Re: Frankey Jones & Stanley Milgram's Obedience to

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

Not really just "social pressure" but the manipulation persons throught he
mainipulation of social contexts. So I believe Bill's point still is valid.
This is not simplistic and now less powerfuil jsut because it is
sophisticated and nuanced. George C. - You really ought to check "The Power
of the Situation" video as well as other videos on marketing like Still
Killing us Softly (speaking of "soft bigotry" of comercialism). Making a
better, less expensive test is not the answer. Finding the money to make
this ESEA work would be even worse. It would exchange the jute rope around
our necks for a golden one will not choke us any less. This is what we have
to educate the Democrats about. They should not run on that the only problem
with this is that it is underfunded. It is fundamentally flawed. The only
part that is acceptable may be the empty phrase that they sold this bill of
goods on.. . No Child Left Behind. Empty rhetoric.

And that the results of this testing mania are primarily the result of
democratic action is baloney. It is the power that can be wielded and
utilized in our particular version of democracy which has been long
distorted by those with power and money that are at work here. This is not
the result of democracy but the result of those who work mostly to take
advantage of the flaws and imperfections in our democracy.
Alan


----- Original Message -----
From: "George K Cunningham" <gkc@louisville.edu>
To: <arn-l@interversity.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2003 12:11 PM
Subject: Re: [arn-l] Frankey Jones & Stanley Milgram's Obedience to


> JB and Bill,
>
> Bad analogy.  In the Milgram experiments, like related experiments in
> which subjects, through social pressure, are made to do things that they
> otherwise would not do, the presumption is that afterwards when they
> understand what happened they will realize that they were wrong.  You,
> like many on this list, object to NCLB and the standards-based education
> reform it represents.  You see it as the moral equivalent of
> administering pointless and painful electrical shocks.  Most of the
> country does not see it this way.  They view these as necessary and
> effective educational practices.  Every governor aspires to be the
> "educational governor" so that they can ride this to the White House and
> become the "educational president," which was the successful strategy of
> both Clinton and G. W. Bush.  NCLB was approved by congress with
> widespread and bipartisan support.  The testing programs in all the
> states are the result of the democratic process of legislative
> deliberations.  The people who do this believe strongly that they are
> doing what is best for the students in their state.
>
> I respect those who oppose these policies.  I think that the test being
> administered are technically deficient and way too expensive and the
> ultimate goal of forcing schools to adopt more effective instructional
> methods might be achieved in other ways.  What I don't think you can
> legitimately do is assert that those who advocate these practices are
> moral cowards somehow intimidated into doing things that they know are
> wrong, like the subjects in the Milgram experiments.
>
> George K. Cunningham
> University of Louisville
>
> >>> gbracey@erols.com 01/26/03 12:34PM >>>
> 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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