An interesting take on Milgram’s terrible experiment is this, to not bemoan the high percentage of folks who would push a button they thought might kill someone merely because authority assured them it would be fine to do so, but to focus on the fact that, again and again, in multple experiments that repeated similar conditions to the Milgram experiment, a significant minority of people refused to take action that would harm others, even unseen others, because authority told them to do so.
But what is it to be the lone guy not saluting in the sea of Nazi supporters if the people around you will rip you to shreds if you threaten that thing they’re saluting? More often than not, in nation-states where authoritarianism is on the increase, the small number of people who have somehow avoided the mass hysteria are simply the most at risk as the tyranny rises and turns from rhetoric to action.
Rethinking the Infamous Milgram Experiment in Authoritarian Times – Scientific American
Excerpt:
So maybe it is a mistake to view Milgram’s work as an “obedience experiment”—although he clearly did. Maybe what he actually conducted was a disobedience experiment, showing that some people will not follow orders no matter how strong the social pressure.
They are out there, waiting the moment when history calls upon them to disobey. We should not lose sight of them in the weeds of social psychology. They are Stanley Milgram’s unheralded legacy—and we may even stand among them.
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