard Shaw, once said, “The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity.” Inhumanity is mankind’s worst attribute. Every so often, ordinary humans are driven to the point where they have no choice but to think of themselves. One of the most famous examples used today is the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night demonstrates how fear is a debilitating force that causes people to lose sight of who they once were.
“At the University of California at Irvine, experiments in rats indicate that the brain’s hormonal reaction to fear can be inhibited, softening the formation of memories and the emotions they evoke” (Baard).
This is greatly frowned upon where in the military respecting a higher officer is strongly enforced. The disrespect and lack of obedience in this situation is logically an effect of Kaffee’s self-entitlement. Milgram may explain Kaffee’s entitlement from a review of his own experiment. He can argue that the subjects in his experiment were established with a sense of entitlement when they are briefed that the success of the experiment depends on them and their choices (Milgram 78). Milgram would connect his subjects with Kaffee by effectively explaining when Kaffee is confronted about his father and in result praised for having such a great man as his father, he takes this as praise of himself from coming from such a family. Logically he adds self-importance to himself resulting in entitlement. In support of Milgram’s claim, the article of “Entitlement Predicts Sexism,” collaborated by Case Western Reserve University, would add the addition of the connection between sexism and entitlement. Studies mentioned by the article would support the opinion that Kaffee not only felt entitled above her but felt as a man he was not required to show her respect (Entitlement Predicts Sexism). Ross and Nisbett, authors of “The Power of Situations,” state that people tend to place more value on the personal traits of a person rather than giving consideration to the
A former Yale psychologist, Stanley Milgram, administered an experiment to test the obedience of "ordinary" people as explained in his article, "The Perils of Obedience". An unexpected outcome came from this experiment by watching the teacher administer shocks to the learner for not remembering sets of words. By executing greater shocks for every wrong answer created tremendous stress and a low comfort levels within the "teacher", the one being observed unknowingly, uncomfortable and feel the need to stop. However, with Milgram having the experimenter insisting that they must continue for the experiments purpose, many continued to shock the learner with much higher voltages.The participants were unaware of many objects of the experiment until
In this article two experiments were mentioned; the Milgram's Experiment and the Stanford Experiment supporting that “people conform passively and unthinkingly to both the instructions and the roles that authorities provide, however malevolent these may be”. However, recently, the consensus of the two experiments had been challenged by the work of social identity theorizing. The Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted in 1971 by Zimbardo. This experiment included a group of students who were “randomly assigned to be either guards or prisoners”. It was conducted in a mock prison at the Stanford Psychology Department. Prisoners were abused, humiliated, and undergone psychological torture. In the experiment the guards played a very authoritarian
Besides, his actions continued to be abusive when Claudio’s sister, Isabella, comes to beg for her brother’s life. He proposes Isabella to sleep with him and only then he would agree not to sentence Claudio to death. In this case, he also uses his authority to gain what he wants, which is obviously an abuse of power. Another example of the abuse of power is in “A Few Good Men.” In the movie two U.S. Marines, Dawson, and Downey, are judged in a court-martial for killing their colleague, Private Santiago and are defended by LT Kaffee with the assistance of Cmdr. Galloway. The defenders are suspicious about the details of the murder and the storyline about Santiago. According to it, Santiago was not respecting commands, requiring to be transferred and his fellow Marines decided to train him into a better Marine. They suspect that the “Code Red,” which is an extrajudicial punishment, was ordered and carried out by two Marines. De facto, “Code Red” was ordered by Colonel Jessep, and LT Kaffee can make him confess it under pressure in the court-martial. Thus, Colonel’s example also shows abusive behavior as he used his power to achieve what he wanted bearing in mind the fact that U.S. Marines could not disobey orders. Therefore, it could be seen that law enforcement does not always mean applying the letter of the law and following the rule
A simple definition of the human psyche is the embodiment of the human spirit. However, when one takes a more in-depth look, it becomes much more complex than the tidy little package that the definition would infer. The psyche has a direct link to thoughts, emotions, reactions and consequences. Of these components, emotions have the most significant impact on the human essence. The way in which humans view and react to the world around them is directly linked to the conscious and subconscious feelings associated with a particular activating event. The human psyche is driven by a wide variety of emotions ranging from love, hate, anger, happiness, fear, and courage to name but only a few. Of these, fear has the power to disrupt the body and spirit in profound ways as it encompasses all emotions. Therefore, it is the strongest emotion associated with the human condition.
When put into the position of complete authority over others people will show their true colors. I think that most people would like to think that they would be fair, ethical superiors. I know I would, but learning about the Stanford Prison Experiment has made me question what would really happen if I was there. Would I be the submissive prisoner, the sadistic guard, or would I stay true to myself? As Phillip Zimbardo gave the guards their whistles and billy clubs they drastically changed without even realizing it. In order to further understand the Stanford Prison experiment I learned how the experiment was conducted, thought about the ethical quality of this experiment, and why I think it panned out how it did.
Fear in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee Fear is an important force in the novel because it is the cause of most people's actions. The main theme in the book is a result of fear. such as the Tom Robinson case and Boo Radley. Ignorance breeds fear which in turn breeds prejudice. Fear is infectious, and each character.
Lying is bad but the fear that can come from it is worse. Fear can rule a person which drives them to extreme and irrational acts that can shape society in a negative way. We as people are so accustomed to how we should act that during times of fear and crisis our vision is blurred and sometimes our decision making abilities are impaired. We often look past at how much fear can affect us and our society. Starting from Salem 1692 and going to the McCarthy era fear ruled the people and even now in present time America we are constantly living in fear.
The two Marines did not understand why they were charged with his murder, claiming, “We didn’t do anything wrong.” They claimed that they were only following orders from a superior. To explain the Marines’ behaviors, Milgram would argue that the Marines fell to the pressures of authority. In the article “The Perils of Obedience,” Milgram tests the psychological affects on the “teacher” rather than on the “learner” (Milgram 78) About two-thirds of the test subjects were completely obedient and used the 450-volt shocks, and all of the participants used the painful 300-volt shock (Milgram 80). With these surprising results, Milgram deducts that many of these test subjects carried out these actions because of the authority figure in the room. Coming to a final conclusion, Milgram states that ordinary people are likely to follow orders given by an authority figure, even to the extent of killing an innocent human being (Milgram 86). Obedience to authority is ingrained in children from the day they are born, and they are raised to be obedient and this is why many people are obedient. With Milgram’s conclusion, it would be logical to assume that he would argue that the influence of authority is why Dawson and
In the words of Bertrand Russell, “Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom” (Russell). Fear causes many problems in our lives. Fear influences many of a person’s actions and decisions. However, people usually regret the decisions or actions they made out of fear. Also, these actions and decisions can cause problems for those people in their future. Fear is a harmful emotion, for it clouds people’s judgement, disables them from taking action, and causes them to make decisions that they will regret later.
At a young age, children are taught to obey their parents and students are taught to obey their teachers. As a race, humans are naturally inclined to obey. Obedience is an attribute numerous people strive to achieve; however, the possibility of a negative outcome from blindly obeying orders is prominent in life and in the movie A Few Good Men. In the movie, Private Louden Downey and Lance Corporal Harold Dawson are charged with murder, conspiracy, and conduct unbecoming of a U.S Marine. These charges stem from the marines completing a “Code Red”—a punishment for misconduct or fallacy—on a fellow marine, which was issued by the greatest authority in their unit. As seen throughout A Few Good Men, and according to authors Kelman, Hamilton,
"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop and look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, '...I can take the next thing that comes along.'...You must do the thing you think you cannot do (Eleanor Roosevelt)." Every time I read these words, I am able to see the truth in them. College to me is the next step that I must take in life. Although this next step comes with much trepidation and apprehension, it is a necessary step that I must take to forever better and prepare myself for the life that I wish to lead. State University would be one of the best institutions for this, just as the choice of high school I made four years ago, Good Counsel, was the next step for me then. During high school, I have grown and changed through not only the education I have gained, but also through the activities I participated in. I have gained a lot of strengths from my time spent in high school. Although every weakness has not been erased, the next step in life will ease their numbers even more.
...ion people based on the orders of Adolf Hitler and his henchmen. In reference to the two situations, one participant of the study said that “anybody can be a guard, but not every one becomes sadistic.” This saying can be applied to real life situations, especially that of the New Jersey incident.