imported post
I had a National Guard guy in the shop recently and he said that he had been asked recently what he would do if he were ordered to disarm people a la Katrina. He said that he would have to follow orders that he swore he would follow. I reminded him that his oath applied to lawful orders and he said he wasn't a lawyer and couldn't ultimately know what might be legal or not, especially in some state of emergency. I appreciate that he is conflicted, but I was disappointed that he said that he would automatically obey by default.
Most people aren't necessarily evil, but they can usually be manipulated to do the evil bidding of others. Google"Stan Milgram" and his studies in obedience sometime. Disturbing stuff. Summary of his findings here:
"The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous importance, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' [participants'] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' [participants'] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.
Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority."
-ljp
I had a National Guard guy in the shop recently and he said that he had been asked recently what he would do if he were ordered to disarm people a la Katrina. He said that he would have to follow orders that he swore he would follow. I reminded him that his oath applied to lawful orders and he said he wasn't a lawyer and couldn't ultimately know what might be legal or not, especially in some state of emergency. I appreciate that he is conflicted, but I was disappointed that he said that he would automatically obey by default.
Most people aren't necessarily evil, but they can usually be manipulated to do the evil bidding of others. Google"Stan Milgram" and his studies in obedience sometime. Disturbing stuff. Summary of his findings here:
"The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous importance, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' [participants'] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' [participants'] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.
Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority."
