COVID and Milgram's Experiment

I'd like to discuss this issue in terms of upper-level obedience to authority, that being the responses of the State governors, and how they relate to the messaging given by the Federal government. First, I'd like to point out that "saving the economy" effectively means "saving the stock market," and therefore "saving the rich." In 2018, "84% of all stocks owned by Americans belong(ed) to the wealthiest 10% of households" (NYT). This disparity has only increased between then and now. So, keep in mind, when the president focuses on "the economy," he is not focused on the 90% of Americans whose struggles are not alleviated when "red line goes up." Billions of Federal aide dollars have been allocated not to struggling Americans, but to investors in the stock market. I learned in highschool that "trickle-down economics" doesn't work. The copious aid given by the government to large corporations during the pandemic is, in my opinion, clear evidence of this administration's prioritization of maintaining power over the needs of the 90%. With this in mind, let's look at one of Milgram's variations of the experiment in which those administering the test were not instructed to pull the switch administering the shocks. In this variation, 37 out of 40 participants continued through to the highest shock level. As one might expect, these participants passed the blame on to the person who physically administered the "shock." This causes one to think about the reluctance of the Federal government to implement nation-wide COVID relief policies. While there are many reasons for this (stemming back to the founding of this country), particularly concerning the balance of State and Federal authority (I'll link an interesting Atlantic article below), one cannot help but think that this system allowed for easy complacency on part of the Federal government. The plainest way we see this is how when the president is questioned about his responsibility for the high death count, he deflects blame onto the State governors, saying that "some States did well, others did not." The cruel irony here is that it would seem the Governors that "aren't doing a good job" are exhibiting rhetoric in line with that of the president. Many delayed a state-wide response while parroting the president's insistence that the crisis was a "Democratic Hoax," and that the travel bans implemented had, in fact, prevented the spread of COVID throughout the United States. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves, for example, insisted that implementing a state-wide lockdown would be an authoritarian measure far too similar to what China or North Korea would do (apparently). Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt made his position on lockdowns clear on March 14 when he posted a photo to Twitter of his family at a crowded restaurant with the caption "It's packed tonight!" The next day his spokesperson reaffirmed his sentiments by saying that "the governor will continue to take his family out to dinner and to the grocery store without living in fear, and encourages Oklahomans to do the same." Statements like these only reinforced the Whitehouse's agenda as they downplayed the severity of the virus, whilst stoking conspiracies of Democratic fear-mongering. In conclusion, even though the current POTUS is at fault (both directly and indirectly) for much of the damage COVID has caused The United States, the long tradition of shifting blame from the Federal Government to the State Governments has aided in his delusional messaging that he is not responsible for the American response to COVID. Unfortunately, those in power have done a decent job of getting the president's supporters to drink the koolaid, and trick themselves into believing that this couldn't have been helped. Yet, despite the undeniable separation of Federal and State power within the United States, the POTUS has fallen into the same line of thinking as 37/40 of the participants in the aforementioned Milgram experiment variation: How could it be his fault when it was the Governors who made seemingly individual bad decisions? To end this on a cynical note, I personally believe that he knows exactly what he's doing, and it's his followers that are duped into believing his flawed rhetoric through propaganda. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/business/economy/stocks-economy.html https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/why-theres-no-national-lockdown/609127/ https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/04/01/coronavirus-state-governors-best-worst-covid-19-159945

The Second Face of Power: The Military

It may seem odd for an American to hear the United States Military having a second face to its power. It is, after all, a fierce enough organization on its front. The world's most expensive military; propagandized heavily by our leaders. And yet, our country's continued insistence on growing its power and continuing its national and international agendas has some arguably greed-based roots. While there's plenty to say about the more recent involvement in the Middle East in terms of oil and fossil fuel industry influences, The United States' militant state goes back to the Second World War. As we all know, WWII ultimately had a positive effect on the United States' economy. Coming out of The Great Depression, industries were suddenly jolted to life by a new, uniting threat: The Nazi Empire. While there were plenty of Nazi supporters in the United States before WWII (they even held massive rallies), America found itself increasingly implored to assist its European Allies as the imperialist Third Reich threatened to conquer nearly the entire European continent. When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, the United States was out of excuses, so we went to war. Industrial productivity increased by 96%, and 18 million civilian jobs were created. Defense spending went from 1% of the nation's GDP to 40%. Massive corporations such as Boeing and General Motors saw further growth in their respective industries. After the second world war, American was faced with another threat: the Soviet Union, which arguably posed a far greater threat to national security than the Nazi Empire every did, in many different ways. However, this new threat was intrinsically intertwined with two philosophies that had previously been popular in the United States (particularly during the 1920's): Socialism and Communism. The reactionary movement, therefore, emphasized the alleged superiority of Capitalism. And what's more Capitalist than providing government-backed opportunities for large corporations to make mass amounts of profit off of the industry of war? Since the Cold War, we've seen massive companies such as Raytheon, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing (again) continue to grow in productivity and thus in profit- although those profits (thanks to Capitalism) are siphoned mostly to the Capitalists at the top. Even after the Cold War ended in 1989 with the collapse of the Soviet Union, America continued its military expansion into the rest of the world; arranging coups, invading Middle Eastern nations (especially after September 11), and, of course, our continued and increasing military support of Israel. This all leads to today. We continue to spend over $600,000,000 per year on the military (compared to $66 billion on health care). Our president encourages and accelerates our military growth. But who does this all profit? The typical "American" story is that America acts as a form of "World Police," and we apparently ensure democracy and peace abroad. While this story is certainly questionable, there are many who bask in the nation's great military power, taking nationalistic pride in our country because of it. And yet, one has to question, is it worth the damage we've caused? Is it worth spending nearly half of our budget on the military, while the money could much more reasonably be used for health care, or renewable energy, or education, or social services? These programs would, after all, benefit every-day Americans significantly more than the military does. But the problem today is the same problem we had in the 1960's: The ability for a few people to accumulate massive amounts of wealth allows them to hold power within and over the United States' government. The sad truth of the matter is that our country functions in a way that primarily benefits the 1%, and thus the power imbalance between the few and the many means that any hope of changing it is slim. https://prospect.org/health/way-won-america-s-economic-breakthrough-world-war-ii/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military%E2%80%93industrial_complex

Who is to Blame for Atrocities? ; An Analysis of Obedience to Authority

The term “concentration camp” conveys a certain discomfort among all peoples, but par- ticularly among Americans. We like to think that we live in the land of freedom and opportunity. However, the current administration’s anti-immigration stance has exasperated the use of inhumane detention centers to hold “illegal immigrants.” In these camps, people are kept in dehumanizing conditions. They exist in a legal grey zone; neither being able to legally apply for asylum, nor satisfy the requirements needed for deportation. Most tragically of all, however, is the treatment of children who are separated from their parents by the United States government. While Milgram’s experiment would suggest that the blame for atrocities should be concentrated at the top of the chain of authority due to humans’ natural tendency to obey perceived authority, one could argue that maliciousness can be found lower down as well. The question is, is the persistence of maliciousness among ordinary American citizens their own fault, or is the government implicated in the cultivation of the racist beliefs held by those who obey it? What is particularly interesting is the adaptation of Milgram’s experiment on obedience to authority which focuses on participants who were not asked to directly administer shocks to the perceived “learners.” In this variation, participants were far more likely to continue through to the end of the experiment than if they had been told to physically administer the shocks. This shows that the further up the chain of authority one rises, the more emotionally removed from the process they become. This certainly would explain the perceived banality among high officials, such as Adolf Eichmann in Nazi Germany, who seemed cold and callous despite the atrocities they indeed facilitated. On the other hand, it suggests that those at the very bottom must ei- ther previously hold or through their work attain biases which influence their actions. It’s easy enough for The President to administer orders, yet he is utilizing the hatred and underlying biases of ordinary citizens. Thus, it is in the leader’s best interest to encourage the spread of racist stereotypes and false information. This is where the blame once again must be shifted to the top of the ladder. A key element in the abuse of power is the spread of propaganda to encourage a population to hold the racist beliefs that justify their actions unto themselves. This is where propaganda plays a major role in perpetuating conditions required to fully achieve the goals of those in power. In Nazi Germany, Hitler was able to build off of existing antisemitism, even borrowing laws and policies from as far back as medieval Europe to enforce underlying prejudices. For instance, Ghettos were far from a new concept when it came to systematic anti-semitism. Jewish people had been forced into Ghettos before, both legally and by social alienation. Since anti-Semitic sentiments were far from new to the German citizens, Hitler’s propaganda seemingly made sense to many Germans. Thus, German citizens who entered into the Nazi military were already equipped with the racist notions needed to justify any orders that they would be asked to carry out. It is much easier to abuse a human that you believe is an “evil rat” than it is to abuse a human that you believe did not in any way deserve unjust treatment. This is not unlike the way that Donald Trump has re-kindled anti-immigration sentiments that have existed in The United States far before Trump seized power in 2016. Every wave of immigrants, even white immigrants from countries like Ireland, Italy, and Poland, was socially ostracized and discriminated against for decades before assimilating into American culture. Furthermore, Trump was able to play off of America’s long-standing “War On Drugs,” capitalizing on the notion that immigrants from Mexico (as well as the rest of Central/South America) are as- sociated with the use and dealing of illegal substances such as marijuana and cocaine. Another group that Trump rails against is immigrants from Muslim-majority nations. Since 9/11, Americans have been encouraged by the government to fear “radical Islamic terrorism,” and consequentially fear Muslims as being inherently violent. By associating these groups of immigrants with crime and terror, Trump has been able to play off of the existing fears held by many Americans. He himself propagates these racist notions, which his followers internalize. He reinforces the underlying prejudices that are needed for those working in, for example, internment camps to abuse innocent people (even children), because to them these asylum seekers are criminals, thus deserving of poor treatment. Recently, America witnessed the full extent of the combination of propaganda and an ap- peal to Trump’s authority when Kyle Rittenhouse crossed state lines with an illegal firearm to “protect property” in Kenosha, WI. The young man, 17, shot and killed two people. A review of his personal life before these events revealed that he is a staunch Trump-supporter, who likely bought into all the lies that the White House and the President propagate about the true intents and motivations of the BLM protestors, as well as the lies perpetuated that “Antifa” is a violent Anti-American terrorist organization. Despite 93% of BLM protests being peaceful, and despite the fact that Antifa is by no means an official organization of any sort, this young man was radi- calized to believe that they were deserving of the vile acts he sought out to commit. More con- cerning, however, is the vast number of the president’s supporters who see no issue with what has taken place. Tucker Carlson received backlash from many on The Left for suggesting that we shouldn’t be surprised that Rittenhouse took it upon himself to “maintain order,” as no one else was doing so. John Oliver pointed out, quite astutely, that “a 17-year-old with a rifle is the definition of disorder.” This all conveys the terrifying realization that many American citizens would be capable of utilizing their racist misconceptions to obey Trump’s orders, even if they’re only perceived. This all leads us back to the concentration camps at the border. While there is a case to be made that many of the actions taken by government officials to facilitate the continued abuse of migrants and asylum seekers are explained purely by a natural human tendency to obey authority, one cannot ignore the fact that the environment under which this is all taking place has been heavily tailored by the current administration’s propaganda. The Milgram experiment was performed in a vacuum, where the subject did not have any biases towards the “learner.” However, in reality, we cannot isolate natural tendencies to obey authority from mitigating circumstances that may perpetuate and encourage malicious behaviors. Although, it can be argued that this does not conflict entirely with the results of Milgram’s experiment; those being the implication that blame must be shifted primarily to the top of the authority ladder. The fact that the social climate of America is heavily influenced by government propaganda does indeed implicate those in power of ultimate responsibility for their egregious actions. Perhaps the most common excuse given by ex-Nazis was this: “I was just following orders.” This was, after all, the excuse given by Adolf Eichmann at his trial in Jerusalem. However, as Hanna Arendt was sure to note, the fact that he was able to be so benign yet act so evil was only more terrifying than if he had been a raging anti-semite or the like. We has humans have a tendency to categorize evil as something we can easily point out. We imagine evil to manifest itself as powerful, hate-filled monsters rearing their heads at those whom they oppose. And yet, we see that evil can indeed manifest itself in seemingly benign individuals. The greater con- cern here is that the power of perceived authority often overrides the greater good. With this in mind, I’m not particularly interested in demonizing the individuals involved in this system, rather the focus should ideally be put on raising awareness of humans’ natural tendencies and addressing them humanistically