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Summary of stanley milgram's experiment
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Essay on stanley milgram experiment
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But first what is Power? When researching Power words such as authority, control, direct, command and influence all appear. These words all support the following statement “Power is the ability to influence and control the behaviour of others.” The problem with power is that it often leads to those in power abusing it. As Lord Acton famously quoted “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Power can drive anyone to believe that they are better than all else around them. In The Possibility of Evil by Shirley Jackson, demonstrates that power can corrupt anyone, because Miss Strangeworth has lived in the town the longest she requires and expects everyone to do what she wants. With this tiny amount of power Miss Strangeworth is quickly corrupted to think that she is the most important person in her town. Miss Strangeworth feels important and powerful because she has lived in town the longest, “...she had never spent more than a day outside this town in all her long life.” (Page 1, paragraph 3)
Negative Effects of Power Controlling, unfair, unlawful are all words that describe someone that abuses power. This means that if you take advantage of having power, it will not have a good result on others. Power creates negativity by having harsh punishments and being unfair which results in exasperation of others. Power has a negative impact on others by having harsh punishments. Creon has harsh punishments on people when he had to “Arrest Ismene.
Power has a negative effect because it causes people to be stubborn and argue in such a competitive manner. First of all, when people in power feel challenged or questioned, they allow stubbornness to over take their reasoning. For example, when Creon makes his edict he did not realize that someone close to him would have such an issue with it, to the point where nothing was accomplished about Antigone and her trying to bury her brother. The only thing other than that was just arguing within the family, only tearing their family farther apart than it already was.
Stanley Milgram’s Obedience Experiment Sounds of painful scream echoed in the room. People trembled without knowing what to do. The authority just sat there reiterating with his low voice to continue. Ultimately, the cries quiet down and eventually disappeared. In the end, someone was killed.
The book addresses, as evident by its title, how good people turn evil, but it goes beyond this simple statement. Further than just turning evil, Zimbardo suggests the line between good and evil is more blurred than many believe, and that good people do not necessarily fully become evil, but rather often perform evil deeds when their situation so allows. The major example given in the book of how people become evil, is Zimbardo’s own infamous Stanford Prison Experiment. He uses this to demonstrate many of the underlying causes which cause a person to do things they usually would not. His main argument throughout the text is that unlikely evil is almost always situational, not inherent or genetic.
Imbalance of power can be seen in many circumstances, including in today’s world and even worlds of fiction. Most of the time the causes of the imbalance of power are typically the same. This is because it is usually for the same reasons and power hunger that authority usually craves. Because of this, the person or people of authority tend to do crazy things to get what they want, which is usually a population that is easy to control and won’t take away their power. What contributes to the imbalance of power is that in working societies and governments, the eminence makes their people feel vulnerable and fear them to make them easier to control and obey.
Famous American novelist, William Gaddis once said, “Power doesn’t corrupt people, people corrupt power.” This quote states that its humanity that is corrupting the value of power and not the other way around. Just like with the leaders in the dystopian novels of “Examination Day”, The Giver, and “Harrison Bergeron” who were and are normal people, like every other person, until they got a truckload of influence and power and they realized they could do whatever they wanted, and used it against humanity to take control. So, this comes to say that, “In dystopian novels, authors warn us about having a government that has too much power can lead to the corruption of society. “ To begin with, in the story Examination Day written by Henry Slesar, the government retains control over a lot of things by using strict laws called the “new code” which gives the government the power to control the intelligence level.
Power in many cases, blinds the person from seeing both sides of a problem or not thinking something through. In my knowledge, people in history with absolute power tend to make huge mistakes because they didn 't think an idea through or were only focused on what they want. Ivan the terrible was a young, absolute leader of Russia. He made good decisions at first, but then started making mistakes. Ivan only trusted the head of the church, and no one else.
Abusing power is capable of ruining many lives, including the individual’s. Having power can be a good thing, but misusing it, such as characters from the works Brave New World, Oedipus the King, and the movie, The Giver causes destruction. In each work, a character possesses great power and misandles it. In Brave New World, Mustapha Mond is able to dehumanize an entire civilization with the use of many practices and drugs. Oedipus, in Oedipus the King, lets his hubris get the best of him, and results in a horrible punishment for himself.
Consequently, Milgram had taken the opposite approach, while his experiment did use pain to see if the learner would obey the teacher more. “When the destructive effects of their work became patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority” (Milgram 587). The participants knew that these actions were not in their best interest but still decided to obey. It can be argued that more experiments may be taken on in the near future that will appear ethical to the public eye. Both Milgram and Zimbardo can agree that they were in shock from their findings.
People who have power could make rules that restrict people and cause them to obey their every order, this is why someone who has power has a higher chance of convincing people to do something then someone without
Power can have the persuasive action in undoing the moral ethics of one’s character. This can be seen throughout history, such as World War II and proven by the actions of Napoleon in the allegory, Animal Farm, by George Orwell. As Lord Acton said “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” In history what was viewed as a villain, is never the same as the perception. A leader does not begin wanting to do wrong, they start with the best intentions, but power is a tricky thing.
“Power doesn’t corrupt people, people corrupt power.”- William Gaddis. People take advantage of power when it is entrusted to them because of their own greed, which as a result lead to societal deterioration. In the story, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” by Margaret Atwood, the higher-ups from Gilead abuse the power that is given to them, ruining the life of the citizens in the society. This was the cause for the need of higher birth rates and fixing conflicts in the world, but this was handled immorally.
People have many different reactions when given power. The reaction is usually either one where they use power for a greater good and to guide others in a better situation, or they can misuse the power given and take advantage of the circumstances or others to make themselves feel even more dominant and in command. In the play, Antigone by Sophocles one of the main characters , King Creon, abuses his power to take superiority of others and in an attempt to gain control. The misuse of power is more frequent than the use of power for the favorable, even in many current events.
