Sit. Good Dog.
One must consider, what exactly is obedience, and should it be viewed in a positive or negative light? Webster dictionary defines one being obedient as, "willing to do what someone tells you to do or to follow a law, rule, etc". The mere definition of this sounds encouraging. One would applaud an obedient child, employee, or pet; however, can obedience be misemployed? Can obedience be abused? The nature of obedience is relatively simple. Human beings desire structure. We are naturally more comfortable when there are laws and boundaries in place. The real challenges arise when one has no idea why he or she continues to obey even when faced with something morally abhorrent.
We like to believe that we are individuals …show more content…
It means, too, conforming to those large, vague, ill-defined collections of people who may never think of themselves as having a collective mind because they are aware of differences of opinion-but which, to people from the outside, from another culture, seem very minor. The underlying assumptions and assertions that govern the group are never discussed, never challenged, probably never noticed, the main one being precisely this: that it is a group mind, intensely resistant to change, equipped with sacred assumptions about which there is no discussion …show more content…
It is considered good to have employees that diligently show up on time for work. It is a good thing to teach our children to respect their teachers and use proper manners. However, obedience to authority can also be negative. To paraphrase Stanley Milgram 's experiment, he designed a study to reflect the kind of dutiful thinking that goes with authority figures and demands. His experiment was designed to show that the desire to please and follow orders is stronger than the moral weight of an individual value for the majority of people. Milgram set up ordinary people as "teachers" that would deliver electric shocks to "learners" when they were incorrect in a word test. The electric shocks were indeed a farce, but the teacher was unaware of this fact. The teacher was then told to increase the electric voltage after each error, even though they could hear the learner in the other room acting that they were in distress. The learners eventually screaming and pleading as a result of the supposed shocks. His study showed that the inclination to follow orders and please the authority figure trumped the moral need to not harm another human
One must consider, what exactly is obedience, and should it be viewed in a positive or negative light? Webster dictionary defines one being obedient as, "willing to do what someone tells you to do or to follow a law, rule, etc". The mere definition of this sounds encouraging. One would applaud an obedient child, employee, or pet; however, can obedience be misemployed? Can obedience be abused? The nature of obedience is relatively simple. Human beings desire structure. We are naturally more comfortable when there are laws and boundaries in place. The real challenges arise when one has no idea why he or she continues to obey even when faced with something morally abhorrent.
We like to believe that we are individuals …show more content…
It means, too, conforming to those large, vague, ill-defined collections of people who may never think of themselves as having a collective mind because they are aware of differences of opinion-but which, to people from the outside, from another culture, seem very minor. The underlying assumptions and assertions that govern the group are never discussed, never challenged, probably never noticed, the main one being precisely this: that it is a group mind, intensely resistant to change, equipped with sacred assumptions about which there is no discussion …show more content…
It is considered good to have employees that diligently show up on time for work. It is a good thing to teach our children to respect their teachers and use proper manners. However, obedience to authority can also be negative. To paraphrase Stanley Milgram 's experiment, he designed a study to reflect the kind of dutiful thinking that goes with authority figures and demands. His experiment was designed to show that the desire to please and follow orders is stronger than the moral weight of an individual value for the majority of people. Milgram set up ordinary people as "teachers" that would deliver electric shocks to "learners" when they were incorrect in a word test. The electric shocks were indeed a farce, but the teacher was unaware of this fact. The teacher was then told to increase the electric voltage after each error, even though they could hear the learner in the other room acting that they were in distress. The learners eventually screaming and pleading as a result of the supposed shocks. His study showed that the inclination to follow orders and please the authority figure trumped the moral need to not harm another human