Lost in a Maze

The experimenter (E) orders the teacher (T), the subject of the experiment, to give what the latter believes are painful electric shocks to a learner (L), who is actually an actor and confederate. The subject is led to believe that for each wrong answer, the learner was receiving actual electric shocks, though in reality there were no such punishments. Being separated from the subject, the confederate set up a tape recorder integrated with the electro-shock generator, which played pre-recorded sounds for each shock level.

“The experiments began in July 1961, in the basement of Linsly-Chittenden Hall at Yale University,^[3] three months after the start of the trial of German Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Milgram devised his psychological study to answer the popular question at that particular time: "Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?"^[4] The experiments have been repeated many times in the following years with consistent results within differing societies, although not with the same percentages around the globe…………………………..^[5] In Milgram's first set of experiments, 65 percent (26 of 40) of experiment participants administered the experiment's final massive 450-volt shock,^[1] though many were very uncomfortable doing so; at some point, every participant paused and questioned the experiment; some said they would refund the money they were paid for participating in the experiment. Throughout the experiment, subjects displayed varying degrees of tension and stress. Subjects were sweating, trembling, stuttering, biting their lips, groaning, digging their fingernails into their skin, and some were even having nervous laughing fits or seizures…………………………The participants who refused to administer the final shocks neither insisted that the experiment itself be terminated, nor left the room to check the health of the victim without requesting permission to leave, as per Milgram's notes and recollections, when fellow psychologist Philip Zimbardo asked him about that point.

The above is excerpted from the Wikipedia article on the above, but I first heard about this experiment in my Introductory Psychology class at Brooklyn College.  It is no less shocking today than it was then.  This experiment proved to us something anyone living through the time of the Holocaust already knew.  It was the subject of “Judgement at Nuremburg” and what allowed Hitler to conduct his reign of horror.  We have just seen another example of how this works at our own U.S. airports when perfectly ordinary people manhandled and abused women and children for no reason other than where they came from—and their religion.  Yes, their religion.  Read everything you can about the Holocaust and the Nazis and then reframe it to replace Jewish people with Muslim people.  It’s not about religion you say?  It’s about terrorism? 

I will not rehash what others are pointing out—that the countries targeted are not related to acts of terror or the fact that Saudi Arabia is NOT on the list even though at least one or more of the 9/11 terrorists were from that country.   Our new administration has not banned people from countries he and his comrades have economic ties to. 

There is an argument going round that goes “You wouldn’t want them in your home, would you?  Would you let armed invaders walk in your front door?  Would you put your own family at risk?” and “After all, we lock our doors, don’t we?”   I don’t know about you, but if my neighbors and their children were under attack and came to my front door for refuge yes, I would let them in and try to help in any way I could to keep them safe.  That is the proper analogy.  Our neighbors are escaping terrorism, not packing it in a suitcase and bringing it to us.  America First?  How does that make any sense in a world that is no more than a tweet away?  We are globally connected to each other; not just by the internet, but by culture, economics, education and language.  There is a call to make English our “national language” but that is not necessary.  English is spoken in most countries and certainly quite widely used in ours.  We have made our impact on the world and we have to take that responsibility seriously.  Not just by buying foreign oil, importing McDonalds and KFC everywhere, but by staying connected and opening our doors to both visitors and refugees.

If you hear it often enough, you will believe black is white and upside down is downside up.  So far, we are still laughing at Conway’s “Bowling Green Massacre” but the fact remains that she is in a position to have the attention of the ears and eyes of the world.  If TSA and Homeland Security are following orders, what is to keep law enforcement and military personnel from doing the same thing?

For God’s sake people, pay attention!  It has truly, emphatically and finally gotten real!