September, 2007:

Part 1

Part 2

For anyone who doesnt know, the Milgram experiment was a study of the extent to which humans will act against their conscience when placed under pressure from an authority figure. The man sat in the chair is the subject – he has just been introduced to another “volunteer” who is in fact part of the experiment team, posing as a member of the public and told that this is a study into how the threat of punishment affects the learning process. The other “volunteer” is sitting behind the screen, supposedly responding through a system of buzzers and lights to a simple memory game in which he has to remember word pairings. The actual subject – the man we see – is told to punish wrong answers with electric shocks of increasing intensity from the “shock generator” in front of him, the higher numbers of which are clearly labelled “danger”. In fact, no one is being shocked, and the screams are tape recorded.

Milgrams initial intention was to demonstrate how thousands of non-psychopathic Germans were able to carry out acts of unthinkable brutality during WWII, but the lessons of the experiment are more universal. Its a perfect illustration of the banality of evil.

Link: The Milgram Experiment