Original post
300-600 words
10/30
Response to classmates
11/2
RVHS AVID |
|
For this blog you must consider the implications from Stanley Milgram's "The Perils of Obedience." Choose a part of the article which you think reveals the most interesting thing about humans. Explain what it reveals and why you find it interesting. Use another source to help you explain what you mean (cite it). Next, answer the question, why do people obey when they shouldn't? Respond to at least two classmates (ask questions, engage in an intellectual conversation). Original post 300-600 words 10/30 Response to classmates 11/2
78 Comments
Corey Gerbich
10/25/2013 02:07:46 am
In the first paragraph of the article the last sentence states that "For many people, obedience is a deeply ingrained behavior tendency, indeed a potent impulse overriding training in ethics, sympathy, and moral conduct." To me it reveals that when someone obeys an order they don't care about overall moral or the normal ethics of the human beings natural nature, or they don't realize that sometimes what they are ordered to do is not right or just. Therefore if it is wrong and they don't say anything against it then they are as responsible as the person who gave them the order. A great example is the military. In the military if you are given an order you are not only expected to do it you are expected to do it right away. In the military you are mainly expected to kill. And most people moral doesn't stand in the way they kill without thinking. As the saying goes, "it's kill or be killed." But that is the military and they are different than average middle class, hardworking people. So here is another example. Let’s say it is your first day on the job and you really need the money, and then your boss comes to you and tells you to force another employee to quit. What do you do? You know that it is wrong but you don't want to lose your job, so you obey. In my opinion it isn't the fact that we don't disobey because we have to, it’s that we obey because we are afraid of the consequences of disobeying. And I also believe that its not only the fear of the consequences, but also the fact that the order was given by an authority or a peer. And when you think of authority and the consequences of disobeying the authority that is what scares people the most. We as human beings have moral, a basic human instinct of knowing of what is wrong and what's not, but the fear of the consequences of disobeying clears our mind of moral and forces us to obey. Like most other things obedience is given in to because of fear.
Reply
Navi Cheema
10/30/2013 12:42:12 pm
I agree with you that many of us obey because we are afraid of the cosequences but don't you think the consequences of obeying could be just as bad?
Reply
Marina Ulloa
10/30/2013 02:51:32 pm
I also agree with you. Many people do think about the consequences that will affect them. They are so scared that they will do what’s asked of them even if they know deep down its not right.
Corey Gerbich
11/3/2013 04:30:46 am
Well yea and no, as the article says the responsibility is not on the person who is obeying. 10/30/2013 03:57:18 pm
In Stanley Milgram's "The Perils Of Obedience" the most revealing aspect of humans is the 5th through the 8th paragraph on page 10. This section of the text, states specifically "When he administers 450 volts, he turns to the experimenter and asks, 'Where do we go from here, Professor?' His tone is deferential and expresses his willingness to be a cooperative subject, in contrast to the learner's obstinacy" This is the most revealing section because it creates a scenario in which a human when placed under "authority" feels so compelled to obey the requests or commands, whilst ignoring the pain inflicted on the subject. It seems as if no moral code is possessed by this human. It is interesting to me because there was no threat to the person administering the shock, there was no consequence. In fact, the experimenter did not even command that the "shocker" obey. I ask myself if there ever was a time when a human could deny a morally incorrect feeling of the task at hand. I feel like the issue has to do with also conformity and what the norms of the majority are. This leads me into my source which is the article titled "Obedience to Authority", where there is an example about this situation. Adolf Eichmann was responsible for part of the organization of the mass murder of 6 million Jewish people. He was tested for sanity and he resulted to be completely normal and average. He wrote in his jail diary that he was forced essentially to follow orders and not question. He may have been threatened but to the Nazi's he was of too much importance to be discarded. He could have denied. Could he have been pressured not by any consequences but by what he believed would be thought of him? Obedience seems to come to people in a neutral manner in the sense that people justify the actions, whether benevolent or evil consequences arousing from them, with claiming that orders were given to them and they had to follow them. I feel that most people would not act in a certain way (morally incorrect) if the order was not given to them in the first place or if the person did not feel that the order or the source was legitimate. Another outside example when fear could come into play would be when one is on a job, if ordered to lets say, drop food and pick it up and serve it, one knows that it isn't sanitary or correct, but with the fear of losing ones job, the employee will act as instructed. The employee will most likely feel a minimal amount of guilt because the act is justified because the employee feels that it was not "up to him/her" to take the decision of throwing the food away or threatening the health of the customer. The cause of obedience seems to be due to two states: a state of fear, or a state of willing to continue with what the majority is doing.
Reply
10/30/2013 04:00:28 pm
Here is my source. I apologize for not including it into my original response.
Prabhjot Bains
10/30/2013 04:45:43 pm
Does it really state it specifically?
Pardeep Gill
10/27/2013 05:06:18 am
At Yale University, a professor created an experiment to see the response of people if they would obey an authority or not if they knew what they were doing was wrong. The setup was a experimenter, a teacher, and a learner. The experimenter would give instructions to the teacher, the teacher would either listen or not and inflict pain on the learner if they got the answer wrong, and the learner would be tied up onto a chair and get volts inflicted on them ranging from approximately 20-145 volts. Well, in page 5 of the article, The Perils Of Obedience by Stanley Milgram, it talks about how the teacher would continue on applying more volts to the learner just because the Experimenter said to do so. At first, he was a bit startled at the fact that the learner didn't talk anymore, but when the Experimenter said that he had full responsibility of the learner he continued on. What this reveals is that humans will continue to follow directions from someone even if their actions aren’t morally correct. I feel that since the teacher thought that the experiment was for the benefit of science that it was actually okay to do. Even if he was doing something wrong he thought it was okay because it was all in the name of science. It could also be assumed that we as humans don’t really care about what we do if there is no consequence. Prozi, the teacher, asked the experimenter would would happen if something happened to the learner who kept “hollering” in pain due to the high voltages inflicted on him. The experimenter replied with saying that everything that may happen to the learner is not the teacher’s responsibility but the experimenter’s. So, the teacher went on and applied more voltage to the learner. If humans don’t have any consequence for doing the wrong actions, they in a sense could do anything they wanted. I actually have seen this kind of reaction before in my psychology class. We watched a video about a man who had a psychological disorder in which he thought that killing people didn't affect him at all. He would go about at night killing people with a knife. Later on in an interview, he was asked about if he felt wrong about killing those people and if he cared about the consequences, and he replied with an eerie smile and just said no.
Reply
Corey Gerbich
10/30/2013 02:14:36 am
I can see your point, as human beings we seem to do the right thing when it is our responsibility, and not care when it isn't our responsibility. So if I understand correctly you are saying that the responsibility outweighs all consequences no matter how morally wrong the actions are. But if that is true then with your example the person who was killing people, the responsibility was on him but he did not care about the consequences. How did that relate to your opinion on the responsibilities and actions because of the amount of responsibility of people in these situations?
Reply
10/29/2013 01:53:08 pm
The key to obedience is authority, according to Stanley Milgram, "The most fundamental lesson of [the] study: ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process." Through authority you can an average person follow your commands without any sign of hesitation. Through his experiment, Milgram shows the use of authority to get a person to do anything you want. The person who is following orders, as he has learned to from the beginning of his life, does not feel responsible for the outcome of these actions. He feels that it is necessary to please the conductor and will do anything that he is asked. Through the experiment, Milgram gives a view of the psychology behind obedience and how it works.
Reply
Tajwer
10/30/2013 03:37:20 pm
I agree with you izza that ordinary people are mostly likely to obey the authority. . The need to please the ones stronger than us has been embedded into our minds since the day we began to understand words.i think its more like leadership that if a leader tells you to do something you feel as if you're obligated to do the job.
Reply
Prabhjot Bains
10/30/2013 04:51:06 pm
I get the whole people from the military killing people under obedience. But I feel like in the military it may be a different scenario, just because the soldiers are given incentives (paychecks) and the citizens safety. Though it's really hard to prove that the citizens are safe, especially now with all the advanced technology and all. Nonetheless, people are afraid to question the power of authority even though many of the well-developed countries are democratic.
Reply
Satvir
11/5/2013 05:52:31 am
I agree with you on the part in order to please others we start working like "mindless robots". we lose the sense of what we think is right and start doing what others think is right. I also think that to please someone of higher authority than us is something that is imbedded into our minds.
Reply
Rajwinder Kaur
10/30/2013 02:22:56 am
According to Stanley Milgram, once someone is obedient one no longer takes responsible for his or hers actions and becomes a clone of another. He states this when he says “The essence of obedience is that a person comes to view himself as the instrument for carrying out another person's wishes, and he therefore no longer regards himself as responsible for his actions.” This tells you most humans are lethargic and feel less potent when they have somebody else to depend on. A great example would be groups and cliques, when everybody else in the group is smoking or drinks and doing crazy things you feel peer pressured to do it as well. Once you have completely dissolved into the group, you don’t feel like you have the need to say anything or do anything. Being weak is part of obedient has it’s showed through a famous quote by Jack Hyles, “He who cannot obey cannot command.” This means what one believes should be said can’t, since he wouldn’t be able to obey. People obey when they shouldn’t mainly because others are doing it or it is what is known to be popular.
Reply
Navi Cheema
10/30/2013 12:43:05 pm
I agree that people only obey because they feel they need to. Society needs to learn how to stick up for themselves and what they believe is right.
Reply
11/2/2013 09:20:10 am
You are in the right Navdeep and Rajwinder that people obey because they feel compelled to by society. There must be some sort of limitation as to what things are carried on with in terms of actions that may be malicious or benevolent, but how do you propose this occurs specifically?
Gursharan Singh Mann
10/30/2013 02:47:32 pm
There are people like you said that "feel peer pressured to do it as well", but those are the people that are followers or wanna be something they aren't. Best way to overcome that is to be a leader and take a stand for who you really are. There is no point of being fake or doing what other people think is "cool".
Reply
Marina Ulloa
10/30/2013 02:56:45 pm
I agree with you as well Raj. People feel the need to obey or listing to someone because they are doing what they are trying to get you to do. Your example of the drinking and smoking is perfect. Many people will try to get someone to try it. The person will feel obligated to do it because everyone one around them are doing it.
Reply
Dalton Dazo
10/30/2013 03:18:09 pm
I have to disagree with you on this one. If you look at people with 9-5 everyday jobs, they know exactly what they are doing and why. They are not afraid to speak up when something out of the ordinary comes up. For instance my mom at her work when anything goes wrong she immediately asks the manager for help or to do something. So I feel like that human beings are not lethargic but are just afraid of the consequences of disobeying someone in power.
Reply
Prabhjot Bains
10/30/2013 05:02:00 pm
I completely disagree with you on this one because not everyone does stuff to be popular, I get that coming from YC it may seem like it. But after even going to a city like Sacramento, one could see the level of individuality of people. Obedience doesn't really have to do with popularity or having someone depends on you at all, in my opinion. It's more of assuming someone to be a superior and trying to please them. As it was shown in the experiment, the teachers weren't with anyone else but the experimenter and they didn't obey commands because everyone else did. There was no one else to listen to orders and to follow. Like I said before, I don't think popularity has any parallels with obedience regarding going against morals.
Reply
11/2/2013 11:10:44 am
I agree with you Prabjhot that popularity does not share position with obedience, but I would like to address that society, meaning the population, in the mainstream has a general code of morals though. You act according to what those limits restrict you to, at least in a small town. I think your point is valid but only for certain instances when talking about a specific location.
Navdeep Dhindsa
11/2/2013 03:37:21 pm
I completely disagree with you Raj. Just because you are in a group of people who smoke or drink, you should still know your limits. The other people in your group shouldn't be able to pressure you to do anything. If it annoys them so much, then they can leave or find new friends.
Reply
Domenica Figueroa
11/3/2013 12:39:09 pm
I can't really agree with you on this one Raj. I don't believe that being obedient is a sign of weakness. Also, how exactly does the "he who cannot obey cannot command" quote come in to support what you're saying?
Reply
Navi Cheema
10/30/2013 08:51:38 am
In the article,” The Perils of Obedience” by Stanley Milgram, a group of people are experimented into answering questions based on their memory. If the learner gets the answer wrong, they will be shocked by the teacher (the person asking the questions). The teacher decides the level of shock they would want to give the learner. The teacher is given instructions through a phone by the experimenter to continue shocking the learner, even if they are begging to stop and are in extreme pain. The teacher goes along will this experiment because they are told that they are not held responsible if anything happens to the person being shocked. Since no responsibility is held against the teacher, they continue to shock because they don’t want o disappoint the experimenter. In the article, it states that “the most far-reaching consequence is that the person feels responsible to the authority directing him but feels no responsibility for the content of the actions that the authority prescribes.” This reveals the most interesting thing part about humans that you could enforce pain on someone when you know you won’t be penalized to do it. This is interesting because when someone is told to do something when they know they will hurt someone, they would do it as long as they’re not penalized for their action. The only reason they act like this is because they’re not penalized. When there is no penalty inflicted on ones actions, a person won’t think twice before doing that action. But once there is a penalty, a person will think twice before performing an action. For example, in the article, each teacher would continue shocking the learner even when they were crying out loud in front of them. Although most teachers wanted to stop the shock, they still continued to administer it only because there was greater authority above them. They knew what they were doing was wrong but since they were told their actions wouldn’t have any consequences they still administered to shock. This shows that humans will do anything as long as there not held responsible for it. Another example would be a boss giving his or her employees commands. The employee would obviously do as the boss says because they feel obligated to. Also, they fear the consequences of saying no to the boss.
Reply
Domenica Figueroa
10/30/2013 09:19:24 am
Some people just seem to have an innate sense to be obedient, some more than others of course. On page 9 of Stanley Milgrim’s “The Perils of Obedience” it mentions how some of the “teachers” chose to continue to shock the “learner” due to the “unwillingness to ‘hurt’ the experimenter’s feelings.” So the “teachers” felt the need to go on with the experiment with the sole purpose of simply pleasing the experimenter, despite the fact that they thought that they were inflicting pain on the “learner.” It just goes to show that some people will be obedient just to gain a sort of intrinsic reward from pleasing someone, even if it means going against their own moral standards. It reminded me of the trial of Peter Von Hagenbach, one of the few Nazi officials that were actually tried for the atrocities that went along with the Holocaust. Hagenbach claimed in his defense that all his actions during the Holocaust were done simply because he was “following superior orders.” This can be linked to some of the subjects of the Milgrim experiment because the few that did take the electrical shocks to full power claimed that they were just “following orders.” So people tend to follow orders simply to please their internal need to be obedient as well as please the person that is being obeyed. However, some people feel that they have no control over their actions because someone else is ordering them to do things, like the Nazi officials and like the subjects in the Milgrim experiment. Which would answer why some people obey when they shouldn’t, they just feel that they have no other option than to obey the being with superior power of them. Whether it’s shocking a person for getting a wrong answer or apparently even opening fire on innocent people, people will do what they are told to do if they feel that they have no choice but to do so.
Reply
bill
10/30/2013 05:03:48 pm
why u so QOOL
Reply
Domenica Figueroa
11/3/2013 12:30:30 pm
No...
Navdeep Dhindsa
11/2/2013 03:32:54 pm
I agree with you that Peter Von Hagenbach was someone who claimed in his defense that he was just following orders, but were following orders so important that the lives of all the Jews didn't matter?
Reply
Domenica Figueroa
11/3/2013 12:29:10 pm
I'm sure that deep down he did feel that it was wrong, but still that internal need to please the person above him was greater than his sense of humanity. It depend on the strength of the person, really.
Dilpreet
11/5/2013 06:20:05 am
I agree with you on how some people just have to follow orders. A soldiers job is do what they are told and if everyone stops obeying their orders then the everything would turn into chaos.
Reply
Navdeep Dhindsa
10/30/2013 09:59:50 am
In Stanley Milgram's opinion, “ It is a curious thing that a measure of compassion on the part of the subject, an unwillingness to, “hurt”, the experimenters feelings is part of those binding forces inhibiting his disobedience”. As humans, we expect the same kind of behavior from everyone. Milgram points out that humans tend to do the opposite of what they want, when placed in a situation in which they have no control. They lead towards the path that will keep them safe without hesitating or thinking about the subject. We as humans, have no control over our minds. We all think in a certain way and have been for a while. It's human nature to think about oneself first. Even a mother who is drowning, will push her child down to save herself first, as science declares. So, it's not the learners fault for acting the way they did. They weren’t asked to be put in a situation that would cause them to think about someone else as well as them. Even though the learners feel like they are doing the wrong thing, they still aren't backing away or stopping themselves from pushing the button. The only explanation for this would be something called fear. When fear is involved, anything can happen. Like the behavior of a person could change, or the way a person acts could change. There really is no way of knowing how someone would act if put in a situation where fear is the biggest obstacle.
Reply
Sarabjit Kaur
11/1/2013 01:40:45 am
I agree that humans make decisions that they might not want to make when they are put in these situations. I also know that fear can make a human think in different ways when they of scared of the consequences. But what did the teacher have a fear of when they were not going lose anything or threatened of anything?
Reply
Manjit Gurcha
11/2/2013 09:36:38 am
I agree with you on that humans may do many things out of fear. They might do things they would never do if fear of what would happen to them was not involved. However, the "teacher's" were taking part in the experiment on their own free will. The experimenter never forced them to adminster the shocks, or to continue to read the questions. They did everything on their own free will, so what did the teacher's have to fear?
Reply
Miranda Haggard
10/30/2013 11:23:27 am
Perils. Meaning serious or immediate danger. When you first think about being obedient you don't imagine it being dangerous or putting other people in harm. Stanley Milgrams's experiment on obedience puts people under the pressure to obey while they are voluntarily intensifying pain onto students. But when is enough enough? Top paragraph on page 11 of Milgram's Perils of Obedience states that, "The essence of obedience is that a person comes to view himself as the instrument for carrying out another person's wishes, and he therefore no longer regards himself as responsible for his actions." If this is true then that means essentially anyone can be controlled by authority without even thinking about what they are doing or why they are doing it. And in a sense being obedient comes off to me as being negative and degrading to one as an individual.
Reply
11/2/2013 09:26:07 am
I definitely agree with you Miranda, one tends to think of his/herself even when it comes to stopping something immoral. You in essence implied that people have incentives to obey authority, whether it be to please authority or prevent any consequences. Could there ever be a scenario in which someone has incentives to stop an act of immorality?
Reply
Gursharan Singh Mann
10/30/2013 11:36:58 am
The human brain is a powerful and dangerous weapon. Every decision, move, or a step a person takes his made by their brain. A human brain can think and do anything that comes to mind. Sometimes, without thinking about it twice, a person can do something to hurt another person. Likely, in the article "The Perils of Obedience" by Stanley Milgram reveals this about humans. For instance he states, "The ordinary person who shocked the victim did so out of a sense of obligation -- an impression of his duties as a subject -- and not from any peculiarly aggressive tendencies."(Milgram: 9) Sometimes a person does not know what the other person is struggling through when they are putting them through a situation like this. They still end up doing it to benefit from it in their own way. They don't do it just to be mean, they do it unknowingly. The person feels like they have to do it and follow the orders. Even though they might know it is wrong, they still continue to do it because they feel like that is the right thing at the moment. On the other hand, sometimes a individual is forced to hurt another person. For instance, in the article, "Cases of Obedience in the Abu Ghraib Case" the author states, "The acts of torture performed on the inmates at Abu Ghraib were both cruel and inhumane. But what if the reason the guards tortured the inmates was due to the result of obedience from the superiors." (Cases of Obedience: 1) Sometimes a individual is powerless and cannot do anything and the only choice they have is to obey the orders. Even though they know they are hurting the other person, they cannot stop because they must protect themselves because it is human nature to fight for ones owns survival. Even if it means killing another. It is interesting to know that people can be so selfish even though they do not mean any harm from their heart. The human brain could be real dangerous when it comes to taking a step to save themselves in a situation. Most of the time they will do what they think is right for them even when it is wrong in morality.
Reply
Manpreet
10/30/2013 04:44:35 pm
I agree with you Gursharan because as you stated in your post "the human mind is a powerful weapon." Every decision we make the mind helps us make it. But in some cases it can make us do things that we do not want to do. It can make us feel helpless.
Reply
Manjit Gurcha
10/30/2013 11:40:18 am
Stanley Milgram states, " The essence of obedience is that a person comes to view himself as the instrument for carrying out another person's wishes, and he therefore no longer regards himself as responsible for his actions." In the experiment that Milgram conducted, the “teachers” wanted to stop giving the learner shocks after a certain shock voltage was reached, but when the experimenter told them to continue they put up a little fight and continued with the shocks. When Fred Prozi is the “teacher” in the experiment, he asks the experimenter “[Do] you accept all responsibility?”, and when the experimenter responds in affirmative, Prozi “...starts running through the words as rapidly as he can read them, [and] works through to 450 volts.” Prozi was working out of fear, but more so due to the fact that he was not going to be responsible for what happens to the “learner.” Stanley also mentions that “... if a person is placed in a situation where he has complete power over another individual, whom he may punish as much as he likes, all that is sadistic and bestial in man comes to the fore.” However, in the experiment when the teacher was given the freedom to choose the amount of shock levels that were to be given to the learner, the average shock level was less than 60 volts.
Reply
Satvir Kaur
10/30/2013 11:44:06 am
Obedience is the foundation of society, without it there would be a society of total chaos. As told in “The Perils of Obedience” by Stanley Milgram, there was an experiment conducted at Yale University to test how a person behaves in a certain situation. There was a “teacher” and a “learner”. There was also a third individual who was the experimenter who told the “teacher” what to do. The teacher was told to inflict pain on the learner if he got the words wrong. This experiment was to test whether under authority an individual would do what’s told or make his own decision and do what’s right. The part that I think reveals the most interesting thing about humans was on page eleven where it says “The essence of obedience is that a person comes to view himself as the instrument for carrying out another person’s wishes, and he therefore no longer regards himself as responsible for his actions”. Here he is saying that when told to do something by someone of higher authority humans lose their individuality and do what there are told to do. They feel good on the inside for they are making someone happy by doing what they are told to do. We tend to do this because from the moment we are born we start obeying our elders. As time passes we obey anyone who is higher than us or in some cases older. For example in school you obey the teacher or in a workplace you obey your boss. Knowing that they are pleasing someone who could maybe reward them makes them want to do what they are told especially after knowing there can’t be any consequences. Since there are no consequences there is nothing to lose. Power over the learner makes the teacher forget their morals and they cannot think for themselves.
Reply
Manpreet
10/30/2013 04:42:01 pm
I agree with this statement because it is often seen that humans tend to obey to people because they feel it is necessary to listen to them every time.
Reply
Sarabjit Kaur
10/30/2013 11:54:52 am
In the article “The Perils of Obedience” Stanley Milgram states, “ If a person is placed in a situation in which he has complete power over another individual, whom he may punish as much as he likes, all that is sadistic and bestial in man comes to the fore.” The quote explains that when power get to ones head it can make one to make decisions or take actions that they may not think of ever taking. Power can make a person treat other as animals and can also dehumanize them. For example, the article states that Morris Braverman was receiving pleasure and laughing while electrocuting the learner. After the experiment Braverman was also shocked about the way he reacted toward to experiment. Braverman tortured the helpless learner even when though he wasn’t going to lose anything or physically forced to push the button. This showed how the power got to Braverman's head and was able to distinguish between the right and the wrong.
Reply
Manjit Gurcha
11/2/2013 09:44:54 am
I agree with you on that power can get to ones head and cause one to act inhumanly. Power can cause one to treat others like animals and trash. However, in Milgram's experiment most of "teacher's" wished to stop administering shocks at a certain time even though they were given power over another human being. So, why didn't the power get to their heads?
Reply
Dilpreet
11/5/2013 06:24:12 am
It's true how power can change people. Having control or power over anyone causes one to take advantage. If someone is not stopped from corrupting power it will happen sooner or later. As they always say "with great power comes great responsibility".
Reply
Jasjeet Hansi
10/30/2013 11:55:35 am
The part of the article that reveals the most interesting things about humans was when the adult went through almost any length when they were told what to do. “The extreme willingness of the adults to go to almost any length on the command of an authority… demanding explanation,” shows that adults are obedient to authority when there is an explanation. The explanation does not need to be right or wrong. People will still obey the authority when there is an explanation even if the superior is false, because people want to please their superior. People would go to “almost any length on the command of an authority… demanding explanation,” shows that people will at least try to demand an explanation before they do the task put forth to them.In life people that are obedient, generally like to make their employer or their superior figure pleased, but before the employer is pleased, there must be an explanation.
Reply
Jennifer Infantw
10/30/2013 02:23:57 pm
In the article “ The Perils of Obedience”, by Stanley Milgram reveals that some people will obey authority no matter what the task is. Throughout the article it reveals that people feel as if they are doing a good deed but in reality they are not. On page 9 Milgram states, “They often derived satisfaction from their thoughts and felt that – within themselves, at least – they had been on the side of the angels.” The experimenters only feel as if they were on the “angels side” because they were obeying the conductor. The experimenters felt that they were satisfying the conductor which made them feel better. What interested me the most is how some experimenters knew what they were doing was wrong but did not say anything because they did not want speak against authority. Once someone is obedient they think they do not have any responsibility to themselves. Milgram states he would take all the responsibility to whatever happens to the student, which made the experimenter feel better even though they were harming the student.
Reply
Saima Shohliay
10/30/2013 02:48:15 pm
I know where you're getting at and I totally understand your statement. I agree with you that people do feel like they are doing a good deed when they actually aren't. Because people really do feel good after obeying someone even if its actually something bad. They might feel a little guilty about doing the wrong thing, but the fact that they just obeyed someone makes them feel better. This is kind of what you're trying to say right?
Reply
Saima Shohliay
10/30/2013 02:48:44 pm
I know where you're getting at and I totally understand your statement. I agree with you that people do feel like they are doing a good deed when they actually aren't. Because people really do feel good after obeying someone even if its actually something bad. They might feel a little guilty about doing the wrong thing, but the fact that they just obeyed someone makes them feel better. Is this kind of what you're trying to say?
Reply
Saima Shohliay
10/30/2013 02:49:20 pm
I know where you're getting at and I totally understand your statement. I agree with you that people do feel like they are doing a good deed when they actually aren't. Because people really do feel good after obeying someone even if it's actually something bad. They might feel a little guilty about doing the wrong thing, but the fact that they just obeyed someone makes them feel better. Is this similar to what you were trying to say?
Reply
Saima Shohliay
10/30/2013 02:49:54 pm
I know where you're getting at and I totally understand your statement. I agree with you that people do feel like they are doing a good deed when they actually aren't. People really do feel good after obeying someone even if it's actually something bad. They might feel a little guilty about doing the wrong thing, but the fact that they just obeyed someone makes them feel better. Is this similar to what you were trying to say?
Reply
Gursharan Singh Mann
10/30/2013 02:53:00 pm
It is true that just because you listen to your boss or your conductor means that you are doing the right thing. Everyone should think for themselves and before taking a wrong step, they should think if it is worth it or not. They should put themselves in the person's shoes and think about how they would feel if it was being done to them.
Reply
Dalton Dazo
10/30/2013 03:12:42 pm
I understand where you are coming from. Once you get more and more responsibility while making the conductor happy, you feel good about yourself because you think you are doing a good job. But maybe the reason no one ever says anything is because they are afraid of what the conductor will do to them if they disobey?
Reply
Saima Shohliay
10/30/2013 02:42:06 pm
According to the article “Perils of Obedience”, by Stanley Milgram, there are different types of people who have different ways of hurting someone or watching people get hurt. Some people feel guilty while hurting people while others go along with it. Some people in this experiment stopped because they didn’t want to hurt the person while, others kept going because they wanted to listen to the experimenter. Even though there wouldn’t be a punishment for disobeying the experimenter, some people kept obeying the experimenter.
Reply
10/30/2013 02:47:44 pm
A basic element in the structure of social life is obedience states Stanley Milgram in his article “the perils of obedience.” I disagree with Stan. I believe obedience is used when you are scared. When I think of obedience I think of animals listing to their owner, not a “basic element in the structure of a social life”, stated in the 1st paragraph on the 1st page. In this article there was an experimenter, a teacher, and a learner. When Prozi, a leaner, and the experimenter are having a conversation on page 4 you can tell the Prozi is afraid of the experimenter. If he wasn’t scared he would have done what he wanted and that was to stop the “fake” shocking. Prozi did not stop he continued even though he felt the right thing to do was stop the pain. Obedience can only be a plus to one person in a situation. Obedience benefited the experimenter because he was still achieving what he wanted. Ask for Prozi he was going against what he wanted. For me this article resembles fear and power. The experimenter is the one with all the power. Many people today obey someone because of the fear that eats them up inside. From my source it states “fear is a motive for obedience.” Humans will respond to something even if they don’t believe it right because of the thought of what will happen to them if they don’t do what’s asked of them.
Reply
Saima Shohliay
10/30/2013 03:00:30 pm
I absolutely agree about when you said "obedience is used when you are scared". I also agree that if he had the courage, he would have just stopped himself instead of listening to the experimenter.
Reply
Miranda Sandhu
10/30/2013 02:49:49 pm
The part of the article I thought was the most interesting about humans was on page eleven where Stanley Milgram says, “The essence of obedience is that a person…carrying out a person’s wishes and he therefore no longer regards himself as responsible.” This reveals that if a person carries out a harsh task, he or she may feel guilty for it in the future. That person wishes not to take responsibility or have burden. The person hopes the experimenter/controller will. We want to fulfill and please the controller’s wishes. However, if you think about it, the person committing the act should take full responsibility because it was their brain to make the decision. They had full control over their mind. This reminds me of the genocide in Cambodia. Lead by the Khmer Rouge government, they wanted to imprison and execute the citizens who lived in Cambodia. For the citizens to live, they had to listen to their commanders and do what they were told to do. They were forced to work in labor camps and if they refused to obey, they were executed. They were only to obey them and no one else. In this situation, it is very important to obey the leader in order to live and survive, but also to please commander. I think that we do not really disobey because we are afraid of the future consequences. Because of this fear, we just automatically obey to whatever the person says whether it is morally right or not. We have the need to please the person in charge because we want to feel accepted. This is similar to social pressure because people do wild actions to feel accepted and to be noticed in the group of friends; they want to feel like they belong. Nevertheless, for a simple answer people obey because everyone else does it.
Reply
Tajwer
10/30/2013 03:41:35 pm
Some people just obey because they want to please someone whose above them and they want to be like them.
Reply
Satvir
11/5/2013 05:56:35 am
I agree with you that people like to please others at that particular moment because they are not thinking for themselves, but once their back in their own head they will regret it and feel guilty.
Reply
David Perez
10/30/2013 02:53:05 pm
In Stanley Milgram’s experiment the part that stood out most to me was when he state “ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process.” The reason why this stood out was because its saying how humans do some crazy things when there being told to do something. Humans tend to blindly listen to an authoritative figure. From when we are young we listen to our parents and when we get older we listen to our bosses or if you are in the military your commander. In 1937 Joseph Stalin began the Great Purge where Stalin gained power over the Russian government by oppressing his oppressors, sending them to work camps to essentially go die. He managed to do this with the help of the military who blindly obeyed every order. In every military you are sworn to obeyed the command of you leader no matter how drastic the order. It’s not just in the military though. In 1978 Jim Jones the leader of the People Temple convinced his followers all to kill themselves. Humans always look for some leader to tell them what to do no matter how drastic it may seem because to us we are just doing our job.
Reply
David Perez
10/30/2013 02:54:28 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones
Reply
Dilpreet Mann
10/30/2013 03:07:55 pm
“Obedience is as basic an element in structure of social life as one can point to. Some system of authority is a requirement of all communal living, and it is only the person dwelling in isolation who is not forced to respond with defiance or submission, to the submission, to the commands of others.”
Reply
Dalton Dazo
10/30/2013 03:09:38 pm
The first paragraph on page ten under “Duty without conflict” it states “The subjects do not derive satisfaction from inflicting pain, but they often like the feeling they get from pleasing the experimenter.” This tells us that people will do whatever it takes to make the person in charge happy. Once the person in charge is happy, then you feel good for doing the right thing. I find this interesting because even though they are inflicting pain the other people, they enjoy making someone happy. It is cruel to be happy when you are inflicting pain. Also, it shows that human beings are willing to do more punishment to make the experimenter happy so they can feel that the satisfaction of doing a good job. People who get told they are doing a good job will generally keep doing what they are doing. As the quote says, “Obedience is an act of faith; disobedience is the result of unbelief” (Edwin Louise Cole). When you obey orders, whether they are simple or complex, it shows you are faithful. When you show someone you are faithful, they will trust you with more responsibility. Once you get more responsibility, you get more satisfaction with completing each order you are given and being told to keep doing the good work. There are many reasons why someone would obey orders when they shouldn’t. One is that you do not want to be punished yourself for being defiant. You would much rather endure the pain that comes with obeying orders than become punished yourself for something you could have done. Also, another reason is that they might have a fear of the leader. Many people are afraid of what can happen to you when someone in power is very intimidating. You would feel like there would be more consequences than needed if you disagreed to any order. Finally, is that you may not want to lose your position. Jobs are very hard to find and you have to do what you can to make money and provide for your family. So, you would just end up doing what you are told so you could put food on the table.
Reply
Daniel Nunez
11/2/2013 04:45:53 pm
I agree with you on the fact that people will go out of their way to please people, even if it comes at the cost of inflicting pain to somebody else. You'd sometimes think that people would have morals, but some people would forget about their morals as long as they are pleasing somebody important.
Reply
According to this artical by Stanley Milgram, "The Perils of Obedience" he does an experiment to test the conflict between obedience to authority and ones own inner voice. He wanted to test how far people can go knowing that what they were doing was hurting someone. The part that appeals to me the most is on page six when prozi says "You accept all the responsibility" this is the most interesting part because it tells us about human nature. It shows that aperson would do anything as long as there not taking the blame for it. Similarly in the article when prozi asks the experimenter if he takes all the responsibility and the experimenter agrees he keeps on going with the experiment. Even though he felt bad for the learner but inside his heart he knew he's not being blamed for it. some people kept going with the experiment because they thought it was there job to do so. they didn't wanted to disobey the experimenter. People generally like the feeling they get when they know there doing a good job. a lot of people don't have the ability to disobey. Another reason people obey is that they have a sense of obligation to their duty. They believe that they have to complete the job that’s given to them. Some people just obeyed the experimenter because they had a sense of fear that what would happen to them if they didn't obey.Ordinary people are likely to follow orders given by an authority figure, even to the extent of killing an innocent human being.
Reply
Daniel Nunez
10/30/2013 03:55:07 pm
Humans, as proven from the article “The Perils of Obedience” by Stanley Milgram, are truly unpredictable. On page 3, in the “unexpected outcome” section, opinions and predictions are sought by Milgram from psychiatrists, college sophomores, middle-class adults, graduate students, and faculty members of behavior sciences. The predictions placed by these people were completely wrong and brought Milgram to a surprising result. The predictions stated that “one in a thousand would administer the highest shock on the board.” After the experiment was over, twenty-five out of 40 test subjects pushed the generator to its limits. The sole idea that a psychiatrist predicted one in a thousand to do this, and the facts that stated that twenty-five out of forty actually did, should be surprising to anybody who has read this article. These two paragraphs show just how unpredictable our species is. Mere predictions can sometimes come close, but other times be off for miles.
Reply
Reena Saroya
10/30/2013 03:55:15 pm
In the article, “The Perils of Obedience”, by Stanley Milgram, Milgram states that “ if a person is placed in a situation in which he has complete power over another individual, whom he may punish as he likes, all that is sadistic and bestial in man comes to the force”. He is saying that that when people are placed in situations where they have so much power in their hands that people have to bow down to them or else they could inflict pain onto them eventually making the dictator lose touch with humanity. For example, in “The Tragedy of Macbeth”, by William Shakespeare, the main character,Macbeth, kills the king so he could take the throne but he had let the all power go to head and he started to inflict pain on people who didn’t deserve it because he was on a power surge and he was slowly losing his touch with humanity. This quote reminded me of the Rwanda Genocide. The Rwanda Genocide took place in 1994 it lasted 100 days killing more than 800,000 Hutus and Tutsis. The Hutus and Tutsis were forced to wear an identification card and most of these people were given a slow painful and torturing death because ammunition was expensive. The man behind the Rwanda Genocide was Théoneste Bagosora, a military officer. He treated these people as if they were nothing. This shows how have so much power can make one lose touch with humanity. People obey when they shouldn’t because we are afraid that we will appear arrogant and rude. We have this innate ability where we want to please everyone so we obey in situations we shouldn’t obey because we are afraid that we might hurt their feelings if we do not obey.
Reply
Sarabjit Kaur
11/1/2013 02:00:59 am
I agree with you that you can lose touch with humanity when you gain too much power. Why do humans inflict pain on other humans when they have more power?
Reply
Reena Saroya
11/2/2013 02:52:35 pm
People inflict pain on other people when they have more power because they get paranoid. Once someone reaches the top of the ladder they want to stay so they inflict harm on people who are below them.
Miranda Sandhu
11/2/2013 11:44:26 am
I agree with you that when a person is given so much power,it goes to their head and that they start to do horrible things to humans. What does a ruler/dictator do to make their citizens obey besides killing them and torturing them? Do you think some citizens do not even obey to our own president?
Reply
Reena Saroya
11/2/2013 03:00:24 pm
Besides killing or torturing, a ruler/dictator could enforce harsh laws for the consequences of not obeying his order.
Esteban Robles
10/30/2013 03:59:04 pm
The most interesting part in "The Perils of Obedience" by Stanley Milgram is within the first paragraph. When they are talking about the basic definition of obedience. Obedience is as basic an element the structure of social life as one can point to(paragraph 1 first sentence). But besides the basic meaning of obedience what is the deeper meaning of obedience? Would it be that obedience is a choice not a demand. As if being obedience I basically earned not given. Obedience is all brought from the human brain. Without the brain we wouldn't be able to do anything. But the bigger picture here is what is the most interesting part about humans within this entire article. It would have to be the entire first page due to its into and body paragraphs to real in the reader. In the first paragraph it talks about the basic meaning of obedience and how it is basically used on impulse and not on everyday use. The rest of the front page talks about in every other paragraph backing the first one up in resorses. Then the real fun of this article begins the experimenting. By this time of the article one would have hoped to be interested. This experiment shows how obedience is actually showed. For example the first experiment is to have two people go to a psychology laboratory and there is a teacher and a learner. The learner has to remember the second word of a pair and when the learner is wrong they are then shocked. Now when the learner is shocked to a certain point it is up to the teacher to stop or keep going. The basic points of obedience. After this test they go on with other people. For example when the teacher is not looking and even when the teacher is only talking over the phone then the ones who are pushing the button want to keep going or not still enforced obedience. People obey when they shouldn't because they are still told to no matter what. For example the brave men and women in the army are always given a wrong order or at leased messed up one and they still have to obey no matter what. Due to the fact that if they do not obey they are going against there superior witch can cause problems for them. Basically anyone will obey to any sort of order when it comes to the person who is giving it to you. Then one would have to actually take into consideration the morals one already has. Basically people only obey when they shouldn't because they still have to obey no matter what. An order will always be an order. No one knows when they should stop unless it is against there own morals.
Reply
11/2/2013 09:36:23 am
I agree with you Esteban in that an order will always be an order nonetheless. You also implied that one will not be aware of one's actions until it crosses the line into the line of ones morals. Even then though I think that once people are aware that it is against their morals they continue anyway. I do like the point that this brings up though, what would it take for someone to reach a climax and finally refuse to continue with the order?
Reply
Daniel Nunez
11/2/2013 04:49:47 pm
I agree that an order is an order, but would you go out of your morals to complete an order? It just doesn't seem right that morals were dropped to complete orders, but I agree with your statement otherwise
Reply
Sydney Malone
10/30/2013 04:23:06 pm
In The Perils of Obedience by Stanley Milgram, I believe that the most interesting thing about humans is revealed in the part of the article that talks about the majority of the test subjects inflicting pain on others just because someone of authority told them to. This is found in paragraph 103 when Milgram says “The subjects do not derive satisfaction from inflicting pain, but they often like the feeling they get from pleasing the experimenter.” What he is saying is that even though the people who were unknowingly the test subjects didn’t like inflicting pain on other people, they did it because they wanted to please the person that told them to do so. We as human are predisposed to wanting please and fit in. Tom Ferry, author of Life by Design says “The need for approval has been conditioned in us from the day we were born.” Furthering my point even more, Ferry is saying that humans want approval from their peers; it has always been like that and will remain to stay that way. This explains why so many of the subjects chose to continue to administer pain to the fake test subjects just because they were told. Continuing on this research with different experiments on the same subject would only result in the same outcome. People obey when they shouldn’t because we as humans are taught starting at an early age that we have to give respect to those higher than us: our authority. Authority is defined by Oxford’s Dictionary as “a person or organization having power or control in a particular, typically political or administrative, sphere”. All throughout the twelve years of high school and approaching adulthood, we are expected to listen to our teachers, and parents and grandparents and friends parent’s, for no other reason than that they have more power than us. Taking these as an example, everyone wants to please their parents and those adults around them and that is something that is seen in preadolescence and can still be seen in the stages of life afterward. Now it’s easier to understand that in the cases of the test subjects of this experiment, what was an instinct given to us at birth overruled the fact that they knew they were hurting innocent people. They did it because wanting to please authority comes as second nature.
Reply
Manpreet Kaur
10/30/2013 04:38:10 pm
The part that I found interesting in the article "The Perils of Obedience" was how man feels powerful when they have power for a short amount of time. Even if it is temporary, they feel a strange kind of feeling of power. The author, Stanley Milgram, states that "as a sadistic monster fundamentally wrong, that he came closer to being an uninspired bureaucrat who simply sat at his desk and did his job." This states that a normal person who may never think of harming anyone can change in an instant as soon as he receives a little bit of power in his or her hands. It can change the human mind in an instant. Power is the one thing that can ruin a person's point of view on how they see the world. It is a dangerous thing, but also, at the same time the most valuable thing. Many people tend to act more selfish when they are in control. They forget how they were before they had any control. It makes them feel that they could rule over people. But, there is also a fear of being not loved once they change. At first, they think once they have control they would be admired. Later on, the more they change the more other people start to avoid them. Another thing that changes people after they have received power is how quickly they got it. "Power is strategically acquired, not given". This states that the people that just received power without earning it feel superior. They believe that just because they acquired control without earning it, they are better then others. Overall, what this part of the article is trying to state is that power is not everything. It can drive you insane without even you noticing it. It is the one thing every person wants but that they can not have.
Reply
Miranda Sandhu
11/2/2013 11:28:26 am
Do you think there is a postive affect of having power? If so, what are they? If you were put into this situation, would you let the power go to your head? Why or why not?
Reply
Prabhjot Bains
10/30/2013 04:42:07 pm
In the article Perils of Disobedience, the author mentions that “ordinary people (without any hostility) can become agents in a destructive process.” From this I saw that no matter how moral ones thinking could be, not being responsible for their actions could drive people to forget these morals. Even though many people were having a hard time applying the shock to the learners, they didn’t stop because the experimenter assured them that they weren’t going to be liable for any damage.
Reply
Selina zavala
10/30/2013 04:42:39 pm
What I found to be interesting in the article "the perils of obedience" was the line; "all people harbor deeply aggressive instincts continually pressing for expression, and that the experiment provides institutional justification for the release of these impulses." This theory is trying to explain that all humans are passively aggressive and that the experiment although it tests obedience, provides a justified reason for the electric shocks then enforce on the actors. In an article written by heather wipps, she writes"some kind of genetic preprogramming for violence may exist in humans as a result of our evolution, it is the specific environment that decides how, or whether, that biological determination is triggered, scientists say. That being said, she states that our natural instincts of violence are in fact triggered by our environment. So for someone to be placed in the situation of shocking someone for a test, they might feel inclined to shock the person based on the knowledge that what they're doing isn't wrong. They feel like they are in an adequate environment for their anger to surface. To answer the second part, I feel as though people take part in things they shouldn't in order to feel apart of something greater than just themselves. They thrive on knowing others support and praise their actions. This hunger for acceptance might lead them into a dark path, but they are too blinded by that very acceptance to see it.
Reply
yiribeth rodriguez
2/18/2014 12:45:16 pm
Hero. His loyalty was to the state and the constitution, not to the officials who were actively violating both. Snowden clearly broke the law and violated article 3 in the constitution but as the Supreme Court has said: "[A] citizen may take actions which do aid and comfort the enemy- making a speech critical of the government or opposing it's measures.. and the hundred other things which impair our cohesion and diminish out strength- but if there is adherence to the enemy in this- if there is no intent to betray, there is no treason."
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
March 2014
Categories |