Obedience In The Movie : A Few Good Men

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.

The motion picture A Few Good Men challenges the question of why Marines obey their superiors’ orders without hesitation. The film illustrates 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 lackadaisical and originally considers offering a plea bargain in order to curtail Dawson’s and Downey’s sentence, finds himself fighting for the freedom of the Marines; their argument: they simply followed the orders given for a “Code Red”. The question of why people follow any order given has attracted much speculation from the world of psychology. Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist,

“The Perils of Obedience” was written by Stanley Milgram in 1974. In the essay he describes his experiments on obedience to authority. I feel as though this is a great psychology essay and will be used in psychology 101 classes for generations to come. The essay describes how people are willing to do almost anything that they are told no matter how immoral the action is or how much pain it may cause.

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

“In the heart of nation’s capital, in a courthouse of the U.S government, one man will stop at nothing to keep his honor, and one will stop at nothing to find the truth.” This tagline helps to sum up the tone of the film A Few Good Men. Two soldiers caught in the middle of right and wrong will keep there hope and loyalty high as they wish for the best. Will the instigator of it all be pressured through his own anger to reveal the truth? Rob Reiner presents Col. Nathan R. Jessep as having an exaggerated self opinion while using his power for evil, based on dispositional factors.

In A Few Good Men, both Lance Cpl. Harold W. Dawson and Pfc. Louden Downey were obedient to Col. Nathan R. Jessup’s order to give Santiago the Code Red, even though it went against their preset morals. Dawson saw, through his own conscience, that hurting another person because of small mistakes was immoral. But because of his believe in the marines code, “Unit, Corp, God, Country,” he was unable to allow himself to disobey a direct order. Author Milgram explored this same issue in his experiment. He asked why people followed orders no matter the negative effects it has on other people. In the study, roughly 60% of the test subject followed all orders to harms others. After the studies, Milgram inferred that this was because people have an underlying fear of disobeying a superior and do not trust their own

In society, obedience to authority is ingrained in humanity from an early age, causing some individuals to blindly obey orders without contemplating the credibility of the source. In psychoanalyst Erich Fromm’s article “Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem,” he explains that throughout human history obedience has been associated with virtue and disobedience with sin (Fromm 127). Fromm suggests that our conscience is an internalized voice of authority (126). Fromm claims individuals need to distinguish the difference between rational and irrational authority because obedience is effective when individuals want to obey, instead of fearing to disobey (127). Two other authors who examine obedience are Herbert C. Kelman and V. Lee

Growing up my family has always thought me to be obedient, but also know the difference between what is right and wrong. I am not saying that my family or I am perfect, but I have always strived to do the right thing. I understand, in society today that we have jobs and responsibility, that sometimes it can compromise our principles, but like every person, we have certain boundaries that we just cannot let ourselves pass. In “The Perils of Obedience by Stanley Milgram, a study was conducted on several subjects to test their obedience and how far they would go to as the “teacher” to administer a shock to a “student “that the authority figure “experimenter” ordered them to give. Among the test subject was Gretchen Brandt, a thirty-one –year –old

Today our society raises us to believe that obedience is good and disobedience is bad. We are taught that we should all do what we’re told and that the people that are disobedient are almost always bad people. Society tells us this, but it is not true. Most people will even be obedient to the point of causing harm to others, because to be disobedient requires the courage to be alone against authority. In Stanley Milgram’s "Perils of Obedience" experiment, his studies showed that sixty percent of ordinary people would agree to obey an authority figure even to the point of severely hurting another human being. (Milgram 347).

History indicates that obedience in the context of a nation is most successful when people see substantial reasons to obey the orders of a government and its subdivisions. During World War II the American military defeated fascism on various geographical fronts. Although it was not mandatory to serve in the US military, many volunteers were ready to fight for American values like individual freedom and democracy. This created what Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth H. Wenker calls autonomous obedience (Walker, 1981). According to the Professor of Philosophy at the US Air-Force Academy,

Obedience is an important part of daily life that everybody acts upon whether they realize it or not. Theodore Dalrymple wrote the article, “Just Do What the Pilot Tells You,” who better explains obedience with real life experiences arguing that obedience is a key aspect in any job. Along with this, Herbert C. Kelman and V. Lee Hamilton wrote the article, “The My Lai Massacre,” which dissects the different characteristics of obedience that makes people act the way they do. All authors look at obedience in a new light. These different characteristics of obedience that Darlrymple, Kelman, and Hamilton all explain in their articles help us better understand the movie A Few Good Men.

Obedience. Most have learned this from a young age, the idea of listening to those who are of a higher standing than oneself and acting according to their wishes. Obedience takes a much different form when it means life or death for those involved, such as in high stakes areas as Guantanamo Bay. This topic was directly explored and elaborated upon in the 1992 film, A Few Good Men. This movie features such actors as Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon, Kevin Pollak, and Jack Nicholson. These men and women played Lt. Daniel Kaffee, Lt. Cmdr. Joanne Galloway, Capt. Jack Ross, LTJG Sam Weinberg, and Colonel Nathan R. Jessup respectively. The film, directed by Rob Reiner, was centered around a court case of two men, who was supposedly acting on

During the post-Holocaust era, Stanley Milgram investigated how people respond to authority when the order contradicts their ethical values. Would they harm innocents under orders? Milgram researched obedience by having men come in to a lab and pose as teachers. Their task was to punish the learner, a secretly-hired actor, by instigating electrical shocks whenever he failed. An experimenter, the authority, firmly commanded the subject to continue testing the learner. Although Milgram hypothesized a higher disobedience, 65% of subjects shocked the learner to the maximum voltage (p.34). He concluded obedience clouded people’s morals. Why? People are conditioned to follow authority.

Obedience is a type of social influence where an individual complies with instructions from an authority figure. The work of one famous social psychologist, “obedience to authority” at Yale University, Stanley Milgram (1963) was

In ordinary circumstances, individuals obey orders since they need to get rewards, since they need to evade the negative outcomes of ignoring, and on the grounds that they trust a power is honest to goodness. In more compelling circumstances, individuals obey notwithstanding when they are required to disregard their own particular values or carry out violations. Scientists think a few elements cause individuals to convey acquiescence to extremes: 1. Individuals legitimize their conduct by doling out obligation to the power as opposed to themselves. 2. Individuals characterize the conduct that is anticipated from them as normal. 3. Individuals would prefer not to be impolite or outrage the power. 4. Individuals obey simple summons first and after obey increasingly troublesome commands despite viewing it as morally