I reread the classic novel Pride and Prejudice every year. Usually in early spring, at approximately the same time in the story when plucky heroine Lizzie Bennet makes a pivotal visit to the English countryside and re-encounters her antagonist (and love interest), the enigmatic Mr. Darcy. Turning the pages no longer brings me any surprises – I know the book too well for that – but there is a soothing satisfaction in revisiting a familiar story, whose characters and their feelings are as real for me as any flesh-and-blood entities I’ve encountered.
There is another book, of a very different character, that I read almost as often: Obedience to Authority by Stanley Milgram. I first encountered the text as a 21-year-old college student in my Psych 101 class. The book is a case study of a series of experiments conducted at Yale in the early 1960s which explored the relationship of human behavior to authority. Specifically, the experiments examined the willingness of many Americans to obey the instructions of figures whom they perceived to be in authority, even if it led to harming or killing another human being who posed no threat to themselves. Furthermore, to avoid guilt or other emotional fallout, the study participants often made stunning psychological adjustments to avoid any moral culpability.
It was fascinating. I read it. And reread it. More than 50 years after it was first published, I still find Obedience to Authority just as relevant, just as incisive, just as compelling. It is no exaggeration to say that the book changed my life.
Of course, there are notable differences between the America of the early 1960s and America today, too many to list here. But what struck me is that the most significant variable – human actions – is largely unchanged. And once I’ve seen that the mechanisms of control and authority (both visible and invisible) are present, I can’t unsee it.
Americans, according to Milgram, are no exception. We are no braver, no more free thinking, no more righteous than the Gestapo police or Nazi soldiers who perpetuated unthinkable cruelties under the auspices of “following orders.”
Milgram puts his conclusion this way:
The results, as seen and felt in the laboratory, are to this author disturbing. They raise the possibility that human nature, or – more specifically – the kind of nature produced in American democratic society, cannot be counted on to insulate its citizens from brutality and inhumane treatment at the direction of malevolent authority. A substantial proportion of people do what they are told to do, irrespective of the context of the act and without limitations of conscience.
Stanley Milgram Obedience to Authority
Some may take issue with what could appear to be Milgram’s lack of neutrality, a refusal to apply clinical detachment and instead consider his subjects through an ethical lens. That is a fair point. At the same time, in American society and elsewhere, it may be argued that human actions carry not just psychological implications, but moral ones.
The warning is clear: terrible things can happen when we absolve ourselves of responsibility. It is therefore incumbent upon us to first see ourselves honestly. To reckon with our shortfalls and failings. To stop being so goddamn fragile, so protective of our precious psyches that we are unable to either admit fault or make amends.
And secondly, to use what power we have mindfully and intentionally rather than reactively. There are choices present in almost every situation. They might not be easy choices. They might come with difficult consequences. But they are there, calling us to step up when more is required from us.
Vive la resistance.