In an ongoing thread on Stanley Milgram's famous experiment, J C Howell
comments:
>Milgram's experiment can, indeed, be generalized to group behavior as
>well as individual, laboratory-induced behavior. Such a generalization
>helps explain why Germans en masse attempted to destroy Jews in WWII,
>why white people in the Southern US (where I was born and live) so
>easily discriminate against and do harm to black people, why Bosnians
>and Serbs and Muslims are currently trying to destroy each other in
>Europe. It doesn't provide a complete explanation because these (as
>are MOST situations) are extremely complex. However, the tendency of
>people to comply with direct and indirect/implied directions from
>authority figures is a reality. Otherwise, we wouldn't have many of
>the screwed up situations we have today.
>
>When you move from individual to group situations, the authority
>figures are often forces of social influence. These include peer
>pressure, social norms, and established/customary ways of doing things.
This comment continues the notion that "civilized" behavior reflects the
way people "want" to act, but that peer pressure or authority can cause
them to submit to commands which "go against their 'normal' patterns." (I
am using quotes here to reflect oft-stated arguments, even though nobody
has explicitly used this language in this thread.) There is an assumption
here for which, in my opinion, there is very little evidence. My reading
of history, and my own experience, point to cruelty as the "natural" state
of humankind.
It's quite possible that the same forces cited by J C Howell are in fact
at work keeping us civil and "decent", and that we are ever ready to hear
the call of the wild.
My own thinking is that biology and culture have helped to generate our
ethical and social theories, institutions, and traditions, and that they
(biology and culture) are in a constant state of creative tension.
(Kabbalists speak of two souls in our bodies - one, the bestial spirit,
the other the angelic.)
I think it's the presence of culture in the equation which makes the
concept of the LO even thinkable (that is, creating the organizational
outcomes we desire), and which informs the longing many of us share for a
creative and empowering social organization with credibility.
--Jack Hirschfeld Where have all the young men gone? jack@his.com Gone for soldiers, every one! When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>