It's Not Cruel, They Deserved It... right?

More times than not, people don't identify as cruel, callous, or ill-intended, at least not to the public. More often than not, the fundamental belief is "I was teaching them a lesson" or "They deserved it." The irony being, this often white washes our awful behavior, in the name of the better good, proving a point or standing on principle- as it were. That is what we will discus, as we review **The Milgram Experiment: Obedience to Authority**and how it applies to the human condition in developing justification for our actions while diluting and obfuscating fault and blame with authority, while shifting accountability.

In order to better participate, please review the following videos prior to attending (Watch Time -6 minutes).
We will discuss the following clip(s):
The Milgram Experiment: Obedience to Authority

Initially this group will be scheduled every two weeks at 4:00 pm-6:00 pm (CST) at Panera Bread, on University in Fort Worth until we can gauge consistent attendance and participation, with the intention of conducting weekly meetings.

Panera Bread 1700 S University Dr, Fort Worth, TX 76107.
I will be wearing a purple and orange beanie.
The format of the group will consistently follow this pattern:

1. Settle in and start within first 10 minutes.
2. Review Ground Rules, Expectations and Weekly Topic (5-10 minutes)
3. Ice-breaker (will change every week) (10-20 minutes)
4. Main Topic of Discussion (45-60 minutes)
5. Closing Thoughts (10 minute)

The intention for "Blind Spots" is to intentionally discuss our own and society's various mental, emotional, ethical and moral boundaries and blind spots. These are by definition, emotionally charged topics, which is the very point.
The intention of this group is to learn how to better communicate and coincide with those you may not agree with or understand.
Blind Spots is intended to be a place were we can figure out how to better understand those we instinctively call the enemy.

Ground rules:

1. One person will speak at a time.
2. Critical thought and objection are both welcome, however be sure to challenge the content and not the personality.
3. When challenging another’s position, it is encouraged that you question from a place of “trying to understand the other individual’s position”, instead of intending on proving your point or theirs wrong through your questioning.

4)In the event discussion gets heated and volatile between two individuals or factions, the discussion will be halted, followed by taking the next 5 to 10 minutes, to use the remaining parts of the group to break down what just occurred and where communication broke down.

Ice Breaker: How has blindly following authority, resulted in catastrophic events in your life?

1)The students believed they were signing up for a “study on memory and learning,” however little did they know, the study was observing obedience to authority. It stated people signed themselves up for something they didn’t realize what they were getting into.

How does this dynamic reflect in society, when we so often believe we are fighting for a common good or what we believe is the intention of a movement, while not recognizing the true intentions of the authority figures within our lives?

2) The participants required coercive support/direction from the experimenter, resulting in majority or ⅔’s of participants to provide lethal levels of shocks. What wasn’t stated was, about ⅓ of participants appeared indifferent to what was occurring on the other end, ⅓ required moderate prompting, while the remaining ⅓ appeared to have substantial difficulty, requiring more prompting and stopped before the voltage was maxed out.
What do you believe is the difference between these three groups of individuals?

3) The prompts provided were “please continue”, “the experiment requires that you continue”, “it is absolutely essential for you to continue,” and finally “you have no other choice but must go on.”

How does this type of “encouragement” from authority/group think, pressure us into doing things we may later regret?

4)Milgram states, “It may be we are puppets, puppets controlled by the strings of society, but at least we are puppets with perception and awareness, and perhaps awareness is the first step to our liberation”.

How does awareness conflict with our group's ideology or the authority figures in our life?

5)Frequently when individuals are on trial for war crimes or on for wrong doing within the workplace (ie government or other policy related crimes) people claim “I was just following orders”, “it was my job”, “everyone was doing it” or “they made me do it.”

What does it say about society, your personal in-group, and authority as a whole, that challenging it to begin with is dangerous to the point of hurting someone else, in order to appease said authority, or in-group?

6) Majority of the time, atrocities do not simply just happen, but are a constant degradation of values, beliefs and moral decay, where moral decline occurs through the silent complicity and indifference of the masses, and the masses eventually hop on board with whatever scapegoating narrative resulting in justification for said acts or in the other camp, the passive belief of “there’s nothing I can do” or “this is how it’s always been.”

How do these beliefs result in more of the same, or a progression into further decay?

7)Group think is the result of people’s lack of awareness of it occurring to begin with. It’s further exacerbated when authority cannot be questioned, and questioning the group or authority is labeled with being the enemy or difficult.

How has holding a truer belief, a more aware perspective, resulted in you or someone you know being labeled as the enemy of a given group?

What does it say about us, that we will choose the misery of others, to keep a job or to appease authority over standing up for our beliefs and values?

8)Authority often muddies the perceptions of “the enemy,” labeling them as the scourge of the times. Whether it be labeling immigrants as the cause for housing/health insurance instability, minorities being branded as the cause for the destruction of the nuclear family, or women causing men to be lustful due to how they are dressing. That said these tactics have been used for millennia due to their ability to create results.

How do we know the belief of “they deserve it,” is something we came up with or something planted by someone else.

9)We so often give children a pass for making poor decisions due to their upbringing, but how/when do we determine someone is considered a “grown-up” and is responsible for their own decisions and no longer giving a pass for their upbringing/placing responsibility on the authority figures in their lives?

10) When does “I was just following orders” or “I was just doing my job” no longer hold water?

Tying in to past sessions:

Why do we think the "leaders” of whichever political party, who say one thing, but develop antithetical policies, why do we defend their words when their actions say something else entirely?