learntoquestion ltq discussions

I think that everyone has the potential to become a perpetrator of violence against others when in fear of authority or as part of a mass movement, and not feeling responsible for their actions. For example, Adolf Eichmann argued that he was just a cog in the machine and was “just following orders”. Having the attitude that you’re not responsible and doing what the authority is telling you to do shifts blame off of yourself and makes you go: it wasn’t my fault, it was (insert authority figure)’s fault. The Milgram experiments suggest that when pressured by an authority figure, people might question what they’re doing, but a percentage of people will go through with it, while others might stop. If people were held more accountable, they might reconsider their actions, and to what degree they act on their violent ideas.

I think that experiments like Milgram’s actually explain ordinary people’s active participation in violence, mass atrocities and genocide. As mentioned before in the course certain cults, like the Jonestown cult, or the Manson family. Other factors that might play a role in participation of violence and atrocities would be a sense of belonging in a group, or meaning. Or the “us vs them dynamic”, and polarization in society. There’s also a very small percentage of people who might be characterized as sociopaths who genuinely feel no remorse, the David Cash guy shown in class, but in the Stanford Prison experiment it showed that even with the brightest minds, when given power over others, could become tyrannical. Although this could be skewed due to people seeking power over others as a guard and how the researchers framed the Stanford Prison experiment to their subjects.

Some of the important factors and personality traits that led the “teachers” in the Milgram experiment to disobey the experimenters’ commands to continue to shock the learner would be having actual concern for the learner and being willing to disobey the authority figure and give up the money paid in the experiment. While you can try to create societies that value and encourage the traits of people who disobey unethical authority figures, I think you’ll run into the problem of people questioning authority that might not be considered unethical. For instance, recent public assassinations of the UnitedHealth Care CEO and Charlie Kirk. If we give too much freedom to question authority, you have anarchy, and anarchy leads to chaos. We still need some semblance of order in our society, especially with these increasingly polarizing times. But these experiments should be taken with a grain of salt, because these people know that they are participating in an experiment. If it were the real world and there was a strong authority figure that you had to obey, I have a feeling most people wouldn’t rebel due to fear for themselves and a desire for self-preservation. I believe that there is a major difference between situations where it is easy to disobey because it doesn’t threaten you personally, but if it did, you might see less people willing to disobey.

While Milgram's experiments may seem “extreme” to some people, they show how the human mind reacts in multiple scenarios. For example, in the experiment we watched in class, the act of shocking a person with heart problems with dangerous amounts of electricity is very intense, but it shows how the brain reacts to serious situations while also listening to the directions of a higher authority. The Milgram experiment exposes that with a stroke of authority over hearing and observing others' actions, we as humans can become perpetrators of violence against others. The human mind often goes against personal morals and empathy for another individual when a higher power instructs it to do otherwise. This can happen for several reasons, like lack of information, trust in a higher authority, etc., but these things are not necessarily able to go against the mind's “instinct” to do what's right. During the video, when each participant reaches a certain point in the experiment, typically when a dangerous amount of electricity is being applied to the other individuals, they begin to question the reality of the experiment, and provide excuses to stop it. This demonstrates humans' basic instinct of morality and empathy toward themselves and other humans, but when a higher authority, such as the scientist in this instance, continues to harm others, most likely because of their vague knowledge of the experiment and the extremity of the experiment, it allows the brain to go against its instincts.

Milgram's experiment helps people understand the human brain better, in terms of participation in violence or mass genocide. Milgram's experiment goes hand in hand with the idea of “mob mentality,” even when there isn't much of a mob in this experiment. This explains the idea where people feel isolated and are not willing to complete an action because the “correct” side is saying to do otherwise. In the experiment, there is no “group” necessarily, a higher authority, where the teacher goes against their own judgment of the situation and follows the orders of the scientist. This experiment shows that people feel the need to follow the orders of an authority figure when they lack information about the situation, making it easier for leaders, like Hitler or Stalin, to “control” a group of people to the “right” objective. Moreover, I believe that people could enjoy inflicting pain on others, but most people do it in fear of punishment from a higher authority. In society, we call these people sociopaths, where an individual enjoys or has no reaction to seriously gruesome activity, especially when pain is inflicted on another person or even themselves. Something that leads to this is when people start to dehumanize other humans, making them seem like objects rather than human beings. When a group or individual is seen as less than human, it becomes easier to justify violence against them. Propaganda in war times and mass genocide movements are a way to dehumanize people, making pain towards them “justifiable”. This is similar to Maria Korrinkova’s point in The Real Lesson of the Stanford Prison Experiment that “any random human being is capable of descending into sadism and tyranny. It’s that certain institutions and environments demand those behaviors—and, perhaps, can change them.” Some things that may have affected the participant’s ability to to disobey in the experiment is the fact that the scientist was in very close contact with the learner. If the participant was in another room than the scientist, it would be easier to refrain from shocking the other person because there would be less of an obligation to do so, and repercussions against the teacher are less likely. Another thing was the relationship between the two participants. Usually, the teacher starts to develop a relationship with the learner based on pure empathy. The teacher would commonly ask if the learner was alright to continue the experiment because they did not like the feeling of inflicting pain on the learner. Moreover, I believe that it would be hard to create these societies where people go against these types of authority figures, but in history, people have done so, leading to different reformation acts like Women's suffrage and the Civil Rights movement. With all this said, I leave my classmates to think, what societal changes could be made to stop people from hesitating to the pressures of unethical authority figures?

I believe that most people have the potential to become a perpetrator of violence against others. I say most mainly because there are too many people in the world to make a complete generalization. People are cruel when they want to be, and even when they don’t. The Milgram experiments suggest that the way that humans perceive others has a strong impact on how possible it would be to inflict pain on others. The subjects that could see the “student” were able to stray from authority much earlier, implying that sight and perception has a strong influence on how a person thinks. Being able to see and hear the pain that they are causing could influence their decision making, increasing their empathy or need to humanize the other person.

Milgram’s experiments might reveal some of the reasoning behind an active participation in genocide, though I believe that the explanation requires more nuance and other causes. For example, the lack of connection they feel to their actions can only partially explain away their actions, as many people still acted to stop hurting the other person, even when they couldn’t see the person. This displays the importance of human perception when they act, as they feel separated from the act of inflicting pain onto another person. There could be an aspect of obligation, where the subjects felt obligated to carry out the experiment due to their payment, which was still going to be given even if they didn’t fully go through with it. This “duty” probably shouldn’t have as much effect as it does, but there is a human need to finish something you’ve been assigned to. Additionally, there was a very strong “authority” in the experiment, as he didn’t flinch or doubt the experiment at all. This sort of sureness can strongly influence a person’s trust and faith in an action. This is, in many words, just a way of interpreting or even justifying the way that people can act in a situation where they are harming someone. I think that these three factors also added to the willingness of a person’s participation in a cruel act.

This experiment doesn’t actually explain the entirety of the reasoning behind a person’s participation in genocide, rather a specific part of the processing behind their actions. Of course, according to another experiment, “when people act “under orders,” they seem to experience less agency over their actions and outcomes than when they choose for themselves” (Barajas 2). There has to be a direct correlation between the action and the consequences, or else people feel separated from them. This idea was likely taken advantage of, mostly by leaders taking advantage of the bystander effect. They felt their inaction or their slight actions didn’t matter in how it impacted people. It is likely that people did also actually feel the impact of their actions, but it was more easily pushed away due to this disconnect. There also exist people that also just completely feel justified in their actions, feeling that the harm that they were doing onto other people was justified. Additionally, their faith in the authority figure, in the actions or beliefs that they are abiding by can impact the willingness or want to complete the orders given to them. The stronger the faith, the less disconnected they even need to feel from the harm they are inflicting onto other people.

I think that everyone can become a perpetrator of violence regardless of our learned behavior throughout our lives. Especially when put in a place of power, I think that it is inevitable that some corruption, violence, or wrongdoing is committed. In the Milgram experiment we see how specifically combined with pressure from authority and social norms, this violence is present, and also explored more by any given individual. In the Milgram experiment we see that people naturally follow social norms and orders regardless of the effect on others. Ordinary and non-violent people alike intentionally hurt others in the experiment. Regardless of the true nature of the experiment, that the actors were okay, it still reveals how people seem to naturally follow orders. Given this, I think that everyone has the capacity to commit heinous acts, whether deep within themselves or otherwise, it is still there. Thus, I think that given the means, anyone can become a perpetrator of violence against others. The Milgram experiment shows us how easy it is for us to be manipulated into doing such heinous acts. It suggests that we are predisposed to being subject to manipulation by authority figures in our lives. In How Nazi's Defense of "Just Following Orders" Plays Out in the Mind by Joshua Barajas, he lays it out clearly stating that when people act under orders, they have less agency and control over their actions. This shows that there is a reduced responsibility when following orders. He even goes to state that people in charge should be held more accountable for the actions they compel others to do if this is true. This suggests that the Milgram experiment shows us that people simply feel less responsible for their actions when they are under orders. This is echoed in Nazi Germany where many people justified their actions in an attempt to save face by saying that they were “just following orders.” Now, there is no justification for the horrible acts committed by the Nazis, bottom line. However, this statement gives us insight into how the brain almost loses itself when following orders. In addition to many other psychological factors including manipulation by propaganda and forced groupthink, the Nazi party was able to forcibly change the German population into tools for horror. This example shows how ordinary people, when morality is concealed by outside factors, have the capability to commit violence. Importantly, this does not mean everyone is a murderer or okay with heinous acts like that. Disregarding the select few genuine sociopaths, this suggests that a lot of horrible acts committed can be partially attributed to the environment as well as the perpetrator. Additionally, it is important to say that the line between cold-hearted killer and average citizen is not as concrete as you may think and that it is wildly dynamic. At the heart of everyone, I believe that there is good and bad, which shows outwardly or takes over is based on a great many factors. What the Milgram experiment shows us is that we are susceptible to that bad side rearing its head. I think given different circumstances, the opposite can be achieved as well, and that by harboring a positive environment we can coerce similar actions.

I do think that experiments such as the Milgram’s explain the reason why ordinary people’s participation in violence due to the fear of breaking rules. People tend to be unsympathetic when it benefits them or even simply when they want to be. The Milgram experiment revolves around a teacher choosing the pain levels to inflict on a student when they get an answer to a question wrong. As the pain increases,the student begs to stop the experiment. The experiment questions the idea of conformity, and if the teacher will stop the experiment or continue it based on the scientist’s demands. When people break rules, they may associate it with punishment for themselves which leads them to conformity, listening to and fulfilling every command. I believe that if there wasn’t a scientist forcing the experiment, the teachers would stop. The teachers saw the scientist as the one responsible, and decided to comply with the orders as it shifts the blame off of them. As seen by this quote “In other words, people actually feel disconnected from their actions when they comply with orders, even though they’re the ones committing the act” (Barajas), it doesn’t matter if you are the one inflicting pain, but it is the teacher’s fault. If they were to bring in a teacher that is not afraid of breaking rules, they stopped the experiment immediately as seen with the first teacher. Another barrier to showing empathy and stopping the experiment was seeing the student. When a teacher physically sees the student’s pain, they are more likely to stop the experiment than if they were not able to see. This is similar to what we learned about in Nazi Germany, where they used gas chambers as the Nazis wouldn’t be able to see the death they caused. I believe that any moral compass is turned off this way, and they had a reason to justify their actions as they were just following orders. Reduced responsibility gives people a reason to commit atrocities, and they see themselves as just the person doing it. Shifting the blame onto another person gives people the idea that the person asking them to do it should be held more accountable for any outcomes that end badly. Along with following authority blindly, I believe another reason that people willingly inflict pain on others is because of desensitization. When people are constantly confronted with violence, their tolerance can gradually increase. What starts off as small acts of violence can quickly become larger as it is more normalized. This is illustrated in the Milgram experiment as the shocks start off as light. As the student continues to get questions wrong, the pain increases until they can no longer handle it. In addition to this, the repeated action of violence numbs the teacher, who cares less and less. As they continue to inflict harm, there becomes less shock and the individual may start to feel detached, disregarding it as a virtuous choice. Ultimately, the experiment shows us how authority and desensitization work together to explain how atrocities are justified in the eyes of the perpetrator.

I think that under the right circumstances, everyone has the potential to become a perpetrator of violence against others, whether intentionally or unconsciously. The Milgram experiments (a clear example of this idea) suggest that when someone who seems to be more knowledgeable instructs us to do something and provides reassurance, we are likely to do what is asked of us. In the experiments, one man continues to deliver shocks all the way up to nearly the highest voltage despite knowing it was wrong. Afterwards, when the scheme was revealed to him and he was asked why he failed to halt, the man began to explain himself away. He took the easier way out and shifted the blame onto the instructor, communicating how he didn’t have a choice and that he was not personally responsible. I believe that even though the experiment was all planned, the man experienced cognitive dissonance knowing that he followed through with the instructions. His response demonstrates an attempt to justify himself and reduce any feelings of guilt. The fact that he couldn’t see the person he was shocking definitely played a role in his continuation as well. In a more general sense, I think that if we cannot physically see the harm we are implementing onto others, we are able to play it down. This same tactic was used during the Holocaust in gas chambers. Supporting this idea, when the experiment was conducted with the “student” and “teacher” in a closer proximity to one another, the teacher was more likely to stop. To start off one of his papers, Milgrim wrote “Obedience, as a determinant of behavior, is of particular relevance to our time,”. I find this interesting and relevant as it was written over 60 years ago and still pertains to modern life. After reading it, I question how we as a society determine who we will be obedient to. Without question, there are laws we (most of us, at least) follow such as not murdering, kidnapping, or committing arson. There is still a lot of gray area though, and I wonder how it came to be that we collectively choose who not to listen to.

It seems to me that such experiments can serve as smaller-scaled symbols that explain ordinary people’s active participation in violence, mass atrocities, and genocide. A large cause of this is the personality of the leader, as we have learned in class. Those with charisma, leadership, and confidence can manipulate groups with lower self-esteem into actions they would not typically engage in. These characteristics are not inherently bad, in fact I believe them to be largely valuable and encouraging. I see no problem with those who harbor similar personality traits. When they use them with bad intentions or to harm someone else, however, is when it becomes an issue. We like to believe that if we ever found ourselves in a similar situation, we would 100% not fall for the tactics… but then again many who are sucked in had the same mindset and when it comes to it, we can never be so sure.

While I don’t think it is someone’s natural response, I think everyone has the potential to become a perpetrator of violence against others if they are pushed hard enough to do it. The Milgram experiment suggests that human behavior can be manipulated into willingly and knowingly committing acts that are against our better judgment or our moral compass. While some participants in the documentary were more questioning of what an authority figure tells them to do and hesitant to carry out the shockings, most people placed in a situation where they are confused or unsure of what to do will defer to the authority figure. This can be because having someone tell them what to do can make people feel better about a situation or what they are doing, especially in the Milgram experiment where a lot of the participants had no idea about how dangerous voltage can be so they trusted the scientist who they believed had more knowledge than them. It can also reduce the burden of the action on their conscience if the person is told to do something rather than doing it of their own will. Also, people have a tendency to want to appease those that they think have authority and fear the consequences of disobedience. I think that experiments like Milgram’s help explain part of how ordinary people can participate in mass atrocities, but it does not provide the whole answer. In Rethinking one of Psychology’s most infamous experiments, it says “The notion that we somehow automatically obey authority, that we are somehow programmed, doesn’t account for the variability [in rates of obedience] across conditions,” he said; in some iterations of Milgram’s study, the rate of compliance was close to 100 percent, while in others it was closer to zero. “We need an account that can explain the variability—when we obey, when we don’t”. This brings up the idea that some people are naturally more resistant to the influence of authority than others, which can be due to a whole range of reasons like their personal moral compass, past experiences or things like proximity to the victim. In the documentary we saw that when the learner was put in another room away from the teacher, the teacher was more likely to obey than when the teacher could see the learner and had to physically intervene with the learner to shock them. The environment also plays a large part in how obedient people are as well. In the article The Real Lesson from the Stanford Prison Experiment, it talks about how some of the participants who were given the role of guard felt they had to act tougher for the experiment. The way the authority figure gives the instructions can also influence how people will react. If the order is given in a reserved and monotone fashion, then it can cause a person to feel more at ease and willing if the authority figure is calm. In order to create a society that values and encourages the traits that encourage disobedience to unethical behavior we would need to teach and encourage critical thinking in everybody so that when people can think about the implications of the actions they are doing.

I think that everyone has the potential to become a perpetrator of violence against others. However, I think some people are more likely to go the full length than others. The Obedience Theory suggests that humans are socialized to obey authority and follow the rules even if the authority figure is not present or if they contradict with our beliefs. The Milgram Experiments suggest that we are obedient towards authority. We are also especially confident in our actions when we are told that we are not responsible for the consequences or end results, but that the authorities are responsible. This is clearly shown in the video about the Milgram Experiment. One of the test subjects was hesitant to continue administering the shocks because the learner was yelling about his heart problems. He did not want to be responsible for injuring or killing the man, so he insisted on stopping the experiment. However, after the scientist told him that he would not be responsible or blamed for the pain, he continued on and kept intensifying the shocks. Many of the teachers were aware of the learners’ heart condition. They also were able to hear the screams of pain and heard the learners pleading for them to stop shocking. The teachers knew that the learners were uncomfortable in the situation, and most of them verbally told the scientists they did not want to continue. Very few of them stuck by their morals and disobeyed the scientist telling them to continue. Despite their morals, they ultimately continued the experiment because they were told to by the scientist. I think that the scientist’s calm, persuasive, and knowledgeable tone helped convince the test subjects that they were doing the right thing by continuing. I thought this connected really well to the quote in “How Nazi’s Defense of ‘Just Following Orders’ Plays Out in the Mind” that stated that “people actually feel disconnected from their actions when they comply with orders, even though they’re the ones committing the act”. This quote explains why the majority of the test subjects continued with the shock punishments. They felt that they weren’t really contributing to the learner’s pain as much as the scientists were. Since they were only just doing as they were told by the authority, this feeling of lack of responsibility was used to further justify their actions. It emphasizes the social norm that people listen to higher authority even when it goes against what they stand for. I found that the rejection of their morals to obey higher authority was very interesting and prevalent in history. I think it highlights some of the causes of historical instances of obedience, like the Nazis. The document also explained that “coercion could change someone’s ‘sense of agency’”. I think the coercion in the Milgram experiment was the scientists’ calm yet monotone way of speaking. Furthermore, the same repetitive scripted lines they said such as “the experiment requires that you continue” probably helped more to convince the teacher to continue.

Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman once wrote that “The most frightening news brought about by the Holocaust and by what we learned of its perpetrators was not the likelihood that ‘this’ could be done to us, but the idea that we could do it.” This observation presents us with something that most people don’t want to hear. The potential to be so cruel lies in ordinary people. The Milgram Experiment, conducted at Yale in the 1960s, shows how obedience and an authoritative figure can transform an individual into someone who would cause harm to someone else. When you look at this beside Joshua Barajas’s article How Nazi's Defense of "Just Following Orders" Plays Out in the Mind, it shows that obedience is not just weakness but that in people's minds, they use it to not take responsibility. The Milgram Experiment suggests that almost everyone has the potential to harm others under the right conditions. In the study, many of the volunteers were willing to give the other person high voltage electricity shocks only because an authority figure told them to continue. The participants were not inherently violent (I assume) and they believed they were helping science. Yet when they were urged by the scientist, they continued to inflict pain despite all the shouts of the learner begging them to stop. This shows that human beings prioritize authority over what their own moral conscience is telling them to do, especially when an authority figure will take the responsibility. The article helps explain why this happens. Barajas uses research that shows when people act under orders, their sense of agency lessens and they feel less responsibility for their actions. As Patrick Hoggard notes, people experience their actions under authority as “passive movements” instead of voluntary choices. This mirrors the mindset of one of the Holocaust’s chief organizers, who claimed he was “forced to serve as a mere instrument.” While Haggard cautions that just following orders should not be a viable excuse, he says that feeling the effect of less responsibility can really happen to anyone. However, obedience to authority is not the only factor that explains why ordinary people participate in atrocities. Other influences such as fear of punishment, peer pressure, and prejudice. For example, in the Milgram experiment, many participants said they were uncomfortable but continued shocking the learner because they felt they had to. Quitting would have meant they failed the experimenter and disrupted the study. On a larger scale like genocide, people may fear imprisonment, job loss, or being ostracised if they resist. Propaganda is also used to make the victims seem like less than human, making the violence more justifiable. All this to say, obedience combines with other social pressures to create the conditions in which mass violence becomes possible.