The Milgram Experiment (morals, genesis, Jerusalem, bible, faith)

[Prometheus]

Please watch this video as it relates to the rest of my post.

From Wikipedia:

The Milgram Experiment was a seminal series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram, which measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience. Milgram first described his research in 1963 in an article published in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, and later discussed his findings in greater depth in his 1974 book, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View.
The experiments began in July 1961, three months after the start of the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Milgram devised the experiments to answer this question: "Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?"
Milgram summarised the experiment in his 1974 article, "The Perils of Obedience", writing:

The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous importance, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' [participants'] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' [participants'] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.

Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.

Rudolf Hess, June 1934:
The National Socialism of all of us is anchored in uncritical loyalty, in the surrender to the Führer that does not ask for the why in individual cases, in the silent execution of his orders. We believe that the Führer is obeying a higher call to fashion German history. There can be no criticism of this belief.

Hebrews 13:17:
Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.

Colossians 3: 22:
Servants, obey in all things [your] masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God:

Genesis 22:10:
And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.

Anyone who has read the Bible is familiar with the recurring theme of God's authority. God is, if nothing else, a copious producer of commandments. God is to be feared, obeyed and unquestioned. It is this kind of thinking which has caused the torture and death of millions throughout our history.

It is for this reason that I fear the faithful.

[Sunstone]

It is absolutely obvious to me Stanley Milgram conclusively demonstrated people in white lab coats can get normal, decent people to do anything, and that, consequently science is a force for evil in this world. Fortunately, the solution is to prohibit scientists from wearing white lab coats. For the good of us all, only paid actors selling reputable diet pills should be allowed to wear white lab coats.

More seriously, it does interest me that Milgram's experiment suggests any kind of authority -- including secular authority -- is sufficient for many people to violate their own values and morals. Perhaps that implies a free society must have competing authorities to remain free.

[Jaiket]

Originally Posted by Prometheus

Anyone who has read the Bible is familiar with the recurring theme of God's authority. God is, if nothing else, a copious producer of commandments. God is to be feared, obeyed and unquestioned. It is this kind of thinking which has caused the torture and death of millions throughout our history.

It is for this reason that I fear the faithful.

By faithful, you mean people who acknowledge the accuracy of the paragraph above (in orange)?

[Seyorni]

Milgram's experiment and the Stanford Prison experiment are possibly the two most important experiments of the 20th C. Everyone over eight years old should be familiar with them.

Humans have certain inborn psychological flaws that, if not recognized, are not supressed. If not supressed, they can't help but lead to war, strife, oppression and suffering.

Schools should drum these experiments into every student from elementary school through University.

[Prometheus]

Originally Posted by Jaiket

By faithful, you mean people who acknowledge the accuracy of the paragraph above (in orange)?

By faithful I mean anyone who has never questioned God's authority in moral matters.

[Storm]

Originally Posted by Prometheus

By faithful I mean anyone who has never questioned God's authority in moral matters.

That's a very narrow definition. The good part is, it doesn't leave you with so many people to fear.

[michel]

Originally Posted by Sunstone

Perhaps that implies a free society must have competing authorities to remain free.

Surely, you aren't suggesting doing away with monopolies ?...............Oh dear............*call a white coated man in a van for this heretic* (shouted into telephoone)

[matthew.william]

Anyone who has read the Bible is familiar with the recurring theme of God's authority. God is, if nothing else, a copious producer of commandments. God is to be feared, obeyed and unquestioned. It is this kind of thinking which has caused the torture and death of millions throughout our history.

It is for this reason that I fear the faithful.[/quote]

Aren't people other than the faithful guilty of "just following orders" and committing horrible acts upon mankind? Correct me if I am wrong?

~matthew.william~

[Buttercup]

Originally Posted by matthew.william

Aren't people other than the faithful guilty of "just following orders" and committing horrible acts upon mankind? Correct me if I am wrong?

~matthew.william~

I think the point is that any human, even good and normally kind people are capable of heinous acts.

[painted wolf]

Indeed. Humans are pack animals, we follow dominant personalities.
This exparament goes to show that we simply can't look at an atrocity and blithly say that we would never do something like that... that the people who did those terrible things must have been pathological.

They arn't, they are people just like us, reacting to a situation that we may well also do horrable things. We need to learn more about human behavior.
We can't simply deny the fact that we arn't perfect, we arn't above instinct.

wa:do