Stanley Milgram’s Obedience to Authority, published in 1974, discusses the “shock experiments” which occurred in the 1960s, whose main focus involves testing the extent to which people are willing to obey an authority figure. Provocative and shocking, Obedience to Authority is a cornerstone of understanding human morality and actions.
To begin, Stanley Milgram conducted the shock experiments after WWII. WWII, he describes, saw massive atrocities such as the Holocaust, as “The Nazi extermination of European Jews is the most extreme instance of abhorrent immoral acts carried out by thousands of people in the name of obedience” (2). Milgram does concede in the beginning that some level of obedience is needed for society to function at a basic level, but that it should be not taken to extremes. Regardless, Milgram notes that ordinary citizens have the same potential to commit unethical or even vile actions if they are ordered to, as seen in his experiments.
Milgram’s shock experiment is as follows: there are to be “teachers” and “learners.” The teachers are supposed to teach the learners certain words and to have them memorize them. However, if the learner fails to learn the words quickly enough, they will be shocked on a slowly escalating scale via a shock generator. Teachers were recruited via ads in the newspapers, while learners were in fact aligned with the researcher - they aren’t being shocked at all during the experiment. When it comes to the shocks, they range anywhere from 15 to 450 volts, “slight shock” to “XXX.” The learners were instructed to deliberately mess up the memorization, which would force the teacher to administer the shocks. When Milgram asked psychiatrists for their predictions, “They predicted that most subjects would not go beyond the 10th shock level (150 volts, when the victim makes his first explicit demand to be freed); about 4 percent would reach the 20th shock level, and about one subjected in a thousand would administer the highest shock on the board” (31).
When it comes to the experiments, there are certain variations. Some experiments take place in highly professional settings (labs), while others take place in less professional areas. Sometimes the instructor is dressed professionally, and sometimes they wear casual clothing. Furthermore, sometimes the teacher is told that the learner is friendly, while in other times the experimenter would remark negatively on the learner, imprinting a negative view of the person in the mind of the teacher. Also, in certain experiments, the learner would be physically close to the teacher, and in other trials there would be multiple teachers (all but one who are genuine participants, like the learner) who would either agree with the experimenters’ demands to continue the shocking or refuse and leave the room. In extreme instances, the teacher would have to force the subject’s hand onto a surface which will administer the shock. The data clearly shows that people are more likely to obey while they are in highly professional settings, when the instructor is dressed professionally, when they are told negative things about the learner, when the learner is physically out of sight, when there are multiple teachers who are silent and passive about the shocking, and if they don’t have to physically coerce the learner to operate the shocker.
The shock experiments had a variety of participants. One of them, Bruno Batta, a welder, was 37 years old at the time, who was described as having a sweet disposition towards the experimenter but limited intelligence. Mr. Batta needed to be corrected multiple times when it came to the administration of the experiment, and in his variation of the experiment, he had to force the learner’s hand onto the shocker. When the learner first complained of pain, he “adopts a rigid mechanical procedure. He tests the generator switch … The learner, seated alongside him, begs him to stop, but with robotic impassivity, he continues the procedure” (46). Even more disturbingly, it is to be noted “his apparent total indifference to the learner; he hardly takes cognizance of him as a human being. Meanwhile, he relates to the experimenter in a submissive and courteous fashion” (46). Afterwards, when the learner became defiant and demanded his release, Mr. Batta continued his job with complete indifference (though interrupted with occasional disgust at the disobedience of the learner) - “‘You better answer and get it over with. We can’t stay here all night.’ These are the only words he directs to the learner in the course of the hour … The scene is brutal and depressing: his hard, impassive face showing total indifference as he subdues the screaming learner and gives him shocks” (46). Unsurprisingly, 450 volts, the maximum, is administered, and Mr. Batta feels not the slightest sign of remorse. After the experiment, he puts the blame on the experimenter, asking for the promised money, but before he leaves, he “tells the experimenter how honored he has been to help him” (47).
Another participant, a professor of the Old Testament, thankfully refused to comply with the experimenter at 150 volts, and says that “‘If one had as one’s ultimate authority God, then it trivializes human authority’” - Milgram remarks that when it comes to moral disobedience, “the answer for this man lies not in the repudiation of authority but in the substitution of good - that is, divine - authority for bad” (49). While it was a good thing for this man to stop due to his belief in Christianity, one will have to wonder what he might have done if the experimenter was a religious figure who invokes the authority of the Abrahamic God to continue the experiment. There are other incidents in the book about participants, including Jack Washington. Washington, 35 at the time of the experiment, is a drill press operator who continued to 450 volts, even after receiving a shock himself in the precursor to the experiment and knowing its pain, on the grounds that “the shocks may be painful but are not dangerous … he expresses total faith in the experimenter and indeed accepts his authority” (50). Jan Rensaleer, an industrial engineer, 32 at the time of the experiment, refused to obey the experimenter’s commands after administering 255 volts, stating that he is to blame for the learner’s pain, not the learner or the experimenter, for he is the one administering the switch. Another participant, Morris Braverman, a 39 year old social worker, is described as being overly-controlled and intelligent. He proceeded to the maximum, and he “summarizes the experiment with impressive fluency and intelligence,” expressing remorse for his blind obedience, and remarked that: “‘What appalled me was that I could possess this capacity … after it became clear that continued adherence to this value was at the expense of violation of another value … As my wife said, ‘You can call yourself Eichmann.’ I hope I can deal more effectively with any future conflicts of values I encounter’” (54).
For many of the following chapters, Milgram focuses on even more variations of the experiment, such as when a learner demands to be shocked and when there are two instructors. He also outlines a variety of psychological web diagrams which outline potential actions that can be undertaken in regards to the environment. While I could discuss the many variations of this experiment in detail, one should read the book for that information, as there are too many details to note. As stated earlier, the psychiatrists believed that most teachers would stop relatively early in the process, but this hypothesis is very inaccurate, for most people cooperated to a very large degree. Milgram, describing the cause of this, states conclusively, “The key to the behavior of subjects lies not in pent-up anger or aggression but in the nature of their relationship to authority. They have given themselves to the authority; they see themselves as instruments for the execution of his wishes; once so defined, they are unable to break free” (168).
Milgram writes in his epilogue that the dilemma of obedience exists everywhere, for every state relies on obedience for its basic survival, including democracies and republics, not just totalitarian governments. Milgram describes that even though elected leaders are elected, their authority still amounts to authority, and he describes America’s blunders as a democracy to further illustrate univeral human fallability - “The importation and enslavement of millions of black people, the destruction [genocide] of the American Indian population, the internment of Japanese Americans, the use of napalm against civilians in Vietnam” (179). Milgram further urges a mood of compassion and understanding, not primal drives and unrealistic declarations - “I faced young men who were aghast at the behavior of … subjects and proclaimed they would never behave in such a way, but who … were brought into the military and performed without compunction actions that made shocking the victim seem pallid” (180).
Milgram made his epilogue relevant when he first wrote it by connecting it to the War in Vietnam, which was still raging when the book was published. Milgram described the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam and connected it to the topic of obedience, as he includes an extensive interview between Mike Wallace and a participant in the slaughter. Mike Wallace interviewed the participant, asking him about the massacre. For instance, he asked, “‘How do you shoot babies?’” The interviewee responded “‘I don’t know. It’s just one of these things’” (185). And another question that was asked was “‘you yourself were responsible for how many?’” The interviewee responded “‘Just too many’” (185). The soldier who was interviewed for his despicable role “was not brought to trial … as he was no longer under military jurisdiction at the time the massacre came to public attention” (186). To summarize, Milgram lays out a set of points involving obedience, from My Lai to Eichmann to Lieutenant Henry Wirz. A few include: hiring people who view themselves as instruments and cogs in the machine of the system, those who are involved blaming higher authority, the utilization of euphemisms to shield participants from the full reality of their acts, actions which are always justified for “the greater good,” and an environment which views objections as particularly embarrassing. Milgram spends the last two pages exempting humanity from its obsession of obedience, as “This is a fatal flaw nature has designed into us, and which in the long run gives our species only a modest chance of survival” (188). Milgram then remarks that it is very ironic that virtues like obedience, loyalty, discipline, and self-transcendence can become curses in some situations, and he talks about the flaws of democracy: human rationality “cannot be counted on to insulate its citizens from brutality and inhumane treatment at the direction of malevolent authority” since “A substantial proportion of people do what they are told to do … without limitations of conscience, so long as they perceive that the command comes from a legitimate authority” (189). Milgram then ends his book with a call-to-action, encouraging people to show their own individuality and to use their experiences when making certain judgements, and, above all, to listen to their conscience.
Personal thoughts:
Obedience to Authority should be read by everyone, for what it discusses affects every single Homo Sapiens on the planet, for obedience is indeed everywhere - the workplace, the home, the school, the government, and the military. Then there are those instances where people voluntarily obey things like social customs without thinking for themselves - the only reasoning factor they commonly cite is “everyone else is doing it” - which, even if it doesn’t end in a troublesome fashion, causes them to cease their logical thinking. Again, as Milgram says, people should be obedient to people and institutions for the right reasons. In the classic example when it comes to civil disobedience, Martin Luther King’s words should be heeded - when a government’s laws provide justice and peace, they should be followed, but if certain laws inspire negative actions like violence, intolerance, and discrimination, they should be disobeyed.
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