Stanley Milgram's experiment, ethics, obedience and the KO

[Guest guest]

Non-BP Man and everyone else,

I did some research and I am acutally quite aware of this study.

However, I am unsure about the biasedness of the show you watched

last night and what message it has to say in general. I didn't watch

and so I can't speak of the show- only my own experience w/'news' and

how biased it has become over the years (loved the book " Bias " -

excellent behind the scenes look at how news has changed when the

Broadcast boardroom realized they could get ratings for news and

changed the way news programs were communicated to the general

populace- 'ratings, ratings, ratings')

I was required to watch Milgram's experiment via video in my ethics

class in college. The thing that I walked away with was the levels of

ethical reasoning behind the subjects continuing to administer

electric shock therapy to these unseen and unknown participants. The

reasoning differed greatly w/only a relatively small number of people

on the lowest reasoning scales of being obedient b/c they feared

reprocussions. The vast majority fell in the intermediate zone w/a

few in the MLK/Ghandi highest levels of ethical/moral reasoning. And

I do believe it is completely erroneous to apply the data from this

research to the KO populace for the simple fact many of the subjects

administering shock therapy used the reasoning that the subjects

being electrocuted were there voluntarily and for scientific reasons.

The moral reasoning and ethicality behind a child abuse scenario or

the Jews in concentration camp would vastly alter the behavior of

some of those in the middle zones of moral reasoning of simply

following obedience as they would know those people/victims are not

willing participants (hence the need in WWII to hide the truth of the

concentration camps from the German people well into the end of the

war-denial is obviously strong in humans, but had many of them known

the truth, it would've been a harder pill to swallow I imagine. They

used the boiling frog syndrome though w/their own people as to the

debauchery- not at all like Enron and other group think absurdities).

But next off, besides the interesting data found on how people come

about to conclusions w/their ethical/moral decision making

process,this test in and of itself has not been adequately criticized

by the intellegensia of our age. You can find a few good ones on line

though that may give you peace of mind. It always struck a nerve with

me in ethics class as a bit off kilter and warped. Milgram conducted

this experiment b/c he was at the Nuremburg trials and wanted to know

how people react in obedience situation as many on trial said they

were being obedient. A few brave souls in psychology today have held

the validity of this test up for the light of day and asked 'is the

test even morally ethical to administer?' as it does smack very

similarly of some of Mengel's work in the SS in the name of science.

Not all tests conducted in the name of science are good just as not

all things in the name of God are good. But why don't people question

science as much as religion? It is a new form of religion born very

much out of WWII sadly IMHO. This test is not altogether ethical and

it has more than a few flaws in how it was conducted.

HOWEVER, the vast majority do not question this ethicality of the

test for the simple fact Milgram was at Yale at the time of

experiment. I suppose Yale, Princeton and Harvard are the new

cathedrals of the USA, but I personally don't worship there and think

they should be as equally scrutinized as any other academia life.

Hello!!!! Do you know how many Princeton students were absolutely

aghast at the positioning of Dr. Singer as the head of

bioethics a few years ago? Major protests and rallies and I for one

would rather my kids not go to college than go there. Its absurd and

straight out of the pages of Hitler's Mein Kampf dreams in so far as

what ethics Singer espouses- infanticide of the undesirable children.

He postulates that personhood not only ceases to exist in eutero, but

additionally not well past two years of age and so any child born

w/defects (God helps us on how we will define that one in the future

if he and his likes continue to influence ethics in this country's

leading universities) may 'humanely' be killed. They are doing so in

Denmark I believe where he highly admires their advanced 'European'

thinking. Parents will eventually not be allowed to chose to kill or

not to kill their down's syndrome or autistic babies as it is

socialized medicine over there and the gov't won't want to fund the

raising of their mutated gene pool. Hmm,sounds an awful lot like the

triumph of Nazi ideals to me, but who am I?

No, I believe academia should be scrutinized and this test is not

altogether valid nor can the results be considered altogether

judicially true. His fansination w/Anti social behavior already leads

him to a certain biasedness though to his credit he did a phenomenal

job of controlling the test to the best of anyone's abilities.

In this same ethics class I had to take, we always had to start every

question with the term " Is it ever morally okay to..... " For

example " Is it ever morally okay to steal? Is it ever morally okay to

murder? " You get the gist. I got a C in the class b/c I pissed off

the teacher mid way through and so my normal sterling A writing in

all other classes previously all of the sudden went to C status b/c I

asked the question of my teacher " Is it ever morally okay for the

teacher of an ethics class to also be the author of the only text

books we can buy for the class? " I was pissed that she authored the

book and it was so ridiculously expensive but also b/c of the

conflict of interest w/unbiasedness on the topic of ethics.

And so " Is it every morally okay for an ethics researcher to conduct

deception tests with torture as their main variable in the name of

science? " I hypostulate that it is Not. Just my two cents.

I leave you with the words of Orwell that I read this morning

for the first time and absolutely loved:

" Some ideas are so ridiculous that only intellectuals can accept

them. "

Best wishes to you,

Kerrie

> >

> > Hi Everyone,

> >

> > I just finished watching the ABC TV Primetime Basic

> > Instinct series show about a repeated version of

> > Stanley Milgram's famous 1951 experiment in which

> > people were measured to see how far they would go in

> > administering physically painful actions to another

> > person. The show also looked briefly at the 1971

> > Stanford Prison Study in which similar things were

> > measured. There's much more to both experiments, but

> > I'm keeping it simple here.

> >

> > I need some quick support. A few minutes after the

> > show ended, I could quickly tell that I was VERY

> > upset, especially in the younger parts of myself.

> > Writing this is helping me take quick corrective,

> > calming, and healing action. I think what I also need

> > is for some people I trust to tell the younger parts

> > of me that I didn't deserve the sadistic, cruel,

> > inhumane, destructive, evil abuse I endured for

> > decades, especially when I was a virtual emotional,

> > psychological and spiritual slave for my FOO.

> > Intellectually, as the adult I am now, I know all

> > this. I could really use your support RIGHT NOW about

> > this so that the younger parts of me hear other voices

> > of support, guidance and encouragement besides my own

> > adult voice.

> >

> > Thanks, everyone. I'll be reading the board for

> > awhile longer tonight.

> >

> > One Non-BP Recovering Man

> >

> >

> > __________________________________________________

> >