The infamous 1963 Milgram experiments taught us something very painful about blind obedience to leadership. Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram wanted to know why seemingly decent German citizens long supported Hitler's monstrous regime. The original Milgram research demonstrated that otherwise ordinary New Haven residents were willing to administer increasingly violent electric shocks to "learners" in another room who failed to answer quiz questions correctly. Of course, the shocks were not real. However, the participants thought they were real. People readily administered what seemed to be painful shocks to their fellow citizens because some guy in a lab coat and badge told them to do so. In the original experiment, 80 percent of participants administered 150-volt shocks and 65 percent took the punishment right up to 450 volts.
We wondered at the time how it was possible for good people to lose sight of right and wrong in the presence of authority, however twisted. Well, keep wondering! Jeffrey Burger of Santa Clara University recently replicated Milgram's study. After four decades of exposure to Vietnam, Watergate, Iran-Contra, Clinton and Monica, Iraq, Abu Ghraib and many other abominations, polls consistently tell us the unfortunate news that Americans are far less trusting of our leaders. Still, Burger showed that 70 percent of participants delivered a 150-volt shock simply because some guy in a lab coat told them to do so. Sure, some of the outcome is contextual and not especially generalizable. However, there is clearly something innate in humans that finds us ready to follow obviously terrible orders. This fact has long been intuitively understood and recklessly exploited by the likes of Mussolini, Mao and Mugabe.
Recognizing this unfortunate aspect of human nature, the challenge becomes one of effectively advancing and protecting the laws, educational approaches, social systems and media mechanisms needed to prevent our next march to folly.
p.s. Students in the wonderful Denzel Washington-Oprah Winfrey film, The Great Debaters, were asked the age-old question whether it is ever moral to engage in civil disobedience. Apropos of the above discussion, it seems we have long confronted the inherent tensions created by leaders and laws that are unjust, immoral and ultimately proven to be illegal.
We wondered at the time how it was possible for good people to lose sight of right and wrong in the presence of authority, however twisted. Well, keep wondering! Jeffrey Burger of Santa Clara University recently replicated Milgram's study. After four decades of exposure to Vietnam, Watergate, Iran-Contra, Clinton and Monica, Iraq, Abu Ghraib and many other abominations, polls consistently tell us the unfortunate news that Americans are far less trusting of our leaders. Still, Burger showed that 70 percent of participants delivered a 150-volt shock simply because some guy in a lab coat told them to do so. Sure, some of the outcome is contextual and not especially generalizable. However, there is clearly something innate in humans that finds us ready to follow obviously terrible orders. This fact has long been intuitively understood and recklessly exploited by the likes of Mussolini, Mao and Mugabe.
Recognizing this unfortunate aspect of human nature, the challenge becomes one of effectively advancing and protecting the laws, educational approaches, social systems and media mechanisms needed to prevent our next march to folly.
p.s. Students in the wonderful Denzel Washington-Oprah Winfrey film, The Great Debaters, were asked the age-old question whether it is ever moral to engage in civil disobedience. Apropos of the above discussion, it seems we have long confronted the inherent tensions created by leaders and laws that are unjust, immoral and ultimately proven to be illegal.