Obendience to Authority

Obedience to Authority is a case study in the psychological flaw of following authority figures regardless of subject, authority figure, victim, or circumstance. More after break:

Chapter 1: This first chapter describes the first iteration of the experiment. I find it interesting that this is the first iteration, considering that some of the problems that are acknowledged in the next few iterations (impersonal experience with the victim being a big one) are fairly obvious.
Chapter 2: This chapter talks about the victim and how he fits into the overall experiment. I never did think about how the demeanor and appearance of the actor would affect the experiment, but as they were talking about the characteristics of this actor I realized how necessary and vital this hiring would be. It'd be interesting to see footage of how he acted.
Chapter 3: This is a short chapter, since it only essentially says that they expect people to slowly lose interest in the experiment and concern themselves with the actual victims. I do agree with the overall expectations that they set: never would I have imagined how willing the subjects ended up being.
Chapter 4: This chapter describes some variations in placing of the victim. This ties into what I had mentioned in chapter 1, where some of these alterations were fairly obvious. I'm particularly interested in how the actor behaved in the variation where the subject had to physically move the victim's hand. Did the actor restrain hand movement? How hard did he resist, or did he resist at all? Did he act in such a way that it let the subject feel like this behavior was genuine?
Chapter 5: The first subject in this chapter I find fascinating. He repeatedly convinces the experimenters that he was absolutely not concerned with the victim, he seemed to have a strict utilitarian viewpoint to it all. Yet in the feedback, the question that asked if he learned anything was answered in a simple "yes". It definitely felt mysterious as to what exactly he learned. Maybe he was far more conflicted but didn't want to admit it.
Chapter 6: This chapter outlines more variations. I think the variation where they change the setting to a nondescript rented space was especially important, since it'd be really easy to argue that the results were skewed because of the prestige of Yale as an institution. I'm pretty surprised that the results barely changed at all.
Chapter 7: I find this second set of reactions to be just as interesting as the first. I especially found interesting the reactions of the nurse, who seemed so willing to help and such a nice person but was exploited so easily. We're not talking about trained military personnel, we're talking unassuming, otherwise compassionate individuals. This result in particular was very striking, as it led me to believe this is a true loophole in the human psyche.
Chapter 8: This is a pretty interesting chapter, especially in the variations where the experimenters are, well, experimented with. The first variation with the disagreeing experimenters seems to have an obvious enough answer. If two parents told you to do something when you were a kid you simply did neither in confusion (or simply did whichever you liked best). However, the second variation with the experimenter in the strapped chair was very weird, since it appeared that even the written assumed roles of authority can be erased in a second if they're put in a position where they can't formally exert their "authority".
Chapter 9: This is another interesting set of variations, mostly because of the effect of peer pressure. These are a little less interesting because their results are somewhat expected. If every other "subject" in the room refuses to  complete the experiment, it's pretty obvious that the true subject won't either. The other subjects give the true subject some kind of a relative barometer through which to gauge their own morality. If everyone else thinks it's an immoral experiment, the true subject will be implicitly pressured into thinking so as well.
Chapter 10: This is a very abstract and somewhat of a hard read. I do find it interesting the reasoning behind the particular reasons as to why the author thinks the human mind works this way. Like I said before (and like I will say in the overall reaction of the book), this behavior to me almost seems like a "bug". It's an exploitation of the way the human mind works that in my opinion wasn't even intended biologically. It's such a weird phenomenon that this chapter's attempt to explain it is equally esoteric.
Chapter 11: I did especially find curious how the term "anxiety" was used. I generally think of anxiety to be a more indirect form of fear, where the person simply doesn't know where the fear comes from exactly but fears it nonetheless. This, by contrast is very clear and direct into what anxiety is and what it's caused by.
Chapter 12: I did find "avoidance" to be a particularly strong method of coping, especially because it was exhibited in such a blatant way in the experiment itself. Sitting awkwardly just to look away from the victim meant the subject really strained and provided high effort to utilize this coping mechanism. It seems to be a strong enough one that lets the subject seek it out to such a large extent.
Chapter 13: This is a short chapter I think mostly because there isn't simply much to talk about in terms of aggression. It's simply not a factor. It's so obvious in terms of what we've seen so far in the experiments that the idea doesn't seem to even warrant discussion of its own, hence the extremely short amount of time devoted to it.
Chapter 14: This is an interesting chapter because I feel like a lot of skeptics would be making these types of queries. Not much to say to this chapter, other than to note how little the author seems to need to say in order to strike down some criticisms. The results are so strong that they're not really up for debate in my opinion.
Chapter 15: This chapter gets especially grim, which is something that I feel left me with a strong message at the end of the book. This chapter single handedly convinced me that this a true flaw in the way the human mind works. It's not a "quirk", it's a full blown fault. It's so simple to exploit this bug it essentially can turn any human being into a drone without the subject feeling it at all. It makes such seemingly unbelievable massacres like the Holocaust seem so obvious. The soldiers carrying out the wishes of Hitler suddenly aren't cartoon-esque villains, they're actual, real humans that are "simply following orders". The author doesn't yield a possible solution because in his opinion (and mine), there doesn't seem to be one.

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This is definitely one of the more intriguing readings we have done this semester. There is very little doubt that the human mind operates in different "modes" of structure, where people assume hierarchical roles almost instantaneously that are caused by simple instructions. The fact that people would willingly and actively harm a victim completely regardless of the victim's status or desires simply based on a perceived figure of authority is borderline frustrating. As is obvious, however, this is simple human nature. I caught myself repeatedly directing my anger at the subjects, thinking "how could they possibly submit themselves so willingly to an authority?", but it was very clear from the beginning that that this happens regardless of what person we're talking about, regardless of their status or education level or even personality. This a fundamental flaw in the human nature, so I have to transfer my anger at human nature. How is it possible that our brains have been so inherently wired for this kind of exploitation? More importantly, did mankind rewire itself for it in its attempt to create "orderly" societies?

It's difficult to tell, and this is probably a question that can never be answered. This kind of mentality isn't actually completely unnatural. Indeed, there are plenty of hierarchies occurring in nature, such as wolf packs, where a leader assumes command and have other members of the pack carry them out. Nature has shown that this structure yields far better survival rates among species. This isn't something completely unnatural. But one of the important distinctions is that humans have a much higher state of mind, one that's more prone to place values like compassion and empathy above blind loyalty. A wolf can savagely kill an invading creature if the leader commands it so, but a regular civilian human is less likely to kill another person on their lawn bare-handed upon being told to do so by the implied household leader.

There's one thing that humans have consistently recognized as something that puts them above other creatures on the planet: they have enough intellect to form complex societal structures that allow them not only to survive, but to form staggeringly large civilizations. No civilization was built with nobody following any form of hierarchy, and with nobody following any orders. Following the orders from authority is a big part of the success of this species. But is our fatal flaw that I spoke of inherent in mankind, or was it something that we enforced once we figured out that we needed to follow all figures of authority in order to create a semblance of safety and order?

This experiment is clearly far more important than the authors originally thought. It gives incredible insight into a severe flaw in the human psyche that can be devastating. I'd even go so far as to call it a loophole, especially considering how sudden and willing anybody would carry out orders from a non-authoritative figure simply because they seemed like they were in a position of authority. Is this something that can be fixed, or something that cannot? If we have conditioned ourselves to wedge this flaw agape, is this a flaw that can be closed, or have we rewired our brains for good?