Authoritarian Sociopathy: Toward a Renegade Psychological Experiment, Part 2
by Davi Barker
The Milgram Experiment
Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram designed his experiment to measure the willingness of people to obey unethical orders from an authority figure. His shocking results were first described in 1963 in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, and then in 1974 he published a deeper analysis in his book, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. Milgram also created a documentary film titled simply Obedience.
The experiments began in 1961 and were repeated numerous times in multiple variations with consistent results. Experiment participants were divided into “teachers” and “learners” and placed in separate rooms. They could hear each other, but they could not see each other. The experimenter instructed the “teachers” to read questions to the “learners,” and if they answered incorrectly to administer a painful electric shock of ever increasing voltage. The “teachers” were unaware that the “learners” were actually confederates of the experimenter, the electro-shocks were fake, and the reactions were prerecorded. The “teachers” were the actual subjects of the experiment.
After a few volt increases the “learner” began to object, to bang on the wall, and in one variation to complain about a heart condition. After some time the “learner” would go silent. Every subject indicated a desire to halt the experiment, at which time the experimenter gave them a series of four verbal prods. “Please continue,” “The experiment requires that you continue,” “It is absolutely essential that you continue,” and “You have no other choice, you must go on.”
If asked, the experimenter also told the subject that the shocks would not cause permanent tissue damage, and that the experiment must continue whether the “learner” likes it or not. Some subjects began to laugh nervously. Others offered to refund the money they were paid for participating in the experiment. Some exhibited signs of extreme stress once they heard the screams of pain coming from the “learner.” But the majority continued without hesitation after being told that they would be absolved of responsibility. None of the subjects insisted that the experiment itself be terminated, or personally checked on the health of the “learner”. The experiment ended when the subject either insisted on stopping after all four verbal prods, or they had given the “learner” the maximum shock three times.
Milgram’s contemporaries predicted that only 1-3% of subjects would administer a lethal shock, but were utterly astonished when 65% of subjects administered the experiment’s maximum, massive 450-volt shock. Other psychologists performed numerous variations of the experiment throughout the world, including versions designed to test groups, but always with similar results. The vast majority of subjects in all variations were willing to deliver a lethal jolt of electricity to a complete stranger based on nothing but the verbal prodding of an authority figure in a lab coat.
The Lesser Known Adolf
The scientific study of authoritarian sociopathy really began with the Milgram Experiment. What’s seldom mentioned is that Stanley Milgram designed his experiment in response to the chilling testimony of one Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi officer convicted in 1961. After World War II the horrifying details of the Holocaust came to light. Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and virtually anyone deemed an enemy of the State were murdered by the Nazis. The robotic refrain from soldiers at the Nuremberg Trials was, “I was just following orders.” Adolf Eichmann oversaw the logistics of kidnapping and forcefully relocating people deemed enemies of the State to prison camps, and death camps. When people joke that the trains ran on time under German fascism, they can thank Adolf Eichmann.
Commentators on his trial said that he appeared “ordinary and sane” and that he displayed “neither guilt nor hate.” Hannah Arendt’s book on the trial was titled Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. During questioning he showed no remorse for his role in the murder of his passengers, and in his own defense he flatly repeated an all too familiar phrase:
“I was just following orders.”
In Eichman’s view he was acting upon the decisions of the State, which absolved him of all guilt. He coldly confessed to all his actions, but never acknowledged any personal responsibility.
What’s interesting about Adolf Eichman, when compared to those convicted in the Nuremberg Trials 16 years prior, is that this lesser known Adolf never killed anyone. Now, it’s a matter of historical debate whether or not Adolf Hitler ever directly killed anyone, other than himself. Historians dispute whether he killed his wife, Eva Braun, or she killed herself. In all likelihood Hitler took lives as a corporal in World War I, but it’s of little relevance, because Hitler most certainly ordered the deaths of millions of people. Adolf Eichman never did that either. In his trial he was found not guilty of personally killing anyone, but he was still found guilty of crimes against humanity, and war crimes.
When the judges explained their reasoning during sentencing they repeated a quote in the transcript when he said:
“I will leap into my grave laughing because the feeling that I have five million human beings on my conscience is for me a source of extraordinary satisfaction.”
See, Eichmann’s crime was not simply obeying unethical orders that lead the death of his passengers. His crime was willfully and enthusiastically embracing the legitimacy of those orders. He believed in the rectitude of his actions, which is a different moral infraction than being forced to drive a train against his will. Adolf Eichmann was an authoritarian sociopath, and I would argue that the Adolf Eichmanns of the world are far more dangerous than the Adolf Hitlers of the world. When atrocities are committed by militarized societies the perpetrators are usually a minority of the population, and the victims are usually also a minority of the population. It is the witnesses who are the majority, and thereby the most capable of meaningful intervention. This was perhaps best expressed by Irish philosopher Edmund Burke who said:
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
Although that begs the question, are those who do nothing really good? Without the Eichmanns of the world, the Hitlers have no capacity. After World War II the world stood in shock and horror as the evils of German National Socialism came to light, and many cried “never forget,” and “never again,” only to promptly forget, and recycle those slogans a generation later. Stanley Milgram was asking the question, “How many Adolf Eichmanns are out there anyway?” He aimed to discover how such atrocities were possible in the first place. In his final analysis, published in Psychology Today in 1975, Milgram wrote:
“I would say, on the basis of having a thousand people in the experiment and having my own intuition shaped and informed by these experiments, that if a system of death camps were set up in the United States of the sort we had seen in Nazi Germany, one would find sufficient personnel for those camps in any medium-sized American town.”
Blind obedience to corrupt authority is a mental disorder. That is not a euphemism, but a fact. There is a prevailing view in many societies that this thing, called the government, wields absolute supreme authority. In its wrath the State can smite their enemies, and enforce their prejudices. In its mercy it can heal the sick, and feed the poor. In its power it can turn paper into gold, or even change the weather. These people believe that society is the product of centralized violence, and not the aggregate of their own decentralized decisions. Those who deeply internalize “obedience to authority” as a core principle become capable of the worst forms of murder, and tolerant of the worst forms of abuse. They even chastise those who resist through horizontal discipline. But most importantly, they become capable of passively witnessing evil, and even facilitating it, believing, as Eichmann did, that their god absolves them of personal responsibility.
Up next: another well-known psychological study about authority and obedience.
“Please continue,”
“The experiment requires that you continue,”
“It is absolutely essential that you continue,”
“You have no other choice, you must go on.”
Obedience is the most terrible form of Tyranny.
Sill Muggs... Tricks are for kids!