Did Stanley Milgram Get It Wrong? Part 1
One of the mysteries that we cannot understand is why trump’s followers continue to follow him into the abyss. Why do evangelicals violate their own strongly held beliefs and betray the very foundations of their Christianity. Why does Trump have such a mysterious hold on white nationalists? What is going on? Is it that trump is such a strong authority that he compels such blind obedience?
For years in my Intro To Psych Course I have taught the story of Stanley Milgram and his famous obedience studies. In the 1960s, Milgram conducted a famous study in which he and many others including myself concluded ordinary people will go to great lengths to obey authority. Most of you are familiar with these experiments where a subject willingly shocked a person they believed got wrong answers in a learning process.
The results seemed to conclude that one reason the holocaust was so successful was that everyday citizens would blindly follow the orders of an authoritative person in this case Hitler. Recent studies however indicate something different. A through review of Milgram’s experiments seemed to draw a different conclusion. These reviews included reading and evaluating follow-up interviews conducted by Milgram and others at the time.
It turned out that these subjects willingly shocked the learners even to high dangerous voltages not because they were sheep blinded by authority but because they believed they were serving a higher cause, in this case a commitment to the development of science. It is this greater cause that allowed these subjects to violate their own norms. A closer review of follow-up interviews by Milgram seemed to confirm this conclusion. https://youtu.be/HxXMKg8-7o0
In thinking about this in relationship to our earlier questions, we can clearly see why white nationalists and evangelicals blindly support Trump. They are consumed by a vision of what they want this country to become. They are not stupid sheep dazzled by trump who blindly follow him into the abyss, but are enthralled by his vision of what they want this country to be. Trump offers them a vision of their world.
It seems that there are two possibilities of countering such a vision. A commitment on the part of us to a greater vision. We must be committed to a world where all can equally share in the abundance of our possibilities. Secondly, we must present such a strong vision of the potential that awaits us all and present such possibilities to the world around us. As book of Leviticus said, “Without vision the people perish”
I believe we all have a vision of what we think we want life to be. But in my long experience in dealing with people, I have found that most have flawed vision based on their origins and their early learning. Very few seem to be able to really engage in critical thinking like you and I. Their vision of the good life is formed early and hard to dislodge.
Ron