A couple of years ago BBC Radio 4 broadcast a week of readings from a book that explored a series of psychological experiments and considered the various conclusions that might be drawn from the observations.
This was my first introduction to the work of Dr. Stanley Milgram at Yale. I had wanted to write about this before, but then real life happened, and the entire topic became highly politically charged. As you might have noticed I do not discuss politics on my blog. I have strong views, and I enjoy discussing ideas with informed, intelligent and non-confrontational people - even those who do not agree with me provided they meet those requirements - but this is not the forum in which I choose to do so.
For some reason I started thinking of Milgram's experiment again today, and thought that I could now raise the topic properly ... and found that impossible to do.
It does have some interesting implications for the idea that people have an independent internal moral compass, and the whole idea of free will within a social context.
If you are interested, here are a couple of articles you may wish to look at:
The Perils of Obedience is Dr. Milgram's article on the experiment, published first in Harper's Magazine.
The next is an article by Philip Meyer first printed in Esquire magazine. You will find many more articles if you do a bit of googling, some with very different views to the ones expressed in this one, but all thought-provoking.
If you've read these or know something about the study, and would like to discuss it, leave a comment so that we can take it up offline; we're liable to have a much more fruitful conversation privately than in a public forum.
You might have noticed that the email addresses of my commenters are never visible, even when they do not leave an URL, because I hate spam as much as you do. I am the only one who gets to see the addresses.
Comments (4)
the concept that emerged strongly from Milgram's experiment found recurring ocurrences in the study of the Holocaust and comparative genocide...I have been interning at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies for a while and have seen that the whole essence of complete regard and obedience for authority though explains some bit of many historical events, it is seriously flawed at other levels...incidentally, are you familiar with Browning and Goldhagen's work...
Posted by me | July 28, 2005 11:13 AM
Posted on July 28, 2005 11:13
I am not immediately familiar with either Browning or Goldhagen.
One of the questions that plague me in the context of Milgram's work is the question whether we do in fact have some sort of internal moral compass. Whether there is an absolute good, and that we, as intelligent, reflective creatures, have the ability to discern what action is good within given situations. (This does not preclude the idea of moral dilemmas, because frequently the available actions have multiple components).
Milgram's study seems to argue against this position, or at least saying that the "compass" is very easily subverted, and only very occasionally consulted.
Posted by Sivani | July 28, 2005 11:38 AM
Posted on July 28, 2005 11:38
your closing lines are almost referential of the theme - your ensuring that the email ids are guarded ensures that the people leaving comments are spared of the risk of leaving their comments linked to their ids (in addition to keeping them away from unexpected mail!) you are the 'experimenter!'
Posted by D | July 31, 2005 7:15 AM
Posted on July 31, 2005 07:15
I'm afraid I don't follow. I cannot see the link between the two situations.
Posted by Sivani | July 31, 2005 4:56 PM
Posted on July 31, 2005 16:56