In the 60's, a Yale professor conducted a test called the Milgram Experiement. The point of the experiment was to test individuals obedience to authority figures. Recently the test was revised to see if anything had changed after years of sensitivity training and increased awareness of humanity. In the current experiment, volunteers were told they were testing people's ability to memorize a list of words and to see if negative reinforcement increased the subject's correct answers. Two volunteers were taken to a room where the first volunteer (who was actually a paid actor) was strapped down and hooked up to a bunch of wires and electrodes. The second volunteer was then lead into another room and sat before a large electronic board. Once the experiment began, if the first test subject answered a question incorrectly, the second volunteer flipped a switch to send a jolt of electricity to the first person. With each wrong answer, the voltage was increased. At first nothing happened but soon the poor guy being electrocuted began to cry out in pain- first with "Ouch" and working up to severe screaming. Eventually the guy was begging to stop the experiment and complaining of heart pain. Most of the volunteers who were administering the electricity asked to stop but when the doctor said it was important to continue, they did...even if they were very uncomfortable about the whole thing.
Eventually the experiment ended and the lead scientist came out to talk to the volunteers. He explained that the poor guy getting shocked was actually an actor and never received any electricity. The other volunteer was always visibly relieved....amazing since he had just chosen to shock the crap out of this poor fellow.
The whole point of the experiment was to see what people would be willing to do if a person of authority told them to do it. Over 77% of the volunteers continued shocking the guy even though his screams indicted his life might be in danger. It turns out when the experiment was originally conducted in the 60's, 65% of the volunteers continued to the end...in other words, we've gotten worse.
Amazingly, these volunteers had all signed agreements that clearly stated they could leave at anytime. Several of them even pointed that out to the doctor in the back of the room but when he told them to continue, they reluctantly did. They thought they were electrocuting someone and they continued because a guy in a lab coat told them not to stop.
Are we really that controllable? Of course I tell myself that I would have stopped, but would I have? Are we that hungry for approval or so weak that we'd basically murder a stranger because a doctor told us to? I'm sure everyone reading this thinks they would never do this, but experiment after experiment, everyone acted the same. There was even one lady who was crying as she flipped the switches but she just kept flipping them.
What does this say about us? As a member of the human race--the race that's suppose to be the superior race--doesn't this reduce us to the lowest life form? I know of no other animals in the animal kingdom that would purposely inflict pain and suffering on a member of their tribe just for the sake of inflicting pain. If we are willing to do this to our own people....how are we any better than Hitler's henchmen? And why do we become enraged when someone like Timothy McVey or Al Qaeda commit terrorist acts against innocent people on US soil? At least their attacks were based on a belief system and sent a message--no matter how skewed. At least they committed horrible murders for the greater good--in their warped minds. What kind of people are we if we are willing to torture and possible kill someone- one on one-- just because some guy in charge told us to? What chance does the human race have of ever finding world peace of these are the acts we are willing to perform?
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