Authorities Mind Control - Stanley Milgram's Experiment
In the aftermath of the Nazi Holocaust the world was shocked that
normal citizens could be ordered to carryout heinous crimes.
Stanley Milgram developed experiments to test people's obedience to
authority and determine how far regular people would go in inflicting
pain on others simply because some authority told them to.
The experiment consisted of two people on Milgram's team, an
Experimenter and an Assistant. The Experimenter represented
the authoritative figure and the Assistant was secretly assigned to
represented the citizen subject.
A newspaper advert for a Psychology Experiment offering $4.50 per
hour Recruited willing participants who became the Teacher representing
'government' workers under officials.
On arriving the Experimenter explains to the Recruit that they will
be testing the effect of punishment on learning ability.
The Assistant and Recruit draw lots to determine who will be the
"Teacher" and who will be the "Student". The lots were rigged so
as to ensure that the Recruit always became the Teacher.
The Assistant Student is then strapped into an electric chair
connected to a switch marked with increasing shock voltages controlled
by the Teacher. The switch started with 15Volts and increased in
15 Volt increments all the way to 450 Volts. The switch is also
rated with labels starting from "slight shock" to "danger: severe shock"
and the final two switches are labeled "XXX".
The Teacher then reads two-world pairs from a list and the Student
has to repeat the two word pair. If the Student answers correctly
the Teacher moves on to the next two-word pair in the list. If the
Student gets the answer wrong, the Teacher administers a shock to the
Student starting at 15V and increasing the shock 15V for each incorrect
answer.
The Student is actually part of the test team and acts as though
being shocked.
Astonishingly every Recruit shocked the Student up to the 300 Volt
switch.
65% of the Recruits shocked the Student to the maximum 450 Volts.
Milgram also conducted several follow-up experiments. In one
experiment the Recruited "Teacher" was required to hold the hand of the
Student when shocking the Student at any level above 150V. 32% of
the Recruits held the hand of the Student when administering shocks in
excess of 400V. Other experiments revealed that Recruited Teachers
were less obedient to Experimenters instructions to shock the Student
when the Experimenter communicated with the Recruited Teacher remotely
via telephone.
The experiments have been replicated by may other researchers around
the world from 1961 to 1985 revealing the same astonishing obedience of
Recruits to inflict pain on Students just because they are told to by
someone claiming 'authority'. What is also interesting from Milgram's
research is that some "Teacher" Recruits would question the Experiment as to who was
responsible for any harm to the Student. When the Experimenter
told the Recruit they accepted full responsibility, the Recruits, often
despite being extremely uncomfortable continued to shock the Student.
"I observed a mature and initially poised businessman enter the
laboratory smiling and confident. Within 20 minuets he
was reduced to a twitching, stuttering wreck, who was rapidly
approaching nervous collapse. He constantly pulled on his ear
lobe, and twisted his hands. At one point he pushed his fist into
his forehead and muttered 'Oh God, lets stop it'. And yet he
continued to respond to every word of the Experimenter, and obeyed
to the end." - Milgram
The Big Question is whether recruits under some sort of authority are
not guilty when they commit crime when their authority tells them to.
Milgram's experiments were inspired by the Eichmann Trials.
Eichmann was a high ranking Nazi official largely responsible for
setting up concentration camps and exterminating millions of Jews.
When he was caught in South America many years after the war and brought
to trial in Israel, Eichmann's primary defense was that his authorities
told him to do it and that he was just following orders. Eichmann
with his calm, cool and collected posture on the stand during trial shocked
the world. Here was what appeared to be a reasonable man calmly
saying that he slaughtered millions of people in the most horrific way
because he was a good respectable official simply obeying the orders and
wishes of his authorities. Eichmann was properly found guilty and
executed. (See also
Bushes and
Bush Bolt Hole). Clearly a key to this behavior, as reflected by the Recruits
who asked who accepted responsibility for hurting the Student, is
accountability. Clearly authorities are accountable, despite the
fact that they are seldom held accountable. Those carrying out the
crime for the authorities are also obviously accountable. However,
unless their is a clear and obvious understanding in society and law
that if you commit a crime, no matter who tells you, you are
responsible, their is little to prevent criminals running amuck in our
government.
Results from Milgram's experiment would be
interesting if the Recruit "Teacher" was told that they would be
held fully
responsible for any injury suffered by the Student. At what voltage
level would the Recruit stop shocking his subject? Biblical Law which
is defined in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, perhaps reflects a severity
intended to bring the realization of responsibility and accountability
to everyone. Judge law, or "Case Law" as it is more commonly
referred to, while obviously void it is however currently the de-facto
law in U.S. Courts, is creating exactly
the opposite problem. See
11th Amendment which
eliminates Judicial Power and how the U.S. Judiciary is absurdly
claiming that the 11th Amendment grants government officials "sovereign
immunity" when in fact the 11th Amendment and the very construct of the
Constitution states just the opposite. Criminals are often not
held accountable by U.S. courts because they claim something in their
past made them do it.. |
