The MILGRAM EXPERIMENT revealed some profound truths about all of us…
Shortly after WW2, Stanley Milgram, a Yale professor did what has come to be known as an ‘obedience’ experiment. (Trailer of docudrama:)
According to Milgram, while self-interest is part of our nature, most of us are fundamentally FOLLOWERS. His famous study revealed it is common human behavior to listen without question to people who appear smart, successful, or seem like true believers. We follow our parents, friends, society at large. Influencers, like actors, podcasters, musicians; and authority figures like doctors, therapists, even politicians draw FOLLOWERS. We accept, even participate in bad medicine, injustice, inequity, intolerance, racism, sexism, sometimes murder and even slaughter of millions following the status quo.
Milgram was a Jew. He wanted to find out what motivated Germans to turn on neighbors. Why would 90% of German citizens allow the slaughter of children on the same soccer team as their kids? Or passively watch the displacement and murder of Jews they once shared meals, holidays, and birthday celebrations? Why would Germans agree, and even support genocide, rape, disembowelment while conscious, torture beyond any sense of sanity? Milgram wanted to know.
The MILGRAM EXPERIMENT, as it’s now called, revealed some striking and profound truths about all of us.
It PROVED that most humans are FOLLOWERS, highly obedient to authority figures and willing to harm others without reason besides being told to do so.
Humans are social creatures. We follow the flock, the crowd, influencers, salesmen, priests.
We FOLLOW because it’s easier than THINKING.
We blindly follow our parents’ beliefs in fantasies like God, or Jesus, with no proof either exist, or evidence that Christ was ever born. None whatsoever, though tax rolls have been found at Christ’s (ostensible) time, without mention of Mary, Joseph, or Jesus at all.
We adopt behavior that we don’t like — that’s not the best of us — with justifications like “everyone does it!” Engaged with your cellphone while driving today? Most who do don’t THINK they’re really increasing their odds of killing themselves or someone else by upwards of 25%.
Intoxicants, from drink to weed will not cure cancer. Alcohol is toxic for the body. Smoking weed is carcinogenic — cancer causing. And mental ‘health’ pharms are addictive and eat the crap out of your liver, among a host of other side effects. Hey, but everyone does them, right?
What Makes a Leader?
While Milgram’s experiment revealed most humans are FOLLOWERS, following a herd, whether family, friends, priests, or govts, SOME PEOPLE, a few outliers, do not. In fact, they lead the human flock.
Hitler did. Trump does. Oligarchs, like Musk, are LEADERS to many who live vicariously through them, or are delusional enough to believe they too can become a trillionaire. On the other side, Susan B. Anthony, FDR, MLK all moved this nation towards a more equitable country.
What does this diverse cast have in common? They became LEADERS because they offered identity, an enemy, reduced complexity to clarity, inspired and empowered at moments when people felt lost. They gave directionto the populas of FOLLOWERS when their govt and institutions failed them. And each of the aforementioned LEADERS reached the masses by mastering marketing through the dominant media of their era, from newsprint, to radio, to TV, to today’s digital communications.
Are you a FOLLOWER or LEADER? If you’re thinking: I’M A LEADER, you’re likely lying to yourself. Humans lie to ourselves (and others) a lot! Like following, lying is part of our nature.
WATCH the Milgram experiment. The odds are you’d be one of the 65% who tortured an unseen man with electric shocks to death, simply because someone politely asked you to do so. Not threatening, not aggressive. Just “Please continue,” was what the white-coated admin in the study told them. And the 65% claimed they were just ‘following directions’ that allowed them to deliver shocks to someone they didn’t know, that became more and more painful until they were lethal.
Milgram’s study proves most people would rather follow—listen, even to bad advice, than lead—THINK for themselves. We’re looking for guidance, direction, belief outside ourselves. And while this fact of our nature may seem a death sentence, there are still 35% of the participants in the study that walked away when the admin dressed as a doctor said, “Please continue,” to torture an unseen person in the room next door with electric shocks. In fact, many told the guy, as the admin was always a man, to fuck off when he demanded they “Please continue, per your agreement,” as they were leaving.
The Milgram Experiment gives us a window into our own psyche by proving humans are generally FOLLOWERS. Armed with this knowledge, we can THINK, examine, recognize when we’re blindly going along with the flock. And we can choose not to.
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