Month: August 2013

People Aren’t so Disobedient, After All

On an earlier post, I mentioned that I had enrolled in a Social Psychology course online. It goes well, (in case you’re curious) but the serious thing is that I had to watch a video of a renowned experiment in Social Psychology conducted by Dr Stanley Milgram on our obedience to authority figures. I know it sounds dull, and trust me, the twenty-minute experiment video was duller. But the result and the after effect were shocking. I really cannot embed the video for your viewership, but I can share the results with you which will surely test your belief of your obedience, as it did mine.

This experiment related to why people obey and do what they are asked. Obedience to authority is common, every where. It happens; people obey. Even when they are directed to consciously hurt someone else, they’ll do it. That, is shocking, and that is the result of Dr Milgram’s experiment.

The experiment asked unsuspecting people (subjects) to administer shocks of various voltage levels to a gentleman; (who was in his fifties and had a heart problem) everyone did it. Some discontinued halfway through, and others (due to continuous persistence of the experimenter) continued to shock the gentleman. (despite his protests) The experiment was conducted in 1961.

Now, you might have thought, like I did, that that was ages ago and that people nowadays are much more disobedient. Not true. Sadly.

A recent, similar experiment revealed the exact result.

The knowledge was depressing. I felt so uneasy when I saw it happen myself. But later, I realized that I should have expected it. I live in a society that loves to disobey rules explicitly, but obeys authority implicitly. It’s so obvious; from childhood, children are taught to unquestioningly obey their parents. That’s not wrong; instead, what I like to imply is that parents, teachers and the society as a whole, does hardly allow children to question their beliefs and habits. Children should be able to reason their beliefs. Blind obedience can harm, not only the obedient person, but also those around him.

PS – In the Milgram experiment, the fifty year-old gentleman was not really electrocuted. It is just what the experimenters wanted the subjects to think.

On being a know-it-all

I recently signed up for a Social Psychology course on Coursera. Of all the concepts it discusses, I am particularly drawn towards a certain concept named ‘The Hindsight Bias‘. It is also interestingly called ‘I knew-it-all-along effect’. A piece of reading for the course quoted an example from a Sherlock Holmes story, “It is easy to be wise after the event”. That, is hindsight bias.

How often we’ve felt, after hearing of something, – a piece of information or the result of a research – that we had known it all along? It would be obvious, but we wouldn’t have been able to guess before being informed. It happens so often that we hardly realize that it is a condition that has been technically named and studied in the field of Social Psychology.

That’s the beauty of the subject, it has a sane explanation to even the most common occurrences that we dismiss carelessly.

This particular condition is something that I have experienced many times, but I didn’t know that it was just a common happening and that it is totally normal for us to assume that we are all know-it-alls.

Fire and Ice

Now a days, I often catch myself wishing that the world had ended in December 2012.

That reminds me of a poem of Robert Frost that I like, Fire and Ice. It was love at first sight. It was helpful that the first sight was during the time everyone in school was so feverishly worried about the world’s end.

The poem brought a smile on my lips, what a thought! Fire and ice, two destructive forces compared to two other similarly destructive forces, desire and hate. It seemed like a perfect combination. It was so obvious.

We don’t need another Tsunami or an earthquake to destroy us. Those are just external causes. We have stronger and more dangerous forces within us that have the power to vanquish us. And, we don’t realize it. We are only worried about Natural factors.

Sometimes it sounds so unlikely that desire or hate towards something could end up perilous, but reflection would reveal the truthfulness of those words.

We don’t need to worry about what Nature would do to us, rather, what should be a matter of our concern is what we could do to the only home we have. We could and would destroy ourselves, our loved ones and our generations by our self-centeredness. That is when the world really dies.

This poem changed my view on the world’s existence.

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

~Robert Frost

Of Fantasies and Simplicity

When I tell people that I like a certain fantasy novel, they look at me like I’m an intolerable kid. ‘Fantasy books as those, are school kids material; older people shouldn’t read those books. They are childish and off reality’. This is the common attitude people have.

I have a different view of fantasy tales. Apart from being dreamy, fantasies are artfully narrated. It is that particular style of narrative that appeals to everyone. They don’t complicate things. Even the most complex and tough thoughts are conveyed easily so that even kids can understand. That is not childish; that is the toughest thing to do for a writer. To explain worldly philosophy in simple words is something that everyone should learn to do. Simplicity is what everyone desires, even if they claim otherwise.

So what’s wrong with reading fantasies that spell simplicity? Some of the best-selling fantasy novels have life time lessons that thick-bound books can never teach. I say it’s never too late to read fantasies.