The Milgram experiment lives: on French “reality” TV
[NOTE: If you don’t know what the Milgram experiment was, please see this.]
Well, I guess it had to happen. The Milgram experiments repeat themselves, the first time as tragedy and later as farce. And is it any surprise that, in this day and age (a) it’s happening on reality TV; and (b) the percentage of people willing to shock the “contestant” is about 80%.
Plus é§a change, plus c’est le méªme chose.
[ADDENDUM: I would love to see an article on the 20% who refused.]
“… the 20% who refused”
They get to be the detainees in a Zimbardo repeat.
I might be more likely to shock French people than some others.
I take that back – the French are showing signs of improvement.
“… the 20% who refused” voted for McCain.
Remember the Friend or Foe show? Another interesting experiment.
Not to be outdone, the Democrats are now running their Milgrams in the shower, after which Nancy gives the subject a good whippin’.
I wonder what Nancy’s favorite color is. Marie Antoinette and Alexandra Romanov were both partial to mauve.
Probably, the most popular song of Vladimir Vysotzky was about an extreme case of Milgram experiment: “But there was One Who Did Not Shoot”. It was about a soldier in the war who was sentenced to fire squad execution, and was shoot at, but survived because one member of the fire squad refused to shoot. This was really astonishing, not that others obeyed. So, this personage of a popular song became a (fictional) national hero.
This had very important real world consequences, when in August 1991 the whole elite KGB anti-terrorist speznaz regiment refused to storm Yeltzin’s citadel, defended by largely unarmed civilians. Later some of them talked and explained their decision to disobey orders by remembering this song.
… and that proves that humans did not change much since Roman times.
Although there is a slight difference between two experiments: in original (Milgram’s) the subjects were following authority, i.e. they relied on someone else for deciding if a person deserves to be shocked. In the show, as I understand, the viewers were making that decision themselves.
It’s no longer about resistance to authority -only about base instincts and sadistic undertones.
As far as obeying authority goes, the argument I’ve seen raised for this is that “TV >IS
As far as obeying authority goes, the argument I’ve seen raised for this is that “TV IS the authority” – i.e., that anything “on TV” is somehow “official” or “sanctioned”.
Conversely, perhaps, they believe just the opposite- that BECAUSE it’s on TV, then by definition it ISN’T real.
[The creepiest thing for me is that I produce 19 Nocturne Boulevard – a series of web-based audio dramas – and my next episode is MY own rendition of a Milgram-based reality game show. How’s that for bizarre?
Now we can pretend to be ripped from the headlines, like law and order….]
I was worried about the contestant,” one player said, according to Sky News. “At the same time, I was afraid to spoil the program.”
Christopher Browning wrote a famous book called “Ordinary Men”. It’s about police officers from Germany who were recruited to shoot masses of people large pits in Poland.
At any time, they could have refused and returned home but I remember a quote from at least one fellow that he didn’t want to let down the team.
So, apparently, it was a powerful focus on camaraderie and a need to avoid letting down other people by being weak that led some people to see on these acts as unpleasant duties.