learntoquestion ltq discussions

Questions to Consider:

Please use the following quote and questions as a guide for your post. You should also refer directly to the documentary of the Milgram experiment that we viewed as a class as well. You can choose to focus on one of the question sets, or to incorporate several of them into your response.

Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman writes: “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.”

1. Do you think that everyone has the potential to become a perpetrator of violence against others? What do the Milgram experiments suggest about the aspects of human behavior that could make it possible for us to willingly inflict pain on others?

2. Do you think that experiments like Milgram’s actually explain ordinary people’s active participation in violence, mass atrocities and genocide? What are the other factors that may come into play? What else, beside the blind following of authority, contributes to some people's willingness to inflict pain on others?

3. What are some of the important factors and perhaps even personality traits that led the ‘teachers’ in the Milgram experiment to disobey the ‘experimenters’ commands to continue to shock the ‘learner’? Can we attempt to create societies that value and encourage the traits of people who disobey unethical authority figures? Is there danger in that as well?

Word Count Requirement: 500-750 words

Readings to Reference:

Please refer to the ideas, either using a quote or paraphrasing, from at least one of the readings in your response.

A Matter of Obedience? (Facing History and Ourselves)

Rethinking one of Psychology’s most infamous experiments (Cari Romm, 2015)

How the Nazi’s Defense of “Just Following Orders” Plays Out in the Mind (Joshua Barajas, 2016)

The Real Lesson of the Stanford Prison Experiment (Maria Korrinkova, 2015)

Rubrics to Review:

Learn to question post 2

Yes, I do believe everyone has the ability to become violent. This has been seen during WW2 and The Vietnam War with both of them being draft wars. Since both of those wars drafted US citizens, I believe that ordinary people or people who seem ‘non violent' must have been drafted and brought into the violence. In a military setting there is a chain of command that’s followed, in which even the most docile of people are manipulated into killing. From the limited media I’ve read of those two wars people were traumatized at the things they did, yet they still did them. Although this doesn’t entirely follow the results of the Milgram experiment of which the ‘teacher’ felt no responsibility or remorse for inflicting pain onto the ‘leaner’, it still goes to show that people will follow order no matter how extreme it may be. This happens on both sides of the war as well, specifically Nazi Germany. The article How Nazi’s Defense of “Just Following Order” Plays Out in the Mind written by Joshua Barajas and published February 19, 2016, describes how many Nazis’ after the war were put on trial for crimes against humanity. There the Nazis kept saying “I was just following orders” with the most notable trial being of Adolf Eichmann. This is what led to the Milgrem experiments in the first place and explains why mass amounts of people are able to commit atrocities. In conjunction another theory called Group Think coined by Irving Janis occurs. In these settings critical thinking is overridden and groups ignore the potential ethical consequences of decisions. All together with additions of more psychological behaviors humans are able to be manipulated on a huge scale.

In the experiment the ‘teacher’ role usually has a similar occupation throughout each trial, that being a worker or more specifically someone who already looks up to someone. Everywhere you look people look up to each other. This can be seen in a school setting comparing student to teacher and then teacher to director, so on. As well at home this is engraved into us from an early age through children having to obey their parents order as the parents know best. That one person we saw in the milgram experiment who disobeyed my guess was someone who doesn’t look up to other people. This can be interpreted as he is his own boss. Isn’t this part of the reason why people desire to become their own boss, so that they don’t have to take orders from someone else?. This scary similarity may be why humans are so easy to manipulate into obeying order. If attempts are made to create a society of people who are their own boss then nothing will get done, breaking the chain of command breaks the supply line. If as a society we encourage people to disobey unethical authority figures then every one who steps to the plate will be overthrown. Everyone has different opinions about one thing and another and that is why a democracy works as it meshes people with multiple opinions into collection.

I’d like to believe that if someone were telling me to do something that went against my moral obligation, I would follow my moral compass rather than obey the wrongful command. After learning about the Milgram experiments and reading A Matter of Obedience, I realized that even with good intentions, the inclination to obey “authority” can sometimes overpower our intent. The Milgram experiments collected hundreds of people who thought they were being part of a study to assess the relation between punishment and learning, but in reality, the experiment was conducted to test their willingness (or inadvertent willingness) to obey commands that went against their principles.

The tests were conducted in a multitude of different settings and exchanged variables deriving from the original. The initial experiment was with two men, one the teacher and the other the learner. The learner was really part of the experiment, but the teacher didn’t know. With each question, the learner answered wrong, the teacher would have to electronically shock the learner, who was not visible, but could be heard from the other room. The learner would shout in pain from the shocks, but even if the teacher objected to continuing the experiment, the experimenter would persist that he go on. The following version of the experiment would change the proximity of the learner and the experimenter.

Through the study and according to the reading, 62.5% of participants followed through to the extreme shock. This is a wild statistic, or is it? The further away the experimenter was and the closer the learner was, this percent dropped significantly. This then changes the perspective. When removing authority and substituting it for humanity, people start to be more likely to follow their own values.

What this study shows about human nature and behavior is that we have an inclination to obey. This could be for a multitude of reasons: maybe we don’t believe we are responsible for what we’re doing if we just obey orders or that the person instructing has more knowledge of the subject or many more reasons. The factor of being with a stronger self image (meaning they won’t disregard their dissonance) may also come into play. As the reading suggests, a change in instruction from distanced infliction of pain to “direct physical force” may change people’s behavior (A Matter of Obedience).

What this study really helps reveal is why or how people in situations of genocide and atrocities, like the Holocaust for example, acted with such violence. Here, factors of fear of disobedience, absolvement from responsibility, being deceived and looking to authority, or other reasons proven by the Milgram experiments may explain such brutal behavior. This leads us to the conclusion that humans should try their best to keep their moral compass strong and stand against the commands of others, but the issue with that is how morality is subjective. While one person may think that killing hundreds of thousands of people is wrong, another person may think that is the right thing to do. Here lies the issue with pushing people to follow their own principles because they are not objective. In fact, this very way of thinking is what most likely led those who start mass violence to follow through.

The Milgram experiments suggest that the more someone knows a person, the less likely they are to inflict violence upon that person. That being said, if we are completely separated from someone–we don’t know anything about them or we have never even seen them–we are much more likely to willingly inflict pain upon this person. Everyone could become a perpetrator of violence against others, but the causes for someone to do these things may range greatly. As is seen in the Milgram experiment, some people will be a perpetrator of violence if a symbol of authority repeatedly, calmly urges them to continue, however, the requirements might not be similar for different people. Everybody has a breaking point, but it is different for everybody; some people will never become a perpetrator of violence unless someone has caused a mental change in their mind whether through physical violence or other methods, others will act while completely in their sane mental state and still take orders from people.

The main factor that made the Milgram experiment have such results is that the violence started out minor, and everything seemed normal, however, it would be interesting to see how the results change if the learners were required to start from a higher voltage. This definitely factors into people’s active participation in mass atrocities and genocide. While most people aren’t willing to begin killing from the start, mass genocides don’t start over night. Instead, they build up over a long period of time, so the people involved in mass atrocities have a similar experience to the subjects of Milgram’s experiment, except on a greater scale. In particular mass genocides like the Holocaust changed over a period of time to have less direct contact between the soldiers and the victims. When people weren’t actively watching themselves committing the act, like shooting someone, they were less psychologically damaged by the results. Additionally this helped them remove their own responsibility from it if they didn’t see themselves do it. As Joshua Barajas says in his article “How Nazi's Defense of ‘Just Following Orders’ Plays Out in the Mind” in the Scientific American, “In other words, people actually feel disconnected from their actions when they comply with orders, even though they’re the ones committing the act.” A combination of complying with orders and removed visual responsibility makes ordinary people more willing to participate in violence, which we can see in the results of the Milgram experiment: the only thing the subjects had to do in order to inflict pain on the victim was flick a switch, so it was less mentally taxing for them.

Money can be an important factor if the ‘teacher’ decides to disobey the experimenter. While at the beginning of the exam the experimenter mentioned that the money would be given to the people no matter what happened in the experiment, the subjects could have thought it wasn’t entirely true or they could have simply forgotten. In greater context this part of the experiment relates to if people are likely to be perpetrators of violence if they are receiving a reward. Perhaps the results of the experiment would have changed so that more people were willing to inflict pain on the ‘victim’ if they were told they only get the money if they do everything the scientist asks. Unfortunately, during mass genocides the people committing the atrocities are probably getting some kind of reward for their actions, and this could cause a rise in the existence of such violence. So many factors can play into how the experiment may work: age and gender of the subject or the experimenter could play an important role. Teaching children things from a young age greatly shapes their understanding of the world around them, but so much focus is already put on children valuing their moral values above all else. Instead, perhaps we should push to teach them that while authority figures are often good to listen to, sometimes the better thing to do is disobey them.

Everyone has the potential to become a perpetrator of violence, particularly when they don’t have to directly confront the consequences. The Milgram experiments suggest that a huge part of what keeps people from committing acts of violence is a sense of responsibility. Once that responsibility is taken away by someone like an authority figure, the potential perpetrator becomes far more likely to act. This seems to relate to cognitive dissonance, since people can add the idea that they are not at fault for whatever injustice occurs, relieving themselves of at least some guilt. According to Barajas’ article “when people act ‘under orders,’ they seem to experience less agency over their actions and outcomes than when they choose for themselves.” This lack of agency is used to justify deplorable actions that people otherwise would not commit.

While this sense of agency and responsibility have a large impact on people’s participation in violence, atrocities, and genocide, it’s not the only factor. Figures of authority often employ tactics like fear mongering and scapegoating, which are effective at convincing people that others either do not belong or are a problem. After being persuaded that this is the case, people can more easily rationalize injustice and harmful behaviors. Another important factor is that of power. If the figure of authority had placed you in a powerful position like the teacher, it feels wrong to let go of it. When people are put in positions of power they believe it’s by their own merits, and they will take full advantage of it. Disobeying authority would mean not living up to expectations of a meriting individual. There might also be a fear of the government or authority figure itself that comes into play. Under authoritarian regimes, punishments for dissent or disobedience are often severe, so people might contradict their personal values in order to avoid these consequences. There might also be a lack of understanding when it comes to the severity of the action. In the Milgram experiment, the teachers had never felt the shock they were giving, so it was difficult for them to understand the real gravity of the situation. It’s probable that people would avoid putting other people through negative experiences if they themselves had suffered the same before. People might adopt the “I wouldn’t wish this upon anyone” mindset after a difficult experience.

It’s interesting to consider that the split between teachers who obeyed and those who didn’t was about an even split, indicating that there is no “normal” way to act in this situation. The teachers who were most invested in the experiment and receiving payment were probably the most likely to obey. Those with a strong sense of self probably struggled the most with cognitive dissonance, and some of them definitely were the ones who did not carry on with the shocks. There may have also been teachers who sympathized with the student’s supposed heart condition because of a personal experience like with a close relative. There is likely no perfect way to cultivate disobedience towards unethical authority, especially because society so highly values government authority and law. A thorough understanding of different situations can be developed through education, which is the most realistic method. I have often thought about how far removed the American people are from the horrors of war after some of the things we hear in conversations day to day. I think of the impact and fear caused by the attacks of 9/11, which was the event of mostly a single day, and compare it to ongoing wars across the world. If people really understood the consequences of their decisions, they would almost certainly be more capable of disobeying unethical authority. If there is a danger in this, it’s exposing people to truly horrific events and harsh realities, but if it’s what we’re seeing every day, it’s probably worth whatever mental sacrifice it takes to prevent similar events from happening.

Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman writes that “the most frightening news brought about by the holocaust…was not the likelihood that ‘this’ could be done to us, but the idea that we could do it.” This is proven in Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments which had shocked observers at the time still baffles us today and it’s how ordinary people without any malice or cruelty could obey instructions to harm another person just because a person of authority tells them to. The documentary we watched in class showed how the participants fought against their “feelings of tension” as Milgram described then when they heard the learners screams of pain. The ‘teacher’ trembled and laughed nervously but the video told us that around half of the participants continued giving shocks up to the highest level, 450 volts, which showed the weight of obedience. The article, A Matter of Obedience, explained the design of the experiment forced participants to choose between two options either inflicting pain on another human being or disobeying authority in which most chose obedience. The study showed many factors that contribute to obedience. One is physical and emotional distance. When the learner was in another room and out of sight, obedience rates were the highest and almost 100% when the victim could not be seen or heard. Russel and Gregory states that “it is far easier to maltreat others if they are personal strangers, even easier to do so if they are cultural strangers.” This helps explain how people involved in the holocaust were able to participate in the mass killing of the Jews because not only were they physically distant but also dehumanized and seen as outsiders. Despite that Milgram’s experiment can not explain the holocaust. While it shows how authority can push ordinary people to cause harm it leaves out other important factors. The reading explains that some Naxos went beyond orders and would act out of hate or ambition. Historian Daniel goldHagen even argued that obedience is not enough evidence to prove this and that individuals follow orders that line up with the values they already have. In the case of police battalion 101 it meant antisemitic beliefs were the foundation that made atrocity possible. Also Milgram’s experiment shows the tools causing obedience but does not explain the deeper cultural things that motivated the wrongdoers actions. Milgram's experiment shows that more than half of the participants went to the maximum voltage even though they heard the physical distress of the ‘learner’ being harmed, showing that under pressure many people will comply with authority subconsciously even if they don’t agree with it. Batman’s warning that “we could do it” is true and the line between ordinary people and wrongdoers is not as far apart as we would like to think it is. It is important to note that some of the participants disobeyed the authority figure. About one third stopped the shocks and refused to go further even when the authority figure insisted they did. This shows that resisting is possible. The people that resisted might have relied on empathy, strong beliefs, or just had the courage to stand up to authority. If societies encourage these traits like critical thinking, responsibility, and compassion then disobedience to authority becomes more common. But also there has to be a good balance because if there is constant disobedience it would weaken the trust and order that is necessary for society. The challenge is to make a moral society that respects authority but also can realize when authority needs to be resisted. Milgram’s experiment doesn’t let you simplify the perpetrators of violence as monsters but instead shows us how ordinary people when in the wrong circumstance can become complicit in cruelty. While at the same time shows that disobedience is possible and how important it is that building cultures that value empathy and moral courage is the best way to keep us from repeating history.

Anyone can inflict violence against others, either because they wanted to or because they were told to. Even though some people might not want to do something violent against another person, Milgram’s experiment explains why ordinary people participate in violence because when people are confused or don’t know what to do, they would find who they think is a leader and follow their directions. People follow a leader's direction even if it’s bad because people think leaders know what they are doing so they feel justified in doing the commands the leaders give out. When people do the bad commands that leaders issue, they don’t care about the consequences that could happen since they think they are just doing what they are told to do. Joshua Barajas, an article writer for Scientific American, further expands on the fact that people feel less responsible doing bad actions the leaders tell others to do by saying, “In other words, people actually feel disconnected from their actions when they comply with orders, even though they’re the ones committing the act” and, “when people act “under orders,” they seem to experience less agency over their actions and outcomes than when they choose for themselves, Haggard said”.

Some important factors that lead the teachers in the experiment to disobey the leader’s command to continue shocking the learner are the morals that the teacher had. When the electric voltage for the shocks got higher to around 150 and 200 volts, the learner started to scream loudly after every shock. The teacher started to stress out and say things like how he doesn’t want to do it anymore. However, the teacher still continues to shock the learner anyways since the leader of the experiment told him to do so. Even though the teacher doesn’t want to keep shocking the learner, he still does because he thinks the leader is always right and he cares less about the consequences that can happen since he was just following the leader’s commands.

The teachers were more likely to disobey the experimenter’s commands for a multitude of reasons. One of which was if the teacher had to take a physical initiative like placing the learner’s hand on the shock plate. Milgram takes into account the relative distance between the experimenter, teacher, and learner and found that when the teacher and learner were closer there was a lower chance of continuing compared to the teacher and learner in separate rooms. The distance and the responses heard from the learner changed the way the teachers acted and helped to determine if the teachers were willing to continue. Milgram also makes a mention of determining how teachers would react depending on their relationship to the learner. If they knew the learner, there would be a greater chance that the teacher would not administer the shocks a lot earlier. Milgram also predicted that if the learner was a criminal, the teacher would have an easier time administering shocks, but since they are strangers, the teachers, for the most part, meet in the middle of the two when they have relative access to the responses of the learners (A Matter of Obedience). There is also the matter that when the teachers only flip a switch, there is less physical harm being inflicted by the teacher. The physical disconnect of doing harm without physical contact makes it easier for the teacher to keep going. When Milgram had the teacher put the learner’s hand back on the pad, there was a lower likelihood of the teacher continuing, as previously stated. Even though predicted, we do not have actual test results from criminals and relatives and they are rather just ideas Milgram had. A Matter of Obedience mentions all of these factors, but it also mentions how historians feel that the results are not enough to justify the behaviors of those complacent in the Holocaust.

I have reason to believe that we can create societies where we can encourage speaking out and disobeying unethical authority figures. While we hope our America can be an outlet for such, it is not. We are more divided than ever even despite our more free ideals. As a society, it is easier to establish an ethical threshold. If everyone has a different level of ethics, where can we draw the line of too far and too soon? The basis of ethics originates from schools. By teaching ethics, factoring in philosophy, and strengthening critical thinking, we can establish an average of where ethics should lie, what is too far, what isn’t radical. We like to believe that we have free speech but it doesn’t often feel that way. If we can actually have the free speech we all have the right to, we can create environments where dissent is not a negative but a way to advance as a society. That requires that people are willing to listen to one another, which is difficult when people have opposing viewpoints. By creating environments where it is okay to disagree, it prevents any possibility of anarchy. Disagreements do not have to end in chaos if we provide the proper outlets like having strong fundamental liberties.

In the 1960s, psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted a series of experiments to measure human obedience in relation to proximity, responsibility, and personal morals- raising the question: how far will someone go to follow through with commands that potentially cause harm and/or danger? In his experiments, an ordinary person (the teacher) was ordered to give a 15-volt electric shock, then a 30-volt, 45-volt, 60-volt… all the way up to a 450-volt electric shock to a man with a heart condition (the learner). Milgram found that 62.5% of people would go all the way- administering three 450-volt shocks to the man, despite his begging to leave the room and stop the shocks.

Milgram’s experiments suggest that regardless of our personal morals or well-held beliefs, we are able to willingly inflict pain or harm onto others due to natural instinct to obey authority figures- especially in groups. Oftentimes, people pin or justify their harmful actions onto their leaders, suggesting that it’s human nature to avoid responsibility. Instead, it’s easier to let others, who we think know more, make our decisions for us. By giving somebody else the authority to make our choices, we also give away our responsibility. But in reality, our actions are our decisions, and therefore our responsibility. The aspect of human behavior that avoids accountability for our actions is what enables people to partake in violence, mass atrocities, and genocides. The popular saying goes: “If somebody told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?”. Although we would like to believe that the answer is no, for a great majority of people, the answer is actually yes, if said somebody applies the right amount of pressure at the right times. Although capitulating to these orders is relatively easy, going against them is a habit that can be built. In “Rethinking One of Psychology’s Most Infamous Experiments” by Cari Romm, Romm states “The ability to disobey toxic orders, Hollander said, is a skill that can be taught like any other—all a person needs to learn is what to say and how to say it.”

Multiple historical events have begun with one leader giving relatively easy orders, and ended in shambles as a result of people following those orders. One notorious example is the Heaven’s Gate cult, which ended in the suicides of 39 people- connecting back to the question “If somebody told you to jump off bridge, would you do it?” …and 39 people figuratively did. Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles led this infamous cult, which centered around the belief that the human body was a vessel and must be separated from the soul in order to achieve the central goal: to ascend to the “Next level”. They instructed their followers to give up their jobs and money, then cut off all ties to family and friends, and later increasing the extremity of their commands to the point of ordering suicide. This technique is used by leaders like Applewhite and Nettles to build the habit of obeying simple orders, so that when it comes time to obey harmful or even perilous commands, followers are more likely to follow through and find justifications. Milgram’s experiments explain the way that people are historically able to participate in violence or mass atrocities because it proves the concept of gradually increasing harmfulness. In his experiments, because the power of the volts increased by a small increment of 15-volts per shock, the teacher had built the habit of shocking the learner (the same way that the Heaven’s Gate followers built the habit of giving up small possessions) allowing the experimenter who ran the experiment to pressure the teacher to follow through until the end.

2. Do you think that experiments like Milgram’s actually explain ordinary people’s active participation in violence, mass atrocities and genocide? What are the other factors that may come into play? What else, beside the blind following of authority, contributes to some people's willingness to inflict pain on others?

The Milgram experiment explains the individual perspective on Mass Movements, specifically when discussing personal responsibility, authoritative power, institutional pressure and conformity. It shows how all of these ideas, factor greatly into the thoughtless obedience done by groups in mass movements, and how it occurs on an individual level. While exploring these factors we can make further assumptions about genocides, recognizing a pattern of human obedience and stopping it before it goes further. In “How Nazi's Defense of "Just Following Orders" Plays Out in the Mind” by Joshua Barajas, he explores this idea further, directly relating how the findings of the milgram experience relate to the very real, very horrible acts of the Holocaust.

The first being intimacy with someone can cause a greater responsibility to care for them. This is shown by the different experiments Milgram conducted, when the "learner" was closer and more familiar to the "teacher" the "teacher" was more likely to object to harming them. In “How Nazi's Defense of "Just Following Orders" Plays Out in the Mind” by Joshua Barajas it explains where when people had little to know familiarity with the “"learner"” they “were willing (sometimes reluctantly) to press a button that delivered shocks up to 450 volts to” them. This adds a greater context to how a genocide can be accepted into someones life, if they do not intimately know the person being harmed they feel less empathy for what they are going through. This can also affect how we see governments use propaganda, as they often weaponize and dehumanize certain people when they want people to not care for them.

The second being, how the institutional context of the experiment can cause pressure on the "teacher" to obey. The main experiment was conducted in Yale, where around 50% of the "teachers"s followed through with the experiment. This adds speculation, that if people were able to harm someone in that way for a simple experiment for a college, what would they do with the immense pressure put on by a whole government and more than just one person telling you to obey and continue.

The third, how the people around them can impact their decision to obey. With another part of the experiment they held another experiment with 5 "teachers" (four being actors familiar with the true experiment, and one not), in this they pushed either all the actors to obey or all the actors to walk out, and see how this impacted the true "teacher". The experimented was much more likely to disobey, if the other "teacher"s did as well. This shows how the power that the people around us have can force us to conform with the group, regardless of what authority says.

Along with these ideas of personal responsibility within the government, the experiment also shows how less likely people are to act when they feel that the responsibility can be, and should be put solely on the experimenter. Again, putting that finding into a greater context of genocide, it can show how people feel less likely to disobey their government, if they feel that they are seperate from them. Joshua Barajas explains this as “people actually [feeling] disconnected from their actions when they comply with orders, even though they’re the ones committing the act,” in “How Nazi's Defense of "Just Following Orders" Plays Out in the Mind.”

These ideas add a lot to the discourse surrounding peoples abilities/obedience to harm others during violent Mass movements, and supports many ideas we’ve covered in the past few weeks.

LTQ Post 2: The Milgram Experiment and Obedience Theory

I believe that everyone has the potential to become a perpetrator of violence against others, but not everyone acts on that potential, despite the troubling high violence rates in our world today. It comes down to intentions, whether you are willingly able to inflict pain or hurt someone without any remorse is dangerous. I wouldn’t argue that it’s solely mental health because there are “normal” and ordinary people who commit these acts, such as in the Milgram Experiment. The Milgram Experiment was an experiment that tested whether ordinary people would shock the learners, and to what extent they were ready to go.

However, I would consider acts of violence as large as mass shootings, and as little as hitting or pinching someone, so everyone is definitely capable, but the question is to what extent. Sometimes our own impulses and urges overpower us in the moment, even if the hurt isn’t intentional. It also boils down to our consciences, and if we experience any guilt in those moments and what we do with that guilt. Additionally, figuring out if there’s a shift to something or someone else helps us to feel better about inflicting the pain on someone. In the article “ How Nazi’s Defense Of “Just Following Orders” Plays Out in the Mind”, Adolf Eichmann stated that he “shifted the blame of the death of millions of jews on high-level superiority officers”, taking the blame off of him to help ease his conscience, or taking the prime focus off of him being the only committer of violence to experience less backlash.

On the other hand, this assessment suggests that when under command or pressure, we are more likely to inflict pain on others, if being told to do so. The second guy, like many other humans, even if they know they’re doing something wrong, but someone with “power” is telling them to do the opposite, they are going to follow that person no matter what because it’s basic human instinct. “ In other words, people actually feel disconnected from their actions when they comply with orders, even when they’re the ones committing the act” (Barajas pg.1). Throughout the trials the second guy was worried about the learner, especially when there were complaints about his heart condition, but he continued, and carried on with saying “ this isn’t my responsibility if he dies”. This also contributes to the idea that afterwards, when asked why he didn’t just get up and leave, he was so quick to shift the blame onto the experimenter. Unfortunately, there are less people that are like the first guy who would stand up and argue that this situation is wrong, and how it needs to be stopped.

Furthermore, this experiment explains people’s active participation in violence, mass atrocities, and genocide to an extent, but there are so many more factors that explain this behavior. These behaviors include survival instincts, life or death, the relationship between ourselves and the victim, blind following, and social conformity/idea of the majority. Besides blind following of authority, the willingness to inflict pain could be purposely and wanting to do it because they’ve been hurt in the past, so all they know is that, or thriving off the suffering of others, and life vs. death situations that cause extreme reactions to save ourselves. Also, if someone is feeling powerless in their life, the ability to have or gain power attracts us and increases the chances of wanting to hurt other people/inflict that pain.

Some of the important factors that led the teachers to go against the experimenters is their willingness to recognize that this is an actual analysis, that leaving isn’t going to hurt their chances at anything. They also realized that they have the power to stop, just like they have the power to inflict pain on others. Although in the article, Adolf argues that “ he and other low level people were mere instruments”, I believe those who were able to stand up for themselves completely rejected the idea of being instruments, but rather the one who are playing the instruments signifying the powers taken back. In certain aspects, creating societies that value and encourage the traits of people who disobey authority figures is necessary if it’s promoting peace and standing up for what’s just , but in the other aspects where it promotes hateful division and disunity it’s unnecessary.