Stanley Milgram is a name that has come up many times in this blog, and while I recently read the aptly titled biography “The Man Who Shocked the World,” I thought it might be important to read the actual source material.
Two thirds of this book is nothing but fascinating reading – plainly stated reporting on “The Experiment” (what Hannah Arendt dramatically called Auschwitz in New Haven.) What you may not know is that his Obedience Experiment followed what you’d later find with the Atari 2600 – 112 different variations on the same game. The graphs and pie charts are here, as well as extensive transcription. (Best is the early 60s old time speak – “This gentleman is hollering. I would like to quit the experiment now!”)
The last third is almost impossible to read, but nonetheless curiously entertaining. It is 100% social scientist technobabble – make that 1960s social scientist technobabble. So not only is it all about the strata of automata, but it all has to do with My Lai. Awesome.
And frightening! This book is basically a “How To” to commit mass murder. A roadmap for Abu Ghraib and much worse. What Milgram does, for better or for worse, is present the conditions necessary for extreme Obedience (Milgram’s 37 is the Peter Gabriel song in question – the permutation in which 37 of 40 subjects followed instruction until the very end.) Milgram’s intentions were good – it is just important that his study be used for prevention, not duplication.
