Someday you may have to stand up for something you know is right, or against something you know is wrong, when it appears the whole world is against you.
You may not believe you’d change your position in that situation.
There was a social experiment where test subjects were told to choose from three choices the line which was the same length as another line. The experiment was designed so the correct answer was obvious. Only one person in the group was actually a test subject, though. The others were actors instructed to choose the wrong line. Many of the subjects-- one-third of them-- went along with the crowd even when they were giving an answer which was clearly wrong.
What happens in society when the right answer isn't so obvious? Well...
In recent years we’ve seen this effect over and over. We are shamed if we don’t go along with the experts, who have been politicized to the point of zero credibility. Then, to seal the deal, actors reading the script-- usually sanitized government press releases-- on television news programs tell you which answer to choose. Politically biased accounts on social media chime in with the same chant. They scold you to "Trust the experts."
They seem determined to convince you wrong is right, war is peace, and slavery is liberty. I wish only one-third of the public fell for the trick!
When those conducting the experiment claim to have the magical quality they call "authority" the fraction of the public susceptible to the manipulation seems even larger.
In the Milgram experiment, test subjects were instructed by a person in authority to give electric shocks as punishment for wrong answers to a person they didn't know was an actor pretending to experience pain. Most-- 65%-- turned the dial all the way up to what they were told was a potentially fatal voltage. This shows how far people will go toward abandoning what they know is right if someone in authority tells them to.
Mark Twain once observed, "Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."
The majority isn't always wrong, but it's wrong more often than you may suppose. If you need proof, just look at the outcome of elections.
If you can't tell right from wrong, learn the difference. Then choose right and reject wrong even when everyone is against you.
Having the ethical capacity to distinguish right from wrong is important and having the character to tangibly act in the right way in accordance with that ethical ability is necessary for it to have any substantive reality in one’s life or the society you live in.
ReplyDelete“What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.”
---- John Ruskin
"To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice."
--- Confucius
I believe that the ability to see what is right and the character to actually do it are things that have their origin and source in the intrinsic individuality of each person. They are not things that can be learned from society or imparted by any collective institutions teaching where they are inherently absent in the individual. An essential lesson learned from the study you reference in this article was the following.
“The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority.”
---Stanley Milgram
I agree completely.
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