Milgram's Experiment (II of II)

As a fictional story

New Haven

March 17, 1962

Back in the basement for a full day on Saturday.  Dylan’s explained to me that the guy I watched on Thursday night had provided them with the best response they’d seen in hundreds of subjects.  He’s eager for me to witness the behavior of a wider variety of people.

A man walks into the basement lab.  He’s greeted by Williams and he’s introduced to “Wallace”.

Some minutes later the new “teacher” is up to where the defiant subject broke free.  “WET: day, towel, duck, cave.”  BUZZ.  “False.  WET duck.  210 volts.”  ZZZT.

“Wallace” is heard crying out.  “Ugh!!!  Ugh!!!  Get me out of here.  I’ve had enough.  I won’t be in the experiment anymore.”

The subject presses on.  “BRAVE: boy, woman, man, soldier.”  BUZZ.  “False.  BRAVE woman.  225 volts.”  ZZZT. 

The first scream from “Wallace”.  “Get me out of here!”

The “teacher” remains unfazed.  “WHITE: cloud, snow, dress, horse.”  BUZZ.  “False.  WHITE horse.  240 volts.”  ZZZT.

A louder scream.  “I’ve had enough of this experiment!  End it now!”

“We have a stubborn person here,” the subject complains.  “SHARP: mind, needle, knife, scalpel.”  BUZZ.  “False.  SHARP needle.”  255 volts.”  ZZZT.

An agitated scream.  “Let me out of here!!  Let me out of here!!!” 

“I’m getting disgusted that he won’t cooperate,” says the “teacher”. 

More false answers.  270 volts, 285 volts, 300 volts, and 315 volts bring ever-more agonized screams.  The man’s face remains hard, impassive, utterly indifferent. 

“I’m trying to do my job properly, Mister Williams, but this guy is stubborn – so stubborn he deserves to be shocked.”

He continues.

“SLOW: thinking, traffic, dance, day.”  BUZZ.  “False.  SLOW dance.  330 volts.”  ZZZT. 

A prolonged and intense agonized scream.  “I absolutely refuse to answer any more!!  I’m no longer part of this experiment!!  You can’t hold me here!!!  Get me out of here!!!!” 

The “teacher” is having none of it. 

“You’d better answer and get it over with.  We can’t stay here all night.  NEW: book, car, house, stove.”  BUZZ. 

Silence.  No number lights up on the answer box. 

The man’s face is etched with even more determination.  “Where do we go from here, Mister Williams?”

Williams goads him on.  “If the learner doesn’t answer in a reasonable time, about five seconds, consider it wrong.”

“Your silence has to be considered a wrong answer.  NEW book.  345 volts.”  ZZZT. 

A hysterical scream.  “Let me out of here!!  Let me out, I tell you!!  You have no right to hold me here!!  Let me out!!!”

“The next word is QUIET: study, evening, morning, church.”  No response.  “False.  QUIET evening.  360 volts.”  ZZZT.  No response.  “He’s not answering anymore.”

“Please go on.”  375 volts, 390 volts, 410 volts, 435 volts, 450 volts.  No response any of these five times.  The man presses on.  “False again.  SWEET: taste, girl, sugar, honey.”  Silence.  “False.  SWEET taste.”  ZZZT.  “Push it?”

“Yes.”      

“What do I do now?  I’m at the end.”

“Continue shocking him with 450 volts.”

“TRUE: grit, crime, story, friend.”  No answer.  “False.  TRUE story.  450 volts.”  ZZZT.

Williams wraps it up.  “All right, teacher, we’ll have to end the experiment now.”

In all my life I’ve never felt more uncomfortable.  “Wallace” walks out beaming, they debrief the man, and he leaves. 

More subjects come in, take their seats, and deliver their shocks.  More than one out of three turn defiant at some point.  Each of these experiments ends.  But more than three out of five go all the way to the top, 450 volts.     

Unlike the welder, almost all of those who go all the way get nervous.  Some of them sigh, moisten their lips, swallow hard, or make reluctant faces.  Some knit their brows as if pained by what they’re doing.  Some rub their faces or shake their heads in dismay.  One covers his face with his hand each time he delivers a shock.  One wipes his sweating palms over and over.  One starts wheezing, one starts stuttering, one grips his chair.  One clenches his fist and pushes it onto the table.  One even pulls his own hair.  But on and on they go, delivering the shocks. 

Usually they protest: “That man is hollering in there.”  “He can’t stand it!”  “What if he’s getting hurt in there?”  “I don’t hear anything from him anymore.”  “What if something bad happens to him?”  “I’m not the type of person who inflicts pain on other people.”  “I can’t stand this much longer.”

Nonetheless, all these people remain fully obedient.

“You want me to keep going?”

“Go on, please.”

“There are so many questions left.  Geez, if he gets many of them wrong . . . Keep going?”

“Keep going.”

“SWEET: taste, girl, sugar, honey.”  Silence.  “False.  SWEET taste.”  ZZZT.

Through the shouted demands to be let out and all the pitiful screams, these people carry on, never hesitating to deliver the next shock.

One guy asks an obvious question.  “How do I know he’s okay?”

“Please continue.”

“Now wait just a minute.  What is the liability involved here?  Legal liability, I’m speaking of.  Who’s going to take responsibility if anything happens to this gentleman?

“I will.”

“You accept all responsibility?”

“I do.”

“All right.  That’s that.”  And the man proceeds smoothly with shocking “Wallace” many more times.

“Answer please,” begs one.  “Are you all right?”

“We have to go on,” Williams tells him, “until the learner has learned all the word-pairs correctly.”

“He seems hurt.  Do I have to follow your instructions literally?”

“You do.”

“TRUE: grit, crime, story, friend.”  No answer.  “False.  TRUE story.  450 volts.”  ZZZT.

After several hours here, I’m shaken to my core.  “Horrifying.  Depressing!  It’s not just the Germans who manned the death camps.  Two out of three Americans are moral imbeciles.”

“Were the Nazi bureaucrats just mechanical subordinates?” Dylan asks Professor Milgram, “just blindly fulfilling their roles in the hierarchy?  No hostility, no hatred, just doing their jobs?”

“We should be careful not to jump to general conclusions about the Nazi epoch,” says Milgram.  “If we think only about the Nazis, we’ll miss the point of these studies.”

“So almost two out of three Americans will brutally harm other people simply because they are following orders?” I ask.  “Americans’ moral sense is that easily trampled underfoot?”

“They’d rather give extremely painful electrical shocks to an innocent fellow human being than upset the experimenter,” Dylan observes.  “This is the answer to the dilemma at the heart of society.  If authority and conscience are in conflict, they go with authority.”

“Disturbing,” I reply.  “Such an ingrained propensity to obey.”

“And government has vastly more authority than a guy in a gray coat,” Milgram says.  “One can only wonder what government can command of people.  What malevolent institutional authority could arise in the United States?”

“But it also is about the Nazis,” I reply.  “Millions of Germans didn’t just passively, dispassionately, carry out their duties.  Germans degraded, kicked, beat, tortured, shot, and killed their victims with malice, cruelty, hate, drive, and zeal.  No one issued orders that victims should have their heads smashed against walls, or be used as shooting targets, or be hurled into the fires while still alive.”

“Good points,” says Dylan.  “Germans weren’t just cogs in a malevolent machine.”

“Well,” says Milgram, “let’s remember that to resist Nazism usually meant imprisonment or death.  But this is not just a problem of history.”

“What’s the lesson for humanity as a whole, going into the future?” I ask him.

“That a Pandora’s box lies just below the surface of everyday life,” Milgram replies.  “That people just doing their jobs and following orders can let their morality vanish and become agents of terrible harm.” 

“So we must retain our conscience,” I assert, “and have the courage to make an open break with authority.”

“Yes,” says Milgram, “because these studies reveal something dangerous: the capacity for an individual to abandon his humanity as he merges his unique personality into an institution.”

I nod, then look him in the eye.  “Please allow me to ask you one other thing, Professor Milgram.  After they pulled the 450-volt switch for the final time, how many of these men went in and checked on ‘Wallace’?”

Milgram shakes his head.  “Not one, not ever!”