Only in the direct presence of the authority figure do you find that most people will obey malevolent orders. Overall, what we find is that authority is a relatively weak way to establish and maintain social order. FULL ARTICLE by Michael Kitchens
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/15222/a-brighter-look-at-milgrams-obedience-study/
A Brighter Look at Milgram’s Obedience Study
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I see the Milgram experiment as proof positive against the State. People are willing to do destructive things to themselves and others just because they were told to do it. Remove the authoritarian figure, remove the problems associated with it.
I have always had a problem with the methodology of this experiment.
If I were the subject of this experiment, the person charged with issuing the shocks, I would first ask the authority “what are you going to do to me if I refuse to comply?” If I came into the room and there were a couple of machine gun wielding NAZI soldiers outside I might be motivated to comply for that reason. An authority is a criminal with power. Governments are just the largest, most powerful and most violent organized crime gangs in a country. People comply out or fear or just wanting to be left alone. Most people are very capable of living in peace with their neighbors and it is criminal gangs that make the world a miserable place.
I think that’s the point – most people don’t even ask that simple question.
But then I must weigh the possiblility that I might be punished for asking this simple question. Do I ask and risk the wrath of the authority? Maybe the punishment is a bad grade, maybe it is to be the next victim of the experiment. If I am dependent on another authority for the money to continue my education or maybe I actually need any money promised by the project for taking part. Do I risk the possibility of loss for myself without knowing the full implications of my participation. I am an electrical engineer so I am fully aware of the consequences of high voltage shock and would avoid participation on those grounds. The Liberal Arts student probably is not fully aware. Why am I even in this situation? Maybe it is not such a simple question after all.
It is not a simple question with a simple answer, that is true. This all speaks to a need to minimize unchecked authority. If I can’t discard something (or someone even, perhaps?) and go somewhere else to get the same or similar thing, then you have issues like you discuss above where people are”forced” to do horrible things. Freedom and choices, private-property rights, etc., are the solutions to your problem.
Good article on a subject which deserves more attention. I do feel the core experiment is more important than Michael rates it though, for this reason: as he says much of the effect is situationally determined. But there is another factor he didn’t mention and that is the personality makeup of both individuals and to some extent, cultures.
I have certain family members from a culture I won’t name for obvious reasons, who have what to my American mind is a rather strange ambiguity in regard to authority. They present a picture of being extremely anti-authority, will do even illegal things without a thought when it’s culturally acceptable, and yet in most areas of life have an extreme need for and obedience to authority. This could of course apply in some degree to individuals from any culture, and there may be other cultures which I don’t know nearly so well with a similar pattern.
The situational determinism he mentions happens to be what I consider the only valid form we should have. If one judges any outcome to be good or bad only as a value-judgment; if one accepts the idea that no one has any inherent right to give rules to someone else; then the individual making his own decision in every case is all that’s left. Even when that decision is to let someone else decide for him. There is a view of situational determinism which implies an individual “dropping out of the air” with no past and no future. But in every situation an individual brings to it his genetic makeup from millions of years, whatever he’s absorbed from his culture, his own learning experience, his own biological and psychological needs of the moment, and his hopes for his future. It is all these things we are trying to negate or ignore when we make rules.
“the personality makeup of both individuals”
An important consideration, indeed. A disingenuous experimenter, and by no means am I suggesting that Milgram was one, could easily slant the outcome of experimentation to prevent the discovery and publication of politically inconvenient truths, esp. if he or she were a good judge of character.
One side of the experiment I like is that when various people are asked whether they would administer the deadly voltage, most say NO.
I wonder if the results would be very different if, just a few minutes before doing THE experiment, the subject was asked if he thought of himself as a free man or someone easily manipulated.
Everyone should be reminded, now and then, that they can choose to be free. Assuming that we are all aware of it is a mistake that politicians take fully advantage of.
What would be interesting is to do this for various types of “reminders” starting with reading the article that was linked to here about the McDonalds employees, to listening to a speech about individual liberty, etc.
Imagine if the experimenter signaled to the “teacher” that the “learner” opposes the welfare state, whereas the “teacher” supports it. In fact, if teacher and learner meet, how unlikely is it that they can guess each other’s political beliefs, among other things, by dress, hairstyle, composure, etc. ?
We are all subject to authority from the day we are born. As we are socialized, hopfully in how to live a peacful and responsible life in society, we are subject to the authority of parents and guardians. Every act or requirement of authority includes an implied threat of violence for non-complience. This is implied by every person who is placed under any authority. The threat does not need to be made explicit, it is just assumed by force of habit.
There’s more to it than fear of violence. Children particularly, and often adults, are subject to fear of loss of affection; people fear loss of status, ect. Just as there are many types of authority there are many reasons for complying with it.
I’ve never thought of being passive-aggressive as a positive trait, but the mention of the weakness of an authority that isn’t in the room certainly sounds like that. I have to say I prefer the passive-aggressive person in this type of situation to one who obeys. I believe assertively disobeying is better, but this is still a good sign.
While I’d like to say I could have said before reading the article that I thought of it’s implications I have to admit I didn’t.
I think the truly missed point in Milgram’s experiment is that there is an implied value assigned to the subject. It is simply assumed that the subject does not enjoy harming others, even complete strangers.
If you take away this assumption, the experiment has much less meaning. Is the subject obeying orders he wants to disobey, or is he simply doing what he wants, in cooperation with the experimenter?
The fact that very few people even challenge this assumption is fertile soil for a libertarian future. Most people at least showed empathy for the “victim”, even if they gave in to authority. Some even preferred to have a possible confrontation with the experimenter than to continue to harm a complete stranger.
I would agree many people in Communist countries were willing Communists. Many people in Nazi Germany were willing Nazis. Many people are willing to hurt others and love the authorities who would give them the permission to engage in the violence they desire.
While social norms may make a powerful “baseline” that people revert to in the absence of an authority figure, if the experiment is taken at face-value then it is indeed a dark conclusion because the presence of the authority figure overrode the social norms in those individuals.
Truly, if you remove the state then you remove the dark influence, but the question is, if the presence of the authority strongly and consistenly overrides social norms to the contrary, then how are you ever going to remove it without revolutionary violence or a counter-authority figure (which would presumably defeat the point of getting rid of the original authority figure).
I remember watching a fascinating documentary (BBC?) where an experiment was done with hens. When left to their own devices, the one with the largest natural red ‘head-dress’ on its head pushed forward and ate first. It may have been due to the stronger elder hen’s pushing, so you may think. But then the researchers somehow stuck a rubber kitchen glove on the head of a smaller chicken and guess what – the others moved out of the way and let it eat first. So, authority rules OK is not only for humans. I call this scenario Big Chicken – Little Chicken. Basically, if you somehow act strong or weak,important or not, knowing or not-knowing, people will think you are what you make yourself to be.
hehe – this explains the Victorian penchant for tall top hats among the upper echelons of that society. I daresay it also explains the continuing popularity of ten gallon hats in Texas – where testosterone flows a mite too freely.
The willingness to yield to authority, it seems to me, stems from an innate desire to avoid responsibility for one’s actions
Bingo!
With this insight, the widespread coincidence of secularization and social democracy comes into focus. Statism can be seen as the collectivization of individual failings while mandating a morally hazardous quasi-absolution that denies the redemptive insights of penance.
While it might be argued that organized religion itself formally relies on projected authority and obedience, the deeper mechanism is universally one of introspection, humility and individual transcendence, and this emphasis is fundamentally a civilizing and anti-collectivist beacon for humanity. (To wit, Milligram’s authority figure is as able to coax thoughtful reticence from study participants as reflexive obedience.)
Individual honor, character, integrity, and morality — the (sound) social currency that capitalizes civilization itself — is sadly no longer conserved or renewed, much less invested in the common cause of humanity to yield bountiful returns of justice and liberty. So long as the (fiat) social currency of political intimidation is accepted in lieu of redeeming human value, the societal dividends will be meanness and debasement.
This is a good and important article. I think it could be slightly improved by mentioning the level below “XXX”, which was “DANGER: SEVERE SHOCK”. It becomes more clear when you show the whole range of settings:
15 V – Slight shock
45 V
75 V – Moderate shock
105 V
135 V – Strong shock
165 V
195 V – Very strong shock
225 V
255 V – Intense shock
285 V
315 V – Extreme intensity shock
345 V
375 V – DANGER: SEVERE SHOCK
405 V
435 V
450 V – XXX
(I found this information in Sociology in Our Times: The Essentials by Diana Kendall.)
I never looked at the Milgram study from this perspective before – thanks.
I would be very interested to see Prof Kitchens perspective on the implications of Philip Zimbardo’s original prisoner/warder experiment (recounted in his much later book ‘the lucifer effect’*) . In that study, (which was eventually aborted after the warder partcipants descended into outright cruelty and violence), the focus was less about submission to an authority figure, but the effect of granting unconstrained institutional power to the authority figure himself. I regard that study as a wholesale vindication of the libertarian view of the role of the State. Where authoritarianism is institutionally entrenched, even those complicit in oppressive abuses themselves become victims.
*Zimbardo wrote the book thirty-odd years after the experiment was conducted. He declared that what prompted him to publish was the media revelations of the abuses perpetrated at Abu Gharib. On seeing the footage and photos, his immediate response was ‘I saw exactly this 30 years ago……’.
On this view, Lindy Englund (not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed) was herself no less a victim of the military power regime than those she tormented. Of course, after the story broke, she was served up to th epublic as the sacrificial lamb, so the institutional juggernaut gets to roll on with none of its warts removed, and those who set the institutional/cultural tone still firmly at their desks…….
Perhaps the Milgram experiment is only a measure of the success of social indoctrination via the public school system and complicity of families to any perceived authority regardless of the presence of weapons and not a physiological reaction? It could be argued of course that, over the centuries, selective breeding might result in the removal of people more predisposed to liberty, but I prefer to believe that men’s actions emanate from a more intangible source which may explain, even after thousands of years of oppression, man’s continual yearning for liberty.
Well… it reads like sophomoric psycho-babble by a back water college faux-intellectual . Where’s this guy from?
As a fellow social psychologist, I can say that Dr. Kitchens did an excellent job of describing the implications of the Milgram experiment. Since I studied with Dr. Milgram and my own area of specialty is obedience and resistance to authority, I’ve given this matter a great deal of thought. The point about personality variables playing a role is an important one also. For those interested, I have a short article summarizing the research on personality variables that affect obedience and resistance at http://rit.org/authority/resistance.php. A short description of the subsequent followups to the Milgram experiment can be found at http://www.rit.org/authority/futureobedience.php
i think this area of social psychology is critical for libertarians to explore and I commend the Mises Institute for running this article. There was a time when many libertarians, including Rothbard, looked with disdain on psychology, but they were very, very wrong.
I’m also developing a book on the psychology of freedom. For those interested in reading further on this topic, see a brief list of recommended readings on this topic at http://rit.org/resources/psychfreedom.php
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