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Implications of the stanford prison experiment to todays world
Obedience and the milgram experiments essay review
Implications of the stanford prison experiment to todays world
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When one shoots and kills an intruder in her home, is it considered murder or self defense? When a soldier shoots and kills a man, is he defending his country and following orders, or he is committing murder? These are questions raised by A Few Good Men, a 1992 film by Rob Riener. When Lance Corporal Harold Dawson and Pfc. Louden Downey are given orders to give Pfc. William Santiago a code red, they accidentally take it too far and kill him. They are then placed on trial for murder, but are they really guilty? Though many people would consider Dawson and Downey to be sadistic or even ruthless for what they did to Santiago, Zimbardo in “The Stanford Prison Experiment” and Milgram in “The Perils of Obedience” explain how they are simply ordinary …show more content…
He found that when a person is labeled with some kind of social role, they begin to form themselves to it, however untrue it may be. In A Few Good Men, for example, Dawson and Downey refuse to plead guilty and take the plea bargain as Kaffee suggests, because they feel it 's against their code, “Unit, Core, God, Country,” to take the easy way out. Both Dawson and Downey knew that giving a Code Red to a peer is illegal and morally wrong, however they both wholeheartedly thought that what they were doing was their job, and that they did nothing wrong. Dawson explains his reasoning to Kaffee when he says “What do we do then, sir? We joined the corps 'cause we wanted to live our lives by a certain code. And we found it in the Corps. And now you 're asking us to sign a piece of paper that says we have no honor. You 're asking us to say we 're not marines. If a judge and jury decide that what we did was wrong, I 'll accept …show more content…
But I believe I was right, sir. I believe I did my job. And I won 't dishonor myself, my unit, or the Corps, so that I can go home in six months.” (Kaffee, Dawson, and Downey in interrogation room). By saying this, he proves what Zimbardo found in his study: when placed in a social role, young educated men and women are radically transformed to fit that role. Though Dawson appears to have no remorse over what he 's done, we see that he knows what he did was wrong when he says “I never meant to hurt Willy” to Kaffee, Jo, and Sam after he 's been sentenced. Would Dawson and Downey have done what they did to Santiago if they were at home with family? If they had never joined the Marines? Zimbardo 's answer to this would be a definite no. To explain his reasoning, he says “To what extent do we allow ourselves to become imprisoned by docilely accepting the roles others assign us or, indeed, choose to remain prisoners because being passive and dependent frees us from the need to act and be responsible for our actions (117).” Through Zimbardo 's viewpoint, Dawson and Downey were nothing more than ordinary men who were placed in an extreme role and were radically changed to assume that role. Much like how the guards changed in The Stanford Prison Experiment, Dawson and Downey were changed through the pressures of the military, and took the responsibility of the Code Red too
In Soft Spots: A Marine’s Memoir of Combat and Post-traumatic stress disorder, Sargent Clint Van Winkle participated in one of the bloodiest wars in Iraq. Sargent Winkle signed up to protect his country, without truly understanding the reason for the war. He did not know what to expect, what was going to happen, exactly who it was going to happen to, but courageously he was out there waiting on an answer that in fact was never revealed. However, Winkle was a part of that war, which made him agree with the terms that led. He was trained to follow orders, forced to survive, and made a pact to protect the guy to right and to the left of him. Despite being diagnosed with PTSD and the uncertainties of whether the war was worthy or not, he favored
Fearful of the outrageous threat of death against him, Kendrick complies with the unjust order of the Code Red due to the strict conduct that the members of the Marine Corps must adhere to, although the order was morally incorrect. Fromm effectively explains why Kendrick was quick to obey Jessep for the belief that “work cannot be done properly if nothing but fear is behind the obedience” (Fromm 127). Kendrick was not able to clearly identify a sensible morality, thus portraying the reality of Fromm’s beliefs that blind obedience is derived from corrupt motives. Fromm continues by discussing that obedience must be instigated by a formidable force of legitimate authority before the act of compliance can occur, and Jessep was the seemingly legitimate authority portrayed in the movie (Fromm 127). Michelle Sada, a Penn State Representative, would concur with Fromm due to her idea that individuals disregard the negative outcomes of situations prior to a decision derived from fear (Sada). Sada would likely agree that Kendrick’s intense military training was the source of his terror, because the consequences of disobeying the orders of superiors were of immense gravity. Furthermore, Szegedy-Maszak would coincide with Fromm that fear contributes to making decisions by Jessep possesses the ability to demand orders because members of
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.
Obedience may be a simple word, yet it has a powerful impact on the daily lives of millions. Obedience is simply when one follows the orders or directions of another figure, presumably in an authoritative position. This is something nearly everyone bows to everyday without even realizing it - and it can drastically change our lives as we know it. Obedience is, for example, how the holocaust happened. The Germans were ordinary people turned into murderers because they followed the orders of one man - their dictator, Adolf Hitler. Of course, obedience does not always result in horrid results such as the holocaust or result in such a large catastrophe. Obedience can have drastic effects on the lives of only a few men as well; this is showcased in the movie A Few Good Men.
Murder at the Margin is a murder mystery involving various economic concepts. The story takes place in Cinnamon Bay Plantation on the Virgin Island of St. John. It is about Professor Henry Spearman, an economist from Harvard. Spearman organizes an investigation of his own using economic laws to solve the case.
The Murderers Are Among Us, directed by Wolfe Gang Staudte, is the first postwar film. The film takes place in Berlin right after the war. Susan Wallner, a young women who has returned from a concentration camp, goes to her old apartment to find Hans Mertens living there. Hans took up there after returning home from war and finding out his house was destroyed. Hans would not leave, even after Susan returned home. Later on in the film we find out Hans was a former surgeon but can no longer deal with human suffering because of his traumatic experience in war. We find out about this traumatic experience when Ferdinand Bruckner comes into the film. Bruckner, Hans’ former captain, was responsible for killing hundreds
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.
On March 16, 1968, in the Quang Ngai region of Vietnam, specifically My Lai, the United States military was involved in an appalling slaughter of approximately 500 Vietnamese civilians. There are numerous arguments as to why this incident even had the capacity to occur. Although some of the arguments seem valid, can one really make excuses for the slaughter of innocent people? The company that was responsible for the My Lai incident was the Charlie Company and throughout the company there were many different accounts of what happened that reprehensible day. Therefore there are a few contradictions about what had occurred, such as what the commanding officers exact instructions for the soldiers were. Even with these contradictions the results are obvious. The question that must be posed is whether these results make the American soldiers involved that day “guilty”. There is the fact that the environment of the Vietnam War made it very confusing to the soldiers exactly who the enemy was, as well as providing a pent up frustration due to the inability to even engage in real combat with the enemy. If this is the case though, why did some soldiers with the same frustrations refuse the orders and sit out on the action, why did some cry while firing, and why then did one man go so far as to place himself between the Vietnamese and the firing soldiers? If these men who did not see the sense in killing innocents were right with their actions, then how come the ones who did partake were all found not guilty in court? The questions can keep going back and forth on this issue, but first what happened that day must be examined.
Bullets are snapping against the concrete around them! Two Marines are pinned down on a rooftop and are unaware of an enemy combatant creeping below the building. As the two Marines maneuver and support each other and their brothers on the ground, a grenade is lobbed onto the roof by the insurgent below. Recognizing the distinct thud of the grenade, Lance Corporal Carpenter of Mississippi throws himself on the grenade, shielding his friend from the blast! What gives the men and women of the Marines the drive and compassion that causes one to behave as Lance Corporal Carpenter did? What inner flame separates one Marine who climbs the ranks from one that serves with a tainted record? What values make one successful in the Marine Corps?
The protagonist is faced with similar scenarios as was Kyle, such as the decision of shooting the man on the roof, or letting him go free. Many arguments may be made on what is morally right, but in the end, all that matters is survival itself, and doing what needs to be done. There are no rules in war, therefore all reasoning to what may be moral must be put aside. While this may be the case, human nature will eventually set in, and remorse can flood a soldier’s conscience. This was made apparent when the sniper broke down and cursed the war, providing for a turning point in the story.
In the film, A Few Good Men, characters such as the lead role, Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee (played by Tom Cruise) are portrayed to be leaders in society. I believe the movie's main focus was actually on how different a person can be because of something one person says to them. I also believe that one of the movie's main ideas was how to work people with words. This is especially true when Colonel Nathan R. Jessup (Jack Nicholson) is interrogated by Cruise. The way that Nicholson answers Cruise's questions is with such sophistication and knowledge that even though you know that he had his speech written out for him, it was delivered with such eloquence that it allows the viewer to understand what Nicholson is really feeling at that particular moment.
We can all agree that serial killers are unpredictable scary people but when it comes to why they kill, everyone has a different view. In my research paper I will get into the mind of a serial killer and try to figure out what exactly sets them into uncontrollable rage.
those that are more at risk, such as, group homes and detention centers. These days home
Being the sufferer of a dreaded shame punishment is much like embarking on a long journey. Although painful at the time, one can look back upon the experience and be made a better person in the end. Shame punishments build character and serve as alternatives to those who need a little extra push.
A man willing to forgive and not forget, is a man of true ascendancy. One who finally aquires the will-power to face the ferocious beast that has haunted him for over forty years deserves forgiveness. Most importantly from himself, for not doing so much earlier. In "The Seventh Man", the narrator had faced a traumatic experience, a giant wave that changed his life forever.