Are People Obedient essays

Are People Obedient essays ARE PEOPLE OBEDIENT? By Queron Thompson Does everyone in society go against what they believe in merely to satisfy an authority figure? Stanley Milgrams Perils Of Obedience expresses that most of society supports the authority figure regardless of their own personal ideals. Milgram says to the reader, For many people, obedience is a deeply ingrained behavioral tendency, indeed a potent impulse overriding training in ethics, sympathy, and moral conduct (Milgram 606). Is Milgrams statement telling us obedience is an unparalleled force in todays society? Two authors, George Orwell and Langston Hughes, provide us with incidents that support Milgrams findings. George Orwells work, Shooting an Elephant, can be used as an example of Milgrams discoveries. He recalls an account of himself as a British policeman called upon to take action against a belligerent elephant rampaging through a small Burmese Village. Orwell makes it a point to show that the natives of the village, who at any other time would have looked upon the him in disfavor, are now backing him in hopes of the animals destruction. Orwell realizes it is quite unnecessary to kill the animal, yet does it anyway. Why might you ask? Milgrims findings on peoples obedience to authority can be seen as an answer to this question. In the reading Orwell says, And suddenly I realized that I should have to shoot the elephant after all. The people expected it of me and I had got to do it: I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly.(Orwell 771). With this statement, we can easily determine the role the villagers take on. Suddenly, they have taken on the ro le of the authority figure and Orwell the conforming citizen. In Milgrams Perils Of Obedience, the test sub ...