The Psychology of Tyranny: Did Milgram Get It Wrong? | Alex Haslam | TEDxUQ

Professor Alex Haslam’s work reviews the famous Milgram’s experiment to show how tyranny and obedience actually work. His talk explores current thinking around the psychology of tyranny centering on a reinterrogation of the conclusions derived from Milgram’s ‘obedience to authority’ research.
Alex Haslam is Professor of Psychology and Australian Laureate Fellow at the University of Queensland. His research focuses on the study of group and identity processes in social and organizational contexts. Together with over 200 co-authors, Alex has written and edited 11 books and published over 200 peer-reviewed articles on these topics, and his work had been cited over 20,000 times. In 2013 his book The New Psychology of Leadership won the International Leadership Association’s Outstanding Leadership Book Award. He is a Senior Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and former Editor of the European Journal of Social Psychology. In 2016 he won the British Psychology Society Presidents’ Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychological Knowledge.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at ted.com/tedx

[@AliHammadArtist]

"The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants." Albert Camus

[@larryfreudinger2511]

As stated in Haslam's conclusion: Tyranny is a product of engaged followership predicated on identification with those in authority - whose cause is believed to be right, and that belief is the basis for followership. To paraphrase Jonathan Haidt: The echo chamber binds and blinds. People get blinded to the immoral effects of a wrong decision, because they are binded to an authority figure that controls or otherwise biases interpretation of environment.

[@craigadam]

Unquestioningly. That word pops up again and again. We now live in a world where questioning is wrong. Where will this take us?

[@adamsmith2719]

“The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants.” - Albert Camus

[@frankolm2795]

Sound quality is just short of unlistenable but a good subject. Very relevant to todays political environment.

[@TopinkaScesnekem]

And novadays even more!

[@awenaudio3206]

You can't hear him?

[@chrishorner7679]

I'd regard this as a refinement rather than a disproof of Arendt's point, which was about lack of independent thought rather than just obedience.

[@adamsmith2719]

This is, unfortunately, what our public school system teaches our kids - to obedient workers.

[@deborahstjohn841]

for the sake of the discipline needed to learn something--however, teachers also encourage morals, questioning, and thinking for themselves.

[@TakeTheRide]

@@deborahstjohn841 They should...

[@kingfillins4117]

Simply showing them how to be successful. Much of schooling is interchangeable. As it is now the problem is schools is Critical Pedagogy. Brain washing children. Radicalising then into tearing down society. Teaching racism and bigotry. Neo Marxist Mass Formation coming to fruition with there long march to the institutions. They are priming children to destroy society.. Liberty itself is under threat.

[@thisaccountisdead9060]

"I know now why you cry. But it's something that I can never do." - The Terminator.

[@brandoncurtis4110]

This really jus reaffirmed it because as long as there is a perceived “good cause” then ppl may follow and do anything for the furthering of that mission

[@elgen0314]

Yes Milgram got it right. This clown is way off.

[@joannprosser5754]

Like an experimental vaccine?

[@TopinkaScesnekem]

@@joannprosser5754 nailed.

[@brennangum6236]

I think human history has shown this to be true “The results, as I observed them in the laboratory, are disturbing. They raise the possibility that human nature can not be counted on to insulate men from brutality and inhumane treatment at the direction of malevolent authority. A substantial proportion of people do what they are told to do, irrespective of the content of the act, and without limitations of conscience, so long as they perceive that the command comes from a legitimate authority. If in this study, an anonymous experimenter could successfully command adults to subdue a fifty year old man, and force on him painful electric shocks against his protests one can only wonder what government, with its vastly greater authority and prestige can command of its subjects.” The fact is these people accepted almost without question the importance that the experimenter conveyed of the study.... And without thought they were willing to harm people in order to advance what one man said was important. To me that is blind obedience

[@AvalonFarmDressage]

add to that a perceived punishment for the subjects, ie a soldier who could face repercussions for not following the order, and you'll see 99% of the subjects following orders of any kind

[@catepilarr]

year 2021.

[@Hwje1111]

@@AvalonFarmDressage except the Nazis and Japanese empire didn’t threaten punishment to those who refused. The thing is that inspite of actually rewarding disobedient men with pensions the majority of people still did it out of free will anyways.

[@chairmanofrussia]

The problem with the 4 prompts is that if the more you prod someone the more they'll go into defense mode, hunker down and refuse to continue the experiment. I don't think that was accounted for in the success rates.

[@tobypreston9991]

I noticed this too, quite a dodgy bit of analysis here. In his tone it did also feel like Hallam was being rather forceful, stressing the point

[@colindowden1430]

it shows that a lot of people are sheep and blindly trust governments in the belief that things will progress to being better, the big question they never think about is better for who and at what cost.

[@kairik6302]

My thoughts too.

[@joshuamarks7110]

Now look at our politicians response to COVID...

[@TopinkaScesnekem]

We're right in the middle of the experiment. 😑

[@TheLivirus]

So Milgram showed that people can feel good about hurting others if they believe this is necessary for a greater cause. Sounds like conscription.

[@cyberpunkspike]

That's right, normalize medical experimentation on unwitting people, just make sure it's managed by a LGBTQ POC.

[@mouadlahjiri6325]

Actually milgram showed that ordinary people can obey authority figures even if it means to kill someone indirectly by pushing a button, throwing a bomb. Etc.

[@rhondat-b8798]

He showed both of those concepts.

[@latt.qcd9221]

Milgram's conclusion wasn't that people were just "mindlessly following orders." I don't know where he got that from. The only thing I can think of is that he never read his book, "Obedience to Authority" where Milgram talks about his experiments in much more detail. Also, why does he say that there were about 30 experiments by Milgram on the subject, but then list only roughly 20 on the x-axis of his plot at 7:14? Milgram's book only outlines 19 experiments that he performed, along with the pilot. He also left out experiment 13a, as well, where the subject is just a bystander. Also, his criticism of the last prod doesn't make sense, either, because it was the *_last_* prod that was used. In order for Haslam to make the claim he's trying to, it would need to be made the *_first_* prod, and to see if participants still acted the same. If you've already said no to something multiple times, you've already made your decision to disobey, so the last prod doesn't mean as much and you'd expect to see the fewest number of people obey it. They're all orders, but the last one is the least "polite", if you will. This whole thing just sounds like a very silly semantics issue. Additionally, he claims that Milgram doesn't account for the fact that many "not sees" were *_willing_* participants in what they did. However, Milgram literally talks about that very thing in his book and points out that the conditions in his experiment are a sort of "best case scenario" where participants *_weren't_* willing to cause harm to the learner, and where the learner hadn't been completely dehumanized beforehand. The purpose of his studies were to show what humans would do in the absence of such "antecedent conditions", as he puts it. He points out that, during WWII, it would have been even more obedience because participants would have been more willing to hurt the people who had been dehumanized and that weren't just total strangers. Haslam's point here is that, given a sufficient antecedant condition, people will be willing to carry out tasks as active participants. But that's literally what Milgram points out happens in his book. This whole talk just sounds like someone who didn't read Milgram's book and just amounts to silly semantics issues.

[@majorawol]

Coercion works better than Orders. But it's still compliance. It's still obedience. Now obey the Narrative. I mean, the experiment requires that you continue with the Narrative.

[@quovadis3220]

The very last sentence of Prof. Alex Haslam is realy shocking! "perpetrator are people who do what they do because they see it to be a labor of love" Isn't this the story of the two godly people - a priest and a church minister - who avoided helping someone who had been robbed and almost beaten to death because they believed that God's command "not to be defiled during their ministry" must be obeyed at al costs?

[@shanecox7942]

There is a problem with this analysis. Cant be bothered with a long answer, simply put what, the last command never worked because the participants had already reached their threshold and no manner of command would make them continue. i.e. If the last command was first I suspect that you would see the same rate of people continue as in the original experiment.

[@jessecanada14]

worth considering

[@ballapeti]

The End does justify the means then.

[@wilsonsy5237]

One should never do anything which is morally wrong "for the greater good", just because someone else will take responsibility for its results. An action is either moral or immoral on its own terms.

[@doublee3886]

Another question, when they heard that shocks were to be administered, did anybody opt out at that point, right at the beginning? I certainly would not have agreed to shock someone, science be damned, anymore than I would have agreed if they were going to be whipped. Shocking is actually more dangerous, whereas one whip stroke is unlikely to kill, although it can certainly damage or maim, one electrical shock on the lowest level can stop a heart, which is defective, although that defect is only revealed ex post morte. Any electrical current is potentially lethal. Now, was that known to the general public fifty plus years ago? Unlikely.

[@FirstLast-ys7zn]

Double E The guy consented to be shocked but even when he said he wanted to leave 100% of them carried on and 66% were still shocking the guy when they thought he was unconscious

[@Memesfromthestreets]

you would have shocked him, you cannot accurately predict your response unless you actually are there

[@boii4372]

I guess many people during this era would have not given the shocks however this was conducted in 1963 which was an anti-communist era. Thus meant that people conformed a lot more and they did not want to stick out or behave against anyone.

[@Babyluthi]

@@Memesfromthestreets neither can you predict that he would have

[@Memesfromthestreets]

@@Babyluthi true

[@doublee3886]

Did Milgram pay his test subjects? Were they told that if they did not continue with the experiments they would not be paid? These are critical questions, because they reveal that humans will commit atrocities if survival is seen as being at stake. And money, or the lack thereof is frequently closely correlated by some humans as a survival level event, therefore that skews the results.

[@mfue92]

They paid them in advance, just for coming in. Milgram, in the situation when the person didn't want to continue, he used a certain level of pressure from: 'please continue' to 'you must continue', in all this premises he didn't bribe or persuaded them to do it for money or more money, he mostly used the 'it's for the sucess of the experiment'

[@sophitsa79]

It was just a one-off experiment. It was not a matter of survival. There was no salary. So in this case, it was about following instruction from perceived authority rather than money/incentive/survival

[@debbie4315]

It was explained in the early part of another video (available on you tube as well) when they were being told they were being paid and they would get their money no matter what happened in the experiment.

[@TopinkaScesnekem]

As @debbie said, they have been told they will recieve the money no matter what happens during the experiment.

[@forestpepper3621]

Did the participants in Milgram's experiment genuinely believe they were causing serious injury to the test subjects? If you participate in a medical experiment, you generally assume that everything has been done as safely as possible, especially if the research is associated with a well-known University. If the participants believed that they were only causing non-dangerous levels of pain to people who had volunteered to participate, and had been fully informed as to the nature of the experiment, then causing pain to the voluntary test subjects would not be unethical. On the other hand, if those administering the electric shocks had been told that the voltage was high enough to cause serious injury, then it would be unethical to continue the experiment. Well, in the Milgram experiment, the actors were told to start begging for mercy, so that would indicate that things had gone too far. But merely causing pain in human test volunteers is not unethical.

[@AvalonFarmDressage]

when the receiver of the shock states they want out, that should have been enough for the subject to reject the authority

[@boii4372]

The investigation was unethical as he Milgram had deceived the participants about the electric shocks. However, some of the participants believed they were not administrating real shocks. This was shown in Gina Perry's (2013) investigation where she listened back to the recordings and noticed that many of them believed they had not actually hurt anyone. In a sense you could say they only gave the 'shocks' because they knew no one was actually being affected. Although it was unethical there were no ethical guidelines and so now laws were broken and Milgram also gave them therapeutic debriefing.

[@braadress]

Ironically Milgram was correct telling the participants they where doing a great thing for science, otherwise we would not have this understanding of human nature or this video to discuss...but it is also obvious human kind does not care all that much.

[@cyberpunkspike]

There was nothing ironic about Milgram lying to the participants, instead of telling them that the purpose was to help a technocratic ruling class how to better subjugate a naive population.

[@braadress]

@@cyberpunkspike could you tell me your reasons to watch this video please?

[@cyberpunkspike]

@@braadress I was hoping to view a critique of the conclusions drawn from the experiment.

[@ichirukiBigLove]

I don't understand in the end why this is called a "work of love"?

[@cyberpunkspike]

The same reason why 1984 called it's psychological torture organization, "the ministry of love". It is totalitarianism, everything is asserted to be the opposite of what it is.

[@cyberpunkspike]

... because you must learn to love their boot in your face.

[@andrewkresek4550]

Possibly due to participants “loving” the goal, the project, the homeland, the masking up and separation, the green energy edicts, etc - with no regard to those who suffer from the same, merely because they think in the end their “live project” will better the world.

[@newhorizonsforfifty2833]

Except how do you explain child soldiers, or other children like the ones in the documentary "Jesus Camp." Hate is a learned thing, it's not innate in us. You have to agree that in their case an the case of many other groups, it starts out as blind obedience (they don't really know what they're doing) and that at some point it morphs into engaged follwership.

[@ingridlinbohm7682]

Hate is innate in us because we hate what threatens the person or object of our love. No love no hate and no hate no love. Tyrants know this and use it.

[@romeredd6083]

Audio -10

[@hydmonger2816]

All in the name of human "progress" hmmmmm where have we been hearing that lately?

[@emmakronberg7102]

Scientists who develop lethal viruses also don't have personal relationship with their victims.

[@GJacq726]

I learned it was 51%, not 65%.

[@GJacq726]

And that the experiment has been replicated a number of times with similar results

[@GJacq726]

I also saw it as an abdication of responsibility to authority who would take it. We also know that approximately half of society is fundamentally cooperative while the other half seeks to influence.

[@maximilyen]

Where % 51?

[@Shlrine]

We always try to say we are human, we have moral, for what? Why we respect God? Does not because God is more moral than us? Then we need to accept, we have less moral than we thought, which means we can become killers at any random time. That's why we need to be continuiously remind of controling temper, anger, and improve warm and kind heart.

[@edivimaro1975]

Where the Professors argument fails is that anyone living under a Tyranny (and a Democracy) who refuses to follow orders or goes against the instructions of authority during a war, will be shot of punished.

[@palosamo]

Wars don't happen just like that overnight. If enough people reacted in time and didn't follow immoral ideas of few people in power then those people wouldn't have enough followers.

[@Niels596]

We should study the victims of multiple science experiments in concentration camps like Dachau, the monstrosity by humans is unimaginable. There should be a whole culture of remembrance. Noone really discusses the child casualties in the recent israel air strikes, no matter of which side. It is normalised and put into a frame of logic everywhere. There should be school subjects about the craziness of humans and how we can better ourselves.

[@Caprivlogs]

Let us call it what it is. Social paths enjoying giving pain to others.

[@KrinkenRohleder]

The evolution of tribalism.

[@anwitmondal6417]

Why don't these speakers only takk about Nazis and not British or French colonizers ?

[@Howeyable]

The irony here is that the TED talker is fixated on semantics to create his straw man, and not the nature of the phenomenon; Milgram called the experience obidience to authority! not obidience to directly explicitly stated orders. stating that the percentage drop is ironious only demonstrates the insufficiency of this statistician's ability to properly understand the phenomenon of authority. When being faced with implicit orders to:" go on"," the experience requires that you must go on" etc, it is the researchers POSITION OF AUTHORITY that unleashes the obidience, not the respondents own aspirations as an autonomous rational human being. Suggesting so, indicates that Alex Haslan believes that 65% of people would inflict shocks in people in any situation, regardless of pressure from authorities, because they believe in science. This claim is absurd.

[@fuzzydunlop7928]

That last part made no sense when viewing the video. "...because they believe in science." Are you referring to his emphasis on identification? You're literally arguing over semantics. It's a false dichotomy that's been created between you and this video.

[@watching99134]

You yourself are creating a false dichotomy, the presenter (whether you agree with him or not) is saying the subject's identification with the experimenter unleashed their obedience, it's not a simple unilateral process but rather that the subjects *wanted* to be of use to someone or something (scientific progress) with which cause they identified.

[@dennisnigbur7032]

That's a good way of putting it. I think Haslam isn't disagreeing so much with Milgram himself, but with the way his work has been subsequently portrayed as proof that people will do anything if given the order to do so. Authority works in subtler ways.

[@awenaudio3206]

It takes no courage to shoot down other peoples work. Create a better experiment.

[@dreamwithinadreamfilms]

I agree.

[@morganlake41632]

Are you intentionally avoiding the phenomena of what happens to a forth answer, if the first three were answered in the affirmative or first three answered in the negative? This would explain why people did not obey the only "direct order" in the prompts. Also, if you are ignoring the implied message of the first three - claiming they are not orders...."Please go on," is not an implied order any an authority, really? If answer no three times, what do you think will be my forth answer, stistcically speaking that is? Maybe you are using statistics and logic to deceive us into believing your claims.

[@morganlake41632]

Please know that I am an outlaw, which is useful for seeing the truthiness of everything, because I saw the documentary as a sophomore in college 50 years ago. Milgram is a courageous man to report this to the dominant culture - its a wonder he wasn't rusticated for contumacy.

[@antonmesmer6324]

Bernie Bros.

[@EskiLdn]

BLM

[@thefezer456676]

How does that relate to this video?

[@garyquick1716]

So disappointing to have a talk like this that ignores all of the recent work showing how flawed Milgrim's experiment was in reality, and how his publication differed from what actually took place. For example, at least half of the subjects knew it was fake. Wikipedia article provides a good starting point with references to several publications & papers.

[@1Live2Love3Thrive]

Misinformation! This man's a conspiracy theorist! ....lol

[@Q115115]

Putin: "hmmm, let me try this on Ukraine"

[@kaiaraine4353]

Read the different experiments for yourselves. Offering a different hypothesis as to why obedience is effective, is great. But the results are the same. His criticism does not diminish Milgrams study or it's frightening implications. If people are willing to kill in one science experiment is frightening. This mediocre lecturer should have the brilliance of milgram. labor of love is bs. Milgram noted stress in many subjects but many still went ahead with the shocks! Let's not put a big smile face on obedience to commit violence and harm.

[@colleenodonnell6992]

Explains why people follow Trump blindly

[@twn5858]

People love their weirdo politicians that the government gives them.

[@jaybyrdcybertruck1082]

And republicans wonder why we ask WHY Trump does what he does...