During the early 1960s, a psychologist named Stanley Milgram set up an experiment to test the willingness of human subjects to obey an authority figure, even when the command they were being given was inherently and blatantly harmful. His participants were instructed by an experimenter to deliver an escalating series of electric shocks to another 'subject' in response to an incorrect answer. The subject being 'shocked' was actually a cohort, and was only acting, but the original subject did not know this and believed that he or she was actually delivering a very painful shock to another human being. If at any time subjects protested the treatment of their fellow participant, the experimenter would instruct them to continue on with their shocks. The two participants were separated by a wall, and as the voltage increased the individual being 'shocked' would begin to protest the shocks, bang on the walls, complain about a heart condition, scream in pain, and then would eventually go completely, deadly silent.
65% of the participants in the experiment continued to shock the subject until the maximum voltage had been reached, at the request of the experimenter. They pumped up to 450 volts of electricity into another being, an obviously sentient being, merely because they were told to do so: they wouldn't be held responsible, and they were told that they should continue. And continue they did, even though it is noted that many appeared uncomfortable. Probably because they thought they killed someone.
Not a single participant refused to administer shocks before the voltage reached 300. Maybe not deadly, but not pleasant either.
Not a single participant who refused to administer the final shocks left the room to check on the individual without first asking permission or insisted that the experiment be stopped.
If you ever take a psychology class, you'll probably hear about this study. It's very famous, and I think I've had it in every class I've ever taken. There's a tendency to gloss it over, but when you step away from it and think of the actual meaning, it become very frightening indeed. If we take this study at face value:
- 65% of people would kill you if ordered to.
- 100% of people would cause you pain if ordered to.
We all know what the 'right' action would be in the case above. If you were shocking someone for no reason and they complained of heart pains or screamed in pain, you'd understand that to continue to cause them harm is not the correct action for various reasons. In many cases with animals, it is the same. We know that 'cruelty' to animals is wrong. But when the time comes, why are we still engaging in it?
Fredrick Nietzsche theorized that there was an essential cruelty inherent in human nature. Perhaps this experiment doesn't document our willingness to follow the leader, but our willingness to unveil the desire for viscous behavior in all of us. Personally, I don't believe it, but perhaps we should simply give up and, as a species, admit defeat on the compassion front. So what do we think? Are we simply guilty of the herd mentality we so callously mock, or are we apt to secretly revel in our own cruelty?
Some other interesting (and applicable in this context) caveats of the Milgram experiments:
When physical immediacy with the subject being shocked increased, 'compliance' decreased. Likewise, as the authority's physical proximity decreased, so did the compliance.
When the authority telephoned the instructions to continue shocking, some participants lied to him about the fact that they had ceased to shock their subject.
Adding additional cohorts - 'peers' of the subject - changed the subject's willingness to continue shocking their counterpart. If two peers refused to continue with the shocks, only 1% of people continued with the experiment. This experiment was repeated in 2006 and peer pressure was found to have less of an influence on stopping the experiment.
When this experiment was repeated for real (i.e. real shocks and, I'm assuming, real death) with a puppy instead of a human, 76% of participants continued to the end. All those who refused to continue on were male. The 13 women involved in the study all wept openly, but continued on with what they were instructed to do.
Will be crossposted @ Vegan Soapbox.
I think this raises a powerful and important, yet all too telling view, into why people "choose" to ignore the hard facts about consuming animal products and continue to allow slaughter to create a profit. There are people in higher societal positions than ourselves who tell us that eating meat is natural, we evolved to do it, and it makes us healthy. Because they are in a position of assumed and somewhat imagined authority we take their word at face value and continue to deny ourselves the right to think and question, and deny animals the right to live a cruelty free existence.
Good comment Emily. I think that you are correct when you say, "There are people in higher societal positions than ourselves...Because they are in a position of assumed and somewhat imagined authority we take their word at face value and continue to deny ourselves the right to think and question..."
That's right on; I would go further and suggest that our parents are key to understanding this problem, as familial socialization manifests itself. I often argue that if parents were just honest about food production with their children, we would have a generation of vegetarians.
Jen,
Quote:
"...perhaps we should simply give up and, as a species, admit defeat on the compassion front..."
Sometimes I believe that this insight is beyond contestation. However, I think this appeals to our collective ignorance, not some erroneous unitary "human nature" (as some in the social sciences would suggest). I believe this because I've witnessed gestalt shifts when individuals make the connection between the live, feeling beings that was tortured and forced to become their bacon.
I totally agree that families should play a key role in teaching children the art of compassion. Parents teach their children right from wrong: It's wrong to not to share your toys, etc. Most parents even extend this teaching into how to treat animals, but make a gross oversight in remembering to mention to their children how their chicken nuggets and fishsticks made it to the table. If I was shown some of the video clips on websites such as PETA's, there is no question in my mind that I would have become a vegetarian much, much earlier in life.
In response to the quote concerning compassion....
Compassion is not something that is unattainable, nor should we consider it such. Humans cannot adopt a defeatist view point in the struggle for animal rights, when just one person can accomplish so much.
I think there is an inherent cruelty in human nature and it's amplified in some people. But also as social animals there is inherent empathy, compassion, and cooperative instincts in most of us, which can be nurtured and brough to the forefront.
Growing up most of us are told to obey authority figures--do what the teacher tells you to do, because I said so that's why, if a police officer says something you have to listen... We are also routinely taught to ignore the suffering of others, whether human or animal.
Most of us have a choice as we go through our lives as to whether we will nurture our compassion or ignore it in favor of other qualities. The least compassionate people I have met in my life congratulate themselves on this--they say "I'm not sentimental about animals" or "I don't get suckered by people's hard luck stories." I knew people who shrugged off the people stranded by Katrina in the Superdome--they'd say "they knew the storm was coming, and they didn't leave, let them fend for themselves." (um, not taking into account how poverty decreases one's mobility).
Being selfish and tuning out the suffering of others tends to be it's own reward, so it becomes reinforced behavior. If you don't give to charity you have more money for yourself. If you choose to not think about animals you get to enjoy your steak or pizza. If you are unethical in business you tend to move ahead. Caring more, being more compassionate, on the other hand, often hurts and it draws you in deeper into the effort to help others. The reward may be in there, feeling actualized in your life, believing that what you do matters, but it isn't instant.