(H) (269-276) Meyer, If Hitler Asked You…

If Hitler asked you to electrocute a stranger, would you? Probably by Philip Meyer says “Suppose that Hitler did ask yocourseu to electrocute a stranger, would you? Or not? “Of , I wouldn’t” would be our immediate response.” I wouldn’t even hurt a stranger just because someone asked me, much less electrocute the person.” Honestly, I agree I wouldn’t harm no one neither want to kill someone and live with that for the rest of my life. I definitely wouldn’t want it done to me so I wouldn’t do it to anyone else no matter who it is I rather get fired, kicked out. But if it was between my life or someone else’s life I would do it without no doubt because I’m scared of death. Although I know that our time comes but I wouldn’t want my life to end by being electrocuted. As I did the reading of Meyer and saw how far the volunteers went with this experiment after hearing the people scream and yell and make noises. It’s insane what someone who has authority could make you do. They weren’t being forced to do this, they weren’t being threatened by any weapons in front of them. If this was to be me in this position I wouldn’t even start the experiment I would say no. Most of the time people do what they are told to do even without asking why they are doing it. It’s true we do what the higher authority figure tells us. For example this reminds me of English, every teacher in high school and before that has told us that in writing, five sentences and five paragraphs is an essay. This isn’t true but since they are a higher authority we listen and believe it as true. In the experiment that Milgram was trying to do made me a bit uneasy. He mentions that most Americans are obedient. That’s it, we are just an obedient society. Although the experiment seems fun at first, after reading more into it, it seemed like a trap. The part where they had to either pick “teacher” or “learner” was messed up. They were both teachers. That right there would make me lose all confidence in the experiment itself. Milgram mentions something about how much pain or shocks one could take before they submit to obedience. Out of 100 people who participated, only 3 made it to the very end. I myself would have been one of the people who would have made it to middle before feeling really bad about shocking anyone further. Using the tape recording of people in distress was a bit cynical as well. If this was something Hitler were to be in charge of, I personally think more than 30% of the people in charge of shocking people would continue to the very end. There’s a huge difference between experimenting with rules, and having a dictator screaming orders at you to finish. If Hitler asked me and I saw the rest of the people following instruction I would obey and follow direction even if I thought about it being wrong. I personally would have no authority to stop or make a change because I’m ordinary.