Blind Obedience

Obedience to people in authority is a deep-rooted trait that we all possess by virtue of our upbringing, and as Milgram put it, “it is only the person dwelling in isolation who is not forced to respond, with defiance or submission, to the commands of others” (Milgram 1974). This trait is exhibited every day in family circles, workplace and school. People are most likely to obey instructions from people they perceive their authority to be legal or moral. We see people obeying their pastors, leaders in various societies and other people they see as higher to them; and they obey anything they are being told even if it involves killing another human being. They justify their actions, however wrong, on obedience to authority.

A while after receiving his doctorate, Milgram began studying the justifications of genocide, in particular the case of Adolf Eichmann. Eichmann was responsible for countless war crimes associated with the Nazis, however he claimed that him and all of his accomplices were simply following orders. A year after Eichmann’s trial, Milgram had set out to find the answer to his new found question, “Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?" (Milgram, 1974). It is this underlying question that supported the entire experiment, essentially a study focusing on the conflicts between obedience to authority and personal conscience. As in, would you harm a person if you were told to do so by someone with high authority? The experiments began in July of 1961, at Yale University, when Milgram began a search for participants, by publishing a short advertisement in a newspaper.

As children, we are taught to listen to our elders or any authority figure and obey their instructions. This was what determined how “good” we were. Obedience I can be described as “willingness to agree with the directions of an individual with authority”. As children, obedience can help with their development, socially and behaviorally. It helps an

Individuals often yield to conformity when they are forced to discard their individual freedom in order to benefit the larger group. Despite the fact that it is important to obey the authority, obeying the authority can sometimes be hazardous especially when morals and autonomous thought are suppressed to an extent that the other person is harmed. Obedience usually involves doing what a rule or a person tells you to but negative consequences can result from displaying obedience to authority for example; the people who obeyed the orders of Adolph Hitler ended up killing innocent people during the Holocaust. In the same way, Stanley Milgram noted in his article ‘Perils of Obedience’ of how individuals obeyed authority and

Obedience as an act can be traced back to the very beginnings of human history. The common belief has always been to obey authority at all cost. This act has never been questioned because authority corresponds to the common belief that respecting authority and obeying them will lead you to success in all aspects of life. Obedience is not defined to specific situations and its context can be portrayed in various ways. For example, Erich Fromm writes in his essay, “Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem; “Human history began with an act of disobedience, and it is not unlikely that it will be terminated by an act of disobedience.” This statement suggests that everything which we perceived to be

During the experiment, if the teacher said that they did not wish to continue, the experimenter encouraged them to go on. He said that it was vital that they proceed until the test was over. Baumrind brings up a good point by suggesting that Milgram’s comparison of SS men in Nazi Germany to the teacher is faulty. Although they both instructed their “teachers” on what to do and made it seem as though the victims deserved what they were getting, the SS men would not have perceived their authority figures as benign researchers in a lab. The SS men were led to believe that their victims were unimportant not even worthy of consideration. She alleges this by saying, “He did not need to feel guilt or conflict because within his frame of reference he was acting rightly” (Baumrind 228), which describes how the SS men felt while torturing their victims.

Erich Fromm, a psychoanalyst, philosopher, sociologist, historian, and a well known writer, wrote “Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem,” and in it he states that “Obedience to a person, institution, or power (heteronomous obedience) is submission; it implies the abdication of my autonomy and the acceptance of a foreign will or judgement in place of my own.” If someone is to obey the orders of another person or power, they can potentially lose their own values or morals. Likewise, Jonah Lehrer, an experimentalist and journalist on psychology and neuroscience that studies the actions and mindsets of those who are in the position of authority, mentions that “The same flawed thought processes triggered by authority also distort our ability to evaluate information and make complex decisions” (Lehrer 647). Obedience can take over the mind and not allow for one’s mind to form their own thoughts and opinions. It is similar to the way slavery worked, some of the slaves were obedient all their lives, and did not realize that they had the right to their own opinions and bodies, they did not realize they could be there own person. When people constantly obey, they lose the ability to be their own

Conformity and obedience are some of the factors that usually influence the various processes that determine the manner in which an individual behaves in a social set up. They also have an impact on how people follow and adhere to social norms (both written and unwritten) as well as fashions and their immoral actions (Milgram, 2010). Several aspects come to play when one is asked by another individual to do a particular thing. First, they will need to consider whether whatever they are being asked to do is morally right or wrong. Second, based on the circumstances, they can either obey or comply and better still, they can decline to do it. The term obedience refers to the act of an individual doing something that they have been asked to do. On the other hand, conformity regards to how others influence people. They do things that they were not requested to do. The influence is usually through the behaviors and thoughts of others. This paper will compare and contrast the factors involved in conformity and obedience.

Blind obedience is when a professional follows the rules strictly without concern for context or consequences. However in some perspectives strictly following (strict obedience) the rules can be rational when there is a hierarchy since it tends to ignore what subordinates think. Most of the professions do not require strict obedience

Obedience is following instruction from a figure of authority. (Callaghan and Lazard,

Is Milgram justified in detailing a possible connection between his experiment and the Holocaust shortly after it happened? Diana Baumrind inclines towards disagreeing with him; however, she is not immediately discernible on whether she agrees with him which detracts from her overall effectivity. Baumrind believes Milgram’s subjects were concerned about their victims thus breaking the parallel between his experiment and the genocide in the Holocaust (Baumrind 93). A recollection of chronological events of the Holocaust created by the University of South Florida effectually refutes Baumrind’s belief by stating the “death camps proved to be a less personal method for killing Jews” (Florida Center for Instructional Technology). If the Nazis were making the death camps less personal, then Milgram is justified in providing the Nazis as examples in his experiment report because if his subjects continued to obey when they were concerned with the victims, then why would they reverse their decision to obey if the victim was made less personal? Milgram could have been slightly more effective and fair by acknowledging the difference between his experiment and Nazi Germany in that in his experiment the subject had no interaction with the experimenter beforehand while the Nazi Party built obedience towards them for almost a decade before they started to systematically abuse the power of

We are prone to obey because when we are obedient to an authority it makes us feel safe and protected. We can’t make mistakes because the authority decides for us. We can’t be alone, because the authority watches over us. So, no matter what our behavior is, it can be justified on the ground that we are only following orders, doing what we’re told from above. We can easily be brought to view ourselves as an instrument for carrying out another person’s wishes, and so we no longer feel responsible for our actions. Unfortunately, that can make us feel responsible to the authority, instead of the content of the orders the authority is giving. Morality is still there, but the focus is changed. We feel the need to perform well, out of obligation or duty, to those who are in authority.

Many people spend their lives pleasing others whether it is parents, teachers, peers, or bosses. There is a need and importance of obedience in human life because those who do not know how to lead must obey. Nelson Mandela, a South-African revolutionary and political leader, had many people in society who obeyed him. They obeyed Mandela, for they loved and trusted him. True obedience cannot be enforced it can only be earned. Mandela earned the obedience of others by leading protests against the apartheid and fighting for equality. Most of society views obedience as a choice and not an obligation.

According to Cardwell (1996) obedience is a type of social influence whereby somebody acts in response to a direct order from another person. There is an implication the actor is made to respond in a way that they wouldn’t have otherwise done without the order. You are in no doubt when you are obeying an order (explicit). It is obvious when you are following an order and you won’t change your attitudes as you are behaving as instructed. We will always find ourselves in situations in which we are told to do things by other people, for example boss or supervisor at work. Within society we work in a hierarchy. We may disagree or resent the orders we are given even when they are legitimate. It is unlikely we will be given an order or instruction that goes against our conscience or involves us inflicting serious harm on another person.

People nowadays are prone to obedience because they are afraid to be isolated from the community. Community is known as a group of people who truly have no fear in relying on each other. People in a community usually share common goals and have a sense of belonging within the group. In order to overcome the fear of being in solitary, one tends to obey to the authority in the