Submission to Authority
In subconscious atonement for the guilt of our selfishness, are we preparing to sacrifice our lives and maintain in death the humanity which we can see we are losing? Do we justify our drive for this luxurious existence by subliminally accepting that we are committing gigasuicide, self-effacingly cleansing the earth of the parasite that we have become?
According to Professor Stanley Milgram, obedience is:
A fatal flaw which nature has designed into us and which in the long run gives our species only a moderate chance of survival.
Milgram is the US professor who carried out a series of experiments to test whether there was any psychological validity in the pleas of Nazis like Eichmann that they were only carrying out orders in committing millions to the gas chambers. Milgram wanted to find out if people would unquestioningly carry out orders to do something which otherwise might be thought uncivilized and contrary to moral conscience.
He advertised for people to help him with experiments on memory. The volunteers had to give the subject simple memory tests—if the subject made a mistake the volunteer had to administer an electric shock and then proceed to the next test. The volunteers briefly saw the subject strapped in a chair, and Milgram demonstrated to them the nature of the punishment by giving them mild shocks of 45 volts. He then took them into the next room where they sat in front of a panel with a set of levers marked with voltage levels up to 450 volts. The top levels were marked “Danger—Extreme Shock”.
In reality the apparent subject was Milgram’s accomplice; the volunteers were the true subjects of the experiment. Milgram, whose voice was, of course, the voice of authority, sat behind the volunteers firmly urging them, if they hesitated, to apply the appropriate shock lest they spoil the experiment.
The results were astounding. With no feedback of sound from the victim, the volunteers blithely pushed the voltage up to the maximum. When the accomplice cursed, objected and cried in pain (all simulated), a minority, but only a minority, refused to inflict further punishment. Some others obeyed but showed signs of conflict and distress.
Later experiments by other workers used a puppy dog subjected to genuine electric shocks. Milgram’s results were confirmed.
A remarkable fact was that all the women tested were willing to push the voltage up to the maximum when instructed by the authority figure. Women’s assumed natural characteristics of caring and mothering seem easily overwhelmed by the voice of authority.
Milgram’s experiments on obedience might be considered by many of us to have been invaluable revelations about the way we, as human beings, behave. Yet criticisms by his peers, fellow psychological experts, were severe and damaging: “People should not be duped in this way”, they said, “It is unethical”.
But the volunteers, when told the truth, mainly supported Milgram, commenting that he had discovered one of the most important causes of the trouble in the world, that men should avoid harm to their fellow men even at the risk of violating authority, and that the results were valuable if they jarred people out of their complacency. The experiment obviously could not have been done without misleading the participants.
Moreover, Milgram’s critics have found other psychological studies on human subjects involving deception perfectly acceptable. Of course, these did not dig at the foundation of “civilized” society—obedience—the essence of our hierarchical structures, society’s buttress against anarchy!
Milgram’s findings show that many, perhaps most, of us could have been Eichmann. But the general public dupes itself. When people are asked how they would react as volunteers in Milgram’s experiments, most guess that they would stop at about 150 volts. Only four per cent believe they would go as far as 300 volts and only one per cent to the maximum.
Milgram varied the circumstances of the experiments. With the accomplice in the same room as the volunteers, fewer people went to the maximum. When the volunteers had to physically push the accomplice’s hand on to the electrode, fewer still obeyed. But when the volunteers took on the role of the authority figure instructing someone else to apply the shock, even more of them were willing to go to the maximum.
We think we are much more willing to defy authority than we are—authority therefore has much more power over us than we think!
At Mi Lai in Vietnam, all American, middle class young men butchered 500 old men, women, children and babies. Their officers had ordered that, to improve morale, the Viet Cong in Mi Lai had to be engaged at all costs. If Viet Cong guerrillas had been in the village, as the US generals supposed, they were elusive enough not to be there when the US troops arrived. But this inscrutable oriental tactic did not deter the unscrupulous occidental generals. They defined the Vietnamese still in the village as enemy combatants: anyone there, irrespective of age or sex, became Viet Cong by definition. The GIs killed them. Only a handful of the young soldiers refused to obey!
By yielding to authority we can absolve ourselves of guilt. Like Eichmann, we are doing our duty, only obeying orders: it is not our fault! Furthermore those who give the order also absolve themselves from guilt: they do not have to do the dirty work themselves. A chain of command or a technological device (like a B52 bomber) diffuses the responsibility, reducing guilt more.
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