Reflection Of Jessica Jones And The Perils Of Obedience

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During an intense episode of Jessica Jones, Jessica Jones, a poor private investigator / superhero orders her half-sister, Trish Walker, to electrocute a villain Jones captured by the name of Killgrave. With Trish being extremely hesitant, Jones convinces her by telling her that Killgrave has kidnapped dozens of people and the only way to get him to reveal their location is to electrocute him. Even though electrocuting Killgrave clearly went against Trish’s moral beliefs, she obeyed Jessica’s command and electrocuted him. The theme displayed in this episode of Jessica Jones is substantially similar to the theme seen in Stanley Milgram’s experiment about obedience. In Milgram’s experiment, “The Perils of Obedience,” participants were paired …show more content…

She reasons that, therefore, a laboratory is not an appropriate place to conduct an experiment of this theme. Though Baumrind’s assertion holds some truth, whether the subject obeyed or not was not the focus of Milgram’s experiment. He wanted to see to what extent the subjects obeyed. Just because the subjects were in a setting where obedience is appropriate does not mean the extent to which they were obedient is irrelevant to human nature. For example, if a teacher tells a student to harm a classmate, the level of obedience that student displays is still pertinent to society as a whole. Just because the student is in a setting where obedience is more appropriate does not mean that the degree to which that student is obedient is unimportant. In fact, it is completely relevant because Milgram’s experiment demonstrated that too much obedience can be detrimental for humans as a species. For example, despite murdering millions of people, Adolf Eichmann was mentally unscathed because, in his mind, he was just being obedient. This shows that humans as a species are more than capable of committing deplorable acts under the umbrella of obeying authority. Even though Milgram’s methods were immoral, society now realizes that too much obedience is not beneficial, but actually

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