Stanley Milgram's Obedience Essay

881 Words2 Pages

In “Obedience” written by Ian Parker, he analyzes both the short term and long term effects that the experiment had on the public. Parker critiques the experiment by using a binary between obedience and disobedience and asking multiple questions to challenge Milgram’s original experiment. Parker emphasizes his binary when he explains real world applications to Milgram’s experiment. Parker reminds the reader of real events that have taken place, such as the Holocaust of Kosovo, which show that no experiment to prove obedience is necessary, because real events do so. Other events, however, disprove Milgram’s theories all together. The people who executed Jews during the Holocaust did so because they believe that Jews were evil, and that they needed to be killed. The Soldiers did not kill them because they were ordered Throughout the essay, she uses specific examples and quotations to support her own claims about Milgram’s experiment. In her essay, Baumrind gives the reader a setting by first pointing out that the laboratory is an peculiar setting for an experiment like Milgram‘s. Even though the essay explains Milgram’s ideology of obedience, Baumrind questions every claim that Milgram made and either disagrees or supports his actions. Baumrind states that the results of the study should be invalidated because the experimental situations are, “not sufficiently accurate models of real life experiences,”(Baumrind 7) and the data are “hard to reproduce” (Baumrind 7). She focuses on the nature of results and not the effect it had on the claims relating to disobedience of authority. Baumrind makes the claim that if the results were altered, the experiment could have had a completely different impact on an observer’s viewpoint towards the

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