Joseph Dimow

[threejane]

In the infamous Milgram experiments people were asked to give progressively stronger electrical shocks to partners who answered questions incorrectly. The recruits were told they were in a study about learning and memory; in fact, their resistance to obeying authority was being observed

Comments

[lassiter]

An amazing story. Thank you - sharing it on Facebook.

[threejane]

Cool. Thanks. I am kind of obsessed with the idea of nonconformity lately.

[lassiter]

It's coming back in style. :)

[threejane]

I hope so but kind of wonder. I have been thinking about some of the implications of an education based on standardized testing where:

1. Getting the 'right' answer is all important (mistakes are not tolerated); and,
2. You get the 'right' answer through deductive reasoning -- that is -- the answer is in the text rather than from your experience.

We have a generation of kids whose creativity and nonconformity has been deliberately quashed. This is why I think that those old lessons need to be re-visited.

[ankh_f_n_khonsu]

Have you seen the documentary they made following those experiments, "Obedience"?

[threejane]

Nope. But now I will hunt it down.

[ankh_f_n_khonsu]

Do you bittorrent?

[threejane]

Oh! Good suggestion. Thanks.

[helios137]

Your post reminds me of the Ibsen play "Enemy of the People." A good read if you haven't read it.

With courage comes freedom. If you spend your life in fear, then you will never experience the transforming effect that freedom can offer an individual. I am of the opinion that each person can obtain a kind of personal freedom. So its not that some can and some can't. But our culture/religion/society has done a piss poor job of expressing this. One can go back to what Joe Campbell said in "The Power of Myth" - the system of myth telling has broken down. It has not been replaced. People are stuggling and living inauthentic lives because there is no longer a mechanism to teach them the lessons that mythologies taught past cultures.

Campbell wrote in "The Power of Myth: "This is the threat to our lives. We all face it. We all operate in our society in relation to a system. Now is the system going to eat you up and relieve you of your humanity or are you going to be able to use the system to human purposes?"

[threejane]

Gee. Everyone is giving me good reading suggestions. I like this very much