Re: Frankey Jones & Stanley Milgram's Obedience to Authority

["Alan Young" <alanyoung@mchsi.com>]

Some of us "young" folk learned all this stuff in skool, believe it or not
when we used to be able to question things. Hey what is too young anyway?
How old is everbody on this list, anyway? I'll put my age up if you do
yours. Gotta have a little fun on this list too, ya know!

Alan


----- Original Message -----
From: "gerald w. bracey" <gbracey@erols.com>
To: <arn-l@interversity.org>; <Wildyears3@aol.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2003 11:34 AM
Subject: Re: [arn-l] Frankey Jones & Stanley Milgram's Obedience to
Authority


> Since some on the ARN list are too young to recall the Milgram
experiments,
> a little historical context:  Israel had snatched Adolf Eichmann, the
go-to
> guy of the Holocaust, out of Argentina and put him on trial in Israel.
> People argued that Eichmann was had to be a monster.  Only an evil monster
> could do such a thing.  He said he was just following orders.  Philosopher
> Hannah Arendt said that was probably true in her "banality of evil"
writings
> (Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil).  Anyone could
be
> an Eichmann.  This thesis did not sit well with a lot of folks.
>
> Milgram's experiments were designed to test, insofar as possible, the
> banality of evil thesis.  He confirmed it.
>
> The UK site is a bit inaccurate and incomplete.  In the original, the
naive
> subject was led to think he/she was helping a scientist (in a white lab
> coat) conduct an experiment (in those days, one requirement for passing a
> psych. 1 course was to participate in experiments conducted by faculty and
> graduate students, a wee bit of coercion itself).  I don't recall anything
> about a middle aged man and heart trouble.  The dupe was visible and could
> be heard in pain and seen writhing.
>
> I don't recall the scale being marked in volts, but the right hand side
was
> in red and marked "danger."  Lots of people administered shocks with the
> scale in the red zone.
>
> Milgram's studies have been replicated all over the world with the highest
> compliance rate being in...Germany.  If the "scientist" didn't have a
white
> coat, compliance was reduced.  If another person was present, compliance
> also fell--that person could be enlisted as an ally of the shock-giver.
> There were other variations that elude me now.
>
> I've been thinking about this in connection with NCLB--why the ef don't
> people rise up and denounce it???
>
> JB
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "William Cala" <wcala@rochester.rr.com>
> To: <arn-l@interversity.org>; <Wildyears3@aol.com>
> Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2003 11:51 AM
> Subject: [arn-l] Frankey Jones & Stanley Milgram's Obedience to Authority
>
>
> Stanley Milgram was a social psychologist with a Ph.D. from Harvard and
> later taught at Yale.  His award-winning book of 1974, Obedience to
> Authority resonates today.  Please note the following excerpt from a UK
> Social Psych. site:
>
>       Stanley Milgram's studies on obedience, conducted in the late 1950s
> are among the most dramatic and unnerving of all Psychology studies.
Milgram
> was interested in how far people would go in following the orders of a
> person in authority. In his studies, a naive subject (the 'teacher') was
led
> to believe that he was delivering increasingly powerful shocks to a
> middle-aged man (the 'learner') with a heart condition in another room.
>       At some point in the study, the learner began to complain of heart
> problems, and to demand that the shocks stop. Each time the teacher tried
to
> stop, the experimenter would insist that the experiment go on. To
everyone's
> surprise, over 60% of all subjects followed the experimenter's commands to
> go on, even after the learner ceased responding entirely.
>
>       Although it is sometimes suggested that the same results would not
be
> obtained today, or with other populations - e.g., women. Remarkably
however,
> similar results were obtained in the Netherlands in 1986, with female
nurses
> as subjects. Some things never change.....
>
>       I have repeatedly wondered why so many people (administrators,
> teachers etc.) while speaking one-on-one clearly understand and are able
to
> articulate the damage of HST, yet when told to administer them, take them
> etc., they follow like sheep being led to the slaughter.    On Friday, I
> spoke with a fellow resisting superintendent from Nassau County in Long
> Island.  He said, "Bill, they've all given up down here.  They
> (superintendents) are now trying to raise test scores."
>
>       When I read of the rare exceptions like Frankey Jones and James Hope
> (and the heroes on this list) I cannot help but think of Milgram's Theory
of
> Obedience and why we are in the mess that we find ourselves with HST.
>
>       "The theory that only those on the sadistic fringe of society would
> submit to such cruelty is disclaimed."    "....Milgram has noted
reoccurring
> themes (as found in Obdenience to Authority)."  (He details the My Lai
> massacre in Vietnam).  But the studies do not deal with extreme situations
> such as war.
>
>       "People who are doing a job as instructed by an administrative
figure
> are following the instructions of that administrative outlook and not the
> outlook of a moral code. The feelings of duty and personal emotion are
> clearly separated. Responsibility shifts in the mind of the subordinate
from
> himself/herself to the authority figure. There is a well defined purpose
> behind the actions or goals of the authority, and the subordinate is
> depended upon to help and meet those goals. Milgram points out, "The
> results, as seen and felt in the laboratory, are to this author
disturbing.
> They raise the possibility that human nature, or -more specifically-the
kind
> of character produced in American society, cannot be counted on to
insulate
> the citizens from brutality and inhumane treatment at the direction of
> malevolent authority."
>
>       Milgram speaks of a "malevolent authority."  What would
administrators
> and teachers do under the pressure of a "benevolent authority?"  Milgram's
> studies show that 65% of all the "teachers" punished the "learners" to the
> maximum of 450 volts.
>
>       I find Milgram's use of "teacher" and "learner" frigteningly
> analogous.
>
>       "According to Milgram, every human has the dual capacity to function
> as an individual exercising his or her own moral judgement and the
capacity
> to make their own moral decisions based on their personal character. What
is
> still a mystery is this, what happens to the average person who is
obedient
> to authority when it overrides their own moral judgement?"
>
>       We must continue the fight and support the Frankey Joneses of the
> world.
>
>       Bill Cala (in total admiration of Frankey Jones and what she has
done)
>
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