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We Are Participating In A Psych-Social Experiment: Stanley Milgram and Obedience Theory [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-02-21
The reason for writing this piece is because Stanley Milgram’s seminal work showed us that we are largely obedient. Most of us will not question someone placed in an authority position. He is cited in nearly every basic psychology textbook for his experimental approach to learning about human behavior.
Is your world calm, or is it frenetic, chaotic, full of daily dangers? Is it somewhere between those two extremes of being? Do you ask questions? Do you accept the answer even if it seems a bit off? Do you push back against someone telling you how to think, what to feel, when to act, who to support?
Do you feel like a non-player character (NPC) in a game, merely there as some sort of assurance that the model effectively simulates reality?
Does the word surreal ever cross your mind? Are you full self-absorbed or moving toward complete introversion because what’s going on is simply too scary?
Right now we are existing in a grand scale obedience experiment. Absolutely incompetent people are taking positions of power and holding themselves out as authorities. They are, generally speaking, absolute idiots in their assigned posts. They know nothing about what they’re doing. However, they are breaking rules, defying what they deem as “Authority.” The way they’re going about making changes is haphazard and destructive.
We are drawn to looking at their fiats and proclamations. Smaller, less-well-informed minds are absorbing the idiocy and taking it as gospel. They’re just following orders. They don’t know what they don’t know, and they operate under a self-permitted ignorance. To their way of thinking, there’s a benefit, a payoff, and the promise from leadership is it will be so much greater as long as they hold to their directed belief. This is a variation on Gambler’s Fallacy.
If you are a member of the defiant class, congratulations, you are only one out of five. This is what Milgram learned in his obedience experiment. Eighty percent of people just did what they were instructed to do without questioning the consequence.
Here is something not considered, but a valid point to make:
People generally expect and accept that their authority figures will not intentionally deceive them.
Milgram and his study associates never coerced participants. There was always the option to abandon the work and leave the room. The shock machine and the person “receiving” the shock (except for the initial low-voltage administration, no actual shock was given) were regarded as highly controversial and unethical by some experts of the day. Of course, that’s wrong to do, right? One notion of a deception is that the participants should have been told that no harm was going to come to the subjects, no matter what they heard or saw.
Except, every day, we do so many things in an unquestioning way. We don’t go back to look at the consequences of our actions.
We express doubts, but we still press forward, even though we know we’re doing things that could be wrong or harmful.
We regard our leadership and authority figures with a respect and obedience they might not deserve, because we have beliefs, ideals and our notions of a just society and world. Our perception is hopeful, and right now, there’s a growing rift between perceived reality and what is actually happening in the undermining of a democracy.
Every day, we’re being administered “shocks” by seeing and hearing another really stupid, atrocious thing that Musk or Trump or any of his minions want to propose. The shock of our courts and Congress more or less acquiescing to these really stupid parlor tricks was but the first part. Learning that Musk has poured a continuum of money into securing a special-interest political landscape for his own pleasure and tinkering about is another smaller shock.
We are essentially all being trained to obey by receiving small shocks and do only what we’re told. We’re even being told what to read, listen to, watch and be entertained by.
When only one in five are willing to speak out and resist, it is incumbent on them to work at moving the rest of the herd toward safety. Sheep understand this and follow leadership that guides them away from the dangers, whether it is the lead ram, the sheepdog or the shepherd. A shepherd that deliberately chooses wolves or incompetent breeds of dog to guide the flock, or worse, goes about picking out sheep he “just doesn’t like” for no valid reason and causing them unnecessary pain just isn’t much of a shepherd.
I’m going to leave you with a couple of references to explore on your own. The movie, “Experimenter” (www.imdb.com/... ) is worth watching. The movie holds to the actual story and doesn’t get too far off the accurate narrative. Simple Psychology has a very concise read on Milgram’s Shock Experiment ( www.simplypsychology.org/...). Wikipedia provides you with a concise history of the man, his motivations and his work (en.wikipedia.org/... ). His seminal book, “Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View” (en.wikipedia.org/... ) is available for sale from many vendors and should be at your local library.
It is no longer about who is smarter, who is stupid and who is holding the levers of power. It is about how we respond to these shocks, and how we decide whether we’re going to continue to support and defend in an unquestioning way, the behaviors of an unstable person who does not intend to govern, and is only interested in ruling through cruelty. No matter the level of humor that our late night hosts attempt to infuse, no matter the apologetic mainstreaming efforts, we, the experimenters, are also the subjects, and we need to try to remember the Golden Rule ( en.wikipedia.org/...): “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you...”
If we allow this madness to continue, and our government will not stand up for its citizenry, we must speak with the only weapon we have —
We stop participating in this experiment.
It has gone on long enough.
Time to inform your elected officials that this is NOT what you signed on for...
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