A Few Good Men By Erich Fromm And Stanley Milgram

A Few Good Men portrays the importance of military orders, the reality of the ranking system and how much military leader’s authority can cloud their judgement. Former psychology professor at Yale, Stanley Milgram sought the reasoning behind the blindness of individuals when ordered to perform a task for someone who seems to be an authority figure. His infamous experiment was and is currently being dug through and examined thoroughly. Milgram’s research caught the attention of fellow psychologist Philip Zimbardo. Zimbardo conducted an experiment with similar interests in mind. He collected 21 men from newspaper advertisements to live in a false prison and live in the prison for two weeks. The experiment lasted six days due to how quickly the experiment escalated and transformed the “prisoners” and “guards” (Zimbardo 116). Their conclusions from both experiments are that power and stress can transform even the strongest willed people. Zimbardo and Milgram discuss the same sort of entitlement Colonel Jessup presumes to order an illegal code red due to his position on the base at Guantanamo Bay; also the entitlement Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee had over the case due to the position his father once had.

A few good men starring Jack Nicholson Tom Cruise and Demi Moore is about ethic in the marines. Many characters in the movie are faced with moral dillemas Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholsons characters are faced with moral dillemas. The movie is about two marines who are accused of murdering there fellow officer, during the incestigation it is discovered that there is a practice called “code red” this is a unethical and unofficial disciplinary measure by the marine squad when a member goes against the unit. The offender is gagged, beaten, and then they are killed by their fellow officers. The accused put the blame on someone they said was higher up from them. They carried out the “code red” order because the officer was not living up to the

David Foster Wallace’s short story “Good People” uses the themes of division, isolation, and loneliness to suggest how communication can overcomes these psychological problems. These themes, prominent in the story of a young couple struggling with how to react to an unwanted pregnancy, are present in many of Wallace’s stories, and come from his own struggles and literary influences.

Some individuals know to obey their superior, unless they want to be faced with consequences. However, there are occasions individuals choose to be disobedience because they believe it is the right thing to do for the certain situation that they are faced with. This could in an individual being terminated, dishonorably discharged, or suspended. Knowing the outcome of being insubordinate, individuals are usually obedient, even when they are in a situation that is morally wrong. Kelman and Hamilton, in their article, “The My Lai Massacre: A Military Crime of Obedience,” examine how Lt. Calley's unquestioning obedience resulted in the massacre of many women and children. Theodore Dalrymple, in his article, “Just Do What The Pilot Tells You,” asserts that there is a balance between when one should be obedient to orders or one should not be. A movie, A Few Good Men, shows two U.S. Marines, Dawson and Downey, being charged for the murder of a fellow Marine at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba and Lt. Daniel Kaffee represents them as their lawyer. Nicholas Leveillee, in his article, “The Role of Obedience in Society,” asserts that one needs to find a balance between obedience and insubordination, so individuals can maintain their individuality and a stable society. Adam Cohen, in his article, “Four Decades After Milgram, We’re Still Willing to Inflict Pain,” asserts that an

For years, many have questioned the so called “evil” that seems to be inside of people. There have been multiple experiments set to find the answers to these questions. Although, the real question is, why do people act the way they do? Rob Reiner, director of the movie A Few Good Men is about Daniel Kaffee, a military lawyer, who is assigned to defend two US Marines accused of murdering Pfc. William Santiago. With the help of Lt. Sam Weinberg and Lt. Cdr. JoAnn Galloway, Kaffe brings the accused Marines, Lance Cpl. Harold Dawson and Pfc. Louden Downey, into court to prove that they are innocent of murder because they were “just following orders” (Reiner). However, why did Dawson and Downey follow the orders, if they knew the result would be hurting another? Maybe it was because of the situation, or how obedient the two Marines were, or many it is just the plain and simple evil at work. Nevertheless, two articles that mention the experiments to test this is “The Stanford Prison Experiment” by Philip Zimbardo and “The Perils of Obedience” by Stanley Milgram. The results gathered from these experiments confirms the belief of hidden wickedness inside human beings. Plus Zimbardo himself made an hypothesis that good people can become evil in the blink of an eye. He based this hypothesis on his prison experiment. Both of these authors addresses how their experiments determine how obedience and the situation can determine the outcome, which just supports

The foundation of today’s society is not in immense chaos or destruction, but rather in an organizational order because of the choice in obedience. As depicted in the movie, “A Few Good Men”, obedience is questioned due to soldiers choosing to obey or not when it presents the case of Lance Cpl. Harold Dawson and Pfc. Louden Downey being disciplined for committing a crime, even if they were only following orders. Eric Fromm, a social psychologist and psychoanalyst, furthers points in whether it is permissible to commit a crime under the pretext of obeying orders in his article, “Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem”. Comparatively, Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist, addresses obedience overriding

For years, many have questioned the so called “evil” that seems to be inside of people. There have been multiple experiments set to find the answers to these questions. Although, the real question is, why do people act the way they do? Rob Reimen, director of the movie A Few Good Men is about Daniel Kaffee, a military lawyer, who is assigned to defend two Marines accused of murdering Pfc. William Santiago. With the help of Col. Nathan Jessep and Lt. Cdr. JoAnn Galloway, Kaffe brings the accused Marines, Lance Cpl. Harold Dawson and Pfc. Louden Downey, into court to prove that they are not guilty of murder because they were “just following orders” (Reimen). However, why did Dawson and Downey follow the orders, if they knew the result would be hurting another? Why did they not rebel against it? Maybe it was because of the situation, or how obedient the two Marines were, or many it is just the plain and simple evil at work. Nevertheless, two articles that mention the experiments to test this is “The Stanford Prison Experiment” by Philip Zimbardo and “The Perils of Obedience” by Stanley Milgram. The results gathered from these experiments confirms the belief of hidden wickedness inside human beings. Plus Zimbardo himself made an hypothesis that good people can become evil in the blink of an eye. He based this hypothesis on his prison experiment. Both of these authors addresses how their experiments determine how the obedience and the

The film A Few Good Men illustrates the struggle every marine face-- to follow orders, good or bad. The film mainly revolved around the two accused marines for killing a fellow marine, Lance Cpl. Harold W. Dawson and Pfc.

Flannery O’Connor, undoubtedly one of the most well-read authors of the early 20th Century, had many strong themes deeply embedded within all her writings. Two of her most prominent and poignant themes were Christianity and racism. By analyzing, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and “Everything that Rises Must Converge,” these two themes jump out at the reader. Growing up in the mid-1920’s in Georgia was a huge influence on O’Connor. Less than a decade before her birth, Georgia was much different than it was at her birth. Slaves labored tirelessly on their master’s plantations and were indeed a facet of everyday life. However, as the Civil War ended and Reconstruction began, slaves were not easily assimilated into Southern culture. Thus, O’Connor grew up in a highly racist area that mourned the fact that slaves were now to be treated as “equals.” In her everyday life in Georgia, O’Connor encountered countless citizens who were not shy in expressing their discontent toward the black race. This indeed was a guiding influence and inspiration in her fiction writing. The other guiding influence in her life that became a major theme in her writing was religion. Flannery O 'Connor was born in Savannah, Georgia, the only child of a Catholic family. The region was part of the 'Christ-haunted ' Bible belt of the Southern States. The spiritual heritage of the region profoundly shaped O 'Connor 's writing as described in her essay "The Catholic Novelist in the Protestant South" (1969). Many

Harold Dawson and Pfc. Louden Downey follow the order of Lt. Jonathon Kendrick from Col. Jessup to perform a Code Red on Pfc. William Santiago. Kelman and Hamilton note that "in an authority situation, individuals characteristically feel obligated to obey the orders of authorities, whether or not they correspond with their personal preferences" (Kelman &Hamilton 139). Humans are more likely to follow the orders of a superior or one who appears to be a superior ("When Good People do Bad Things). Rod Powers would develop that by stating in his article "Military Orders" that "military discipline and effectiveness is built on the foundation of obedience to orders" as well as courts have held military members accountable for their actions even while following orders (Powers). Szegedy- Maszak writes that psychologist Herbert Kelman explains that one of the three traits that contribute to one harming another is authorization (Szegedy- Maszak). If this information is true then Col. Jessup would act however he pleased due to the fact that he was the highest ranking official at the Guantanamo Bay Base in Cuba; he had no one to follow or hold him accountable to the ethics of a marine. As an authority figure, no one questioned his authority; Jessup knew that they could not question his order to perform a Code Red. For instance how Rajeev Purohit explains in "Alternatives to Obeying Superior Orders; A Question for the International Superior Court" "the defense of superior orders is impermissible (Purohit). As well as in Milgram's experiment the professor in the room seated behind the teacher giving the prods to continue with the experiment, the superior or the one trusted was the one the teacher relied on (Milgram 79). As one might conclude, humans seem to pick on the weak in life; however, this fear can be taken to an extreme and may be the beginning of dehumanization as well as other harmful

In the Milgram Experiment, Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, conducted an experiment focusing on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience. Milgram was interested in researching how far people would go in obeying an instruction if it involved harming another person. The first example is “...the experimenter wore a grey lab coat as a symbol of his authority (a kind of uniform)....The role of the experimenter was then taken over by an ‘ordinary member of the public’ ( a confederate) in everyday clothes rather than a lab coat. The obedience level dropped to 20%” (Milgram). When the test subjects are near a person who wears a uniform they feel more intimidated. So they feel more inclined to listen to them and go against their morals. Another example of the boys morals changing is when the savage turned boys killed Piggy, “Piggy fell 40 feet and landed on his back across the the square red rock in the sea. His head opened and stuff came out and turned red. Piggy's arms and legs twitched a bit, like a pig's after it has been killed"(181). The boy's killing Piggy without remorse shows that their morals have shifted from the beginning of the book to now. They do not value human life because they are now savages. When people are ordered by people in uniform, they will follow their commands and the boys morals change as they continue to survive in the

Even as people call themselves individuals and claim to do as they please, it is in their encoding to follow a simple command from a superior even if it objects their own judgement. In a simple experiment, such as that performed by Stanley Milgram, one command can make or break your own sense of self. Even if the command isn't compulsory, as seen by the marines in the movie A Few Good Men, orders can be extremely hard not to follow.

A Few Good Men is a movie that adequately causes debate among renowned professors, philosophers, and psychoanalysts. The film demonstrates multiple qualities of commands and power in the military, specifically the Marines. A Few Good Men has an early distinguishable gender distinction, where women are subordinate to men, despite being higher in rank. Marines use a punishment known as a Code Red to discipline any soldier who fails to comply with any and all given orders. Philip G. Zimbardo is a professor at Stanford University who composed the article, “The Stanford Prison Experiment,” in 1973 (Zimbardo 240). Zimbardo’s article covers his experiment which tested college students’ abilities to adapt in either an authoritarian role as a guard

Dr. Stanley Milgram was an American Social Psychologist who conducted the Behavioral Study of Obedience in 1963. Dr. Milgram conducted the study to assess the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience. The subjects of the study were recruited from various occupations including, but not limited to, laborers and engineers. Dr. Milgram hoped to learn about the circumstances in which people would carry out the commands of authority figure and when will they refuse to obey (citation). The research methods used in the Behavioral Study of Obedience were experiments and observation. The results of the experiment concluded that the participants were obedient to the orders and conformed to their assigned “role” quickly and without question.

In the film A Few Good Men, director Rob Reiner challenges the question of why Marines obey their superiors’ orders without hesitation. The film portrays a story about two Marines, Lance Corporal Harold W. Dawson and Private First Class Louden Downey, charged for the murder of Private First Class William T. Santiago. Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee, who is known to be carefree and originally considers offering a plea bargain in order to shorten Dawson and Downey’s sentence, finds himself fighting for the freedom of the Marines because they argue that they simply followed the orders given for a Code Red. The question of why people follow any order given by an authority figure has intrigued many people from the world of psychology, like Stanley Milgrim, author of “The Perils of Obedience.” Milgram conducted an experiment that tested the conflict between obedience to authority and one's own conscience. Through the experiments, Milgram discovered that most people would go against their own decisions of right and wrong to complete the requests of an authority figure. In the article “The Stanford Prison Experiment”, Philip G. Zimbardo also tested the theory of people’s obedience to authority by conducting an experiment where the guards would jokingly tell the prisoners to do something, however the prisoners would do what they were ordered to do inorder to hang on to their identity. Nearly all of the characters in the film are obedient to their superiors, and Milgram and Zimbardo would