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  • Essay / Summary of The Perils of Obedience by Stanley Milgram

    In his article, he provides excerpts from his experience to solidify his concepts. For example, Gretchen Brandt continually asks if “the student” is okay; however, when "the experimenter" says to continue, she does so, but not without saying that she "does not want to be responsible for anything that happens to her" (80). Another example Milgram provides is that of a man named Fred Prozi. Prozi continues the whole experience. That is, until he runs out of word pairs. At this point, the “experimenter” urges him to continue. Prozi refuses; However, when the experimenter claims that the responsibility lies with him and that it lies with him alone, Prozi continues, still full of worry (83). Szegedy-Maszak calls this “routinization,” whereby one person is responsible for a job (76). In Milgram's case, the job was to take responsibility for all results and to inspire the "student" to continue. In response to Milgram's experiment and others, Saul McLeod, professor of psychology at the University of Manchester, writes that the person being given orders believes that the authorities will accept responsibility for the end results. He calls this the “agent state,” when people let others push them around and put all the blame on them; therefore, acting as agents for the other person (The Milgram Experiment). "Defining Torture" puts it clearly by saying that people participate in torture activities because "...the government of a given territory is ultimately responsible for any torture that occurs within its borders." borders" (What Is