From the Editor…
I nearly had a nervous breakdown yesterday when my desktop computer, the one I am writing this very column on right now, decided to start dying.
It’s not like it hasn’t lasted a long time…this elderly Dell PC is about 10 years old, which in computer years is probably about a thousand years old!
It had been exhibiting definite signs of aging. It acted like it had a touch of dementia now and then, but it always pulled through for me. I was aware that it was time to find a replacement, but I just hadn’t gotten around to it yet…
So yesterday, when I turn on the old gal, she simply brings up the scary blue screen of death and won’t load Windows. Eek! I only had 3 pages of the gazette done! And, that didn’t even matter anyway because if the computer wouldn’t turn on I couldn’t be able to get to those pages anyway.
Luckily, Jonny was able to work some kind of computer voodoo on this geriatric beast. After about an hour of watching strange hieroglyphs dance across the screen, Windows finally loaded and I was able to get to work. I’ve spent all weekend since terrified the electricity would flicker and shut me down again! But I’m almost done now…
Have you ever heard about Stanley Milgram’s famous…or perhaps I should say infamous…. “Obedience to Authority” experiment?
Milgram was a professor of Psychology at Yale University. He conducted the famous obedience experiments in 1961-62. He was trying to determine how and why human obedience to authority figures would over-ride their natural human conscience and compassion for their fellow humans.
The horrors of the Holocaust during WWII made him wonder why apparently normal people would do the bidding of sadistic monsters.
His test was simple and effective. Milgram’s obedience to authority experiment countered the participant’s moral beliefs against the demands of authority. For this study, Milgram took out a newspaper ad that offered $4.50 for one hour of work, at Yale University, for a psychology experiment that sought to investigate memory and learning. Participants were told that the study would look at the relationship of punishment in learning, and that one person would be the teacher, and the other would be the learner (a confederate), and that these roles would be determined by a random drawing. The learner was then strapped into a chair, and electrodes are attached to their arm. It was explained to both the teacher and the learner that the electrodes were attached to an electric shock generator, and that shocks would serve as punishment for incorrect answers. The experimenter then states that the shocks will be painful, but that they will not cause any permanent tissue damage, while in reality no shocks would actually be received. The teacher and learner are then divided into separate rooms.
The experimenter shows the teacher the shock generator, which has 30 switches, with a voltage ranging from 15-450 volts, and are labeled from “slight shock” to “danger: severe shock,” and the last switch labeled “XXX.” The teacher is told that it is their job to teach the learner a simple paired associate task, and that they must punish the learner for incorrect answers, by increasing the shock 15 volts each time. The teacher was then given a 15 volt shock to show that the generator was actually working. When the experiment begins, the learner found the task to be difficult and made various mistakes, which resulted in increasing intensity of the shocks. When the machine reached 75, 90, and 105 volts, the teacher could hear the learner grunting through the wall, and at 120 volts the learner claimed that the shocks were getting painful, and at 150 volts he screamed, “get me out of here! I refuse to go on.” When the teacher questioned progressing, the experimenter said things such as, “you can’t stop now,” or “the experiment depends on your continuing compliance.” As the shock voltage increased the learner cried out, “I can’t stand the pain,” at 300 volts the learner began to pound on the wall and demanded to be let out. When the machine reached 330 volts there was no longer any noise coming from the learner. The experimenter then told the teacher that his lack of response was to be considered as an incorrect answer, and that shocks were to still be administered. The experiment concludes when the highest shock level is reached.
Milgram found that 65% of participants would render shock levels of 450 volts, and that these were everyday normal people. In the post-experiment interview, Milgram asked the participants to rate how painful they thought the shocks were, the typical answer was extremely painful. Most of the subjects obeyed the experimenter, however the subjects did show obvious signs of an internal struggle, and demonstrated reactions such as nervous laughter, trembling, and groaning. These interviews confirmed that everyday normal people can cause pain and suffering to another person, under the right set of circumstances. Milgram also found the tendency of the teacher to devalue the learner, by saying such phrases as, “he is so dumb he deserves to get shocked,” which helped to interally justify the teacher’s behavior of continuing to administer the shocks. This experiment by Milgram has given a tremendous amount of insight into human behavior and obedience.
Interestingly, further variations on this experiment gave more insights into how we respond to authority and the effect the actions of our peers have.
If a new “teacher” came into the test room and saw the previous supposed “teacher” refuse to administer the shocks, and to defy the experimenter guy with the clipboard, they also were much more likely to refuse to shock anyone.
However, if they saw the previous teacher follow the orders, then they also were much less apt to buck the system.
Clear evidence that rebellion against corruption and social movements for change can start with just one person taking a stand for justice!
I just find that so much of the injustice that goes on in the world happens because we simply do not stand up and say, “Hey! We don’t like this!” and demand social justice and economic equality for all.
It’s like we all have “Stockholm Syndrome” where we act grateful to the very psychopaths who are holding us hostage as they continue with their mad plots to rape and pillage the world!
Psychopaths are predators. They live to win, and they believe that people who don’t play the “winner take all” game deserve to be victims. These are the people who make up the so-called one percent that have been ruling the world for a couple of thousand years.
It sounds crazy, but no matter how much they have they still must try to get more. They want it all. This is why their greed appears to be endless to the rest of us….because it is!
The way to change this paradigm on our world is to stop playing the victim to these predators, and to connect with each other in our communities. We need to become self sufficient once again , so that we are no longer tied to depending on corporations for our goods and big agri-business for our food.
Check out the collections of fabulous vintage photos of our River Valley communities posted at Bath Meeting House. All of our little villages had bustling and thriving business communities because local people did most of their shopping with local merchants.
Cheers!
Stephanie Kelley
