Obedient "Puppets with Perception" ?

As was the case yesterday, today's post also was fuelled by a film available via Netflix: Experimenter. The film is a dramatised biographical tale of American social psychologist Stanley Milgram's controversial experiments in the early 1960s, when he attempted to discover how powerful is the human tendency to obey authority, even when against all moral and ethical instincts.

Below is Milgram's newspaper advertisement used to find participants in the experiment:

Milgram, Jewish by birth, was born on 15 August 1933 in New York City. (Natal chart set for 12 noon is shown, for reference - am not interpreting it at this time. Click on chart image for larger view.)

Milgram was powerfully affected by events of the Holocaust, later re-kindled by the trial of Adolf Eichmann in the 1960s. Milgram's experiments, only partially depicted in the film, have been strongly criticised on several fronts. His results showed that 65% of those tested were capable of inflicting serious, possibly fatal pain upon another person, when directed to do so, and to continue doing so by a figure they assumed to be an "authority". The film Experimenter, as I've discovered from later reading around the net, didn't show all of Milgram's variations to his basic experiment. Results from those variations, as percentages of compliance to instructions rose to 100% or, alternatively dropped to zero when conducted under different situations and circumstances. However, it does remain sad enough, and bad enough that even in certain specific circumstances the majority of those tested could be successfully instructed to obey a direction which they knew was physically, and possibly psychologically, harming or even fatal to another person. For a brief outline of the experiment with illustrations see HERE.

There are lots of articles around the internet written by those more qualified than I am, expanding on Milgram's experiment and criticisms of it, along with current ideas and discussion of relevancies of his findings. There have also been other films on the topic. It's a very interesting subject, and never goes out of date. Other parts of Milgram's later researches, include those related to the "6 degrees of separation" idea.

For an overall interesting, readable and fairly current article, I'd recommend this from the Atlantic magazine in January 2015
Rethinking One of Psychology's Most Infamous Experiments by Cari Romm.

The piece ends with

Trying to get a consensus among academics is like herding cats,” Reicher [Stephen Reicher, a professor of psychology at the University of St. Andrews and a co-editor of the Journal of Social Issues’ special edition] said, but “if there is a consensus, it’s that we need a new explanation. I think nearly everybody accepts the fact that Milgram discovered a remarkable phenomenon, but he didn’t provide a very compelling explanation of that phenomenon.
What he provided instead was a difficult and deeply uncomfortable set of questions—and his research, flawed as it is, endures not because it clarifies the causes of human atrocities, but because it confuses more than it answers.
Or, as Miller put it: “The whole thing exists in terms of its controversy, how it’s excited some and infuriated others. People have tried to knock it down, and it always comes up standing.

THOUGHTS: How far are we humans "puppets with perception" - a phrase used in the film? Are some of us more able to break free of our strings, and if so, what does it take? As I typed that line I was reminded of a the first line of a song I blogged about once upon a time "are we human or are we dancer?" (HERE).

Does astrology feed in to any predisposition for refusal to obey? Do transiting planet positions in relation to natal or mundane charts feed in to it? Is it a particular DNA pattern, is it an inherited trait, or simply random, according to situation?

A certain amount of obedience is required in a civilised society. We are trained from babyhood to obey certain rules, for our own well-being, and for the well-being of others. Religion imposes other sets of rules and here, for some, can come an early opportunity to practice rebellion - or not.

Laws which must be obeyed shape our society, most are for society's good, but always depending on the regime in place at any given time.

By the time we reach adulthood we really have become well-trained as obedient beings, having gone through the mincing machines of schools, maybe colleges, maybe even the ultimate mincing machine of freedom of action, the military. So, faced with an experiment, its purpose explained as something quite different from its true motive, carried out by authentic scientists, it could seem unsurprising that so many people continued willing to inflict pain upon an innocent colleague when continually instructed to do so by an authority figure. We all think we'd not do it. I shouted at the TV, to the first guy doing the inflicting of pain in the film, "Stand up and walk out, damn it!" But would I have done that myself, in those circumstances? I hope so. I cannot be 100% certain, nor could any of us - in certain circumstances. In that particular circumstance, though, I feel fairly confident I would have refused to participate.

One important aspect of this experiment (and certainly of other, later, experiments by different scientists) would be how many of those being tested truly believed what they were told about the research, and whether they suspected that all was not aboveboard, but keeping that suspicion to themselves. That factor would definitely skew results significantly. The original experiment had the best chance of being "valid" in that respect, I guess. Later experiments along the same lines, must surely have been tainted by some candidates being aware of what was really going on via hearsay, or through publicity of earlier experiments.