Bella Post Class 4/15

Today’s class discussion about how people behave when they think an authority is watching really interested me. Foucault’s talk about the Panopticon linked directly to the ethical crises we were talking about in CMC 200 prior to our class. Lisa was explaining several different experiments that had very questionable ethics, namely the Milgram Studies. Stanley Milgram created an experiment that tested how far people would go in order to respect authority. The subject was told to send electric waves through another person (a research confederate that would simulate a response to electric shock) as part of an ‘experiment’. Even though the subject could hear the other person screaming in pain, about heart complications, and ultimately go silent (presumably dead), the subject did not stop the experiment. The subject received little encouragement from the administrator, other than “It’s alright, the experiment must go on. I am under control, the experiment must go on.” The subject had no immediate or harsh consequences for not following directions, but did so anyway. It’s like a blind willingness to obey. Foucault’s example of the Panopticon was very interesting to me, because it seemed very similar. The prisoners could see nothing but each other and the tower in the center, and had no visual evidence that anyone was in the tower unless a window was opened. Still, they didn’t try to break out of the prison for fear of being discovered, shot at, etc. Again, a blind willingness to obey authority. In both examples, neither participant could see the repercussions of their action (the ‘dying’ shock receiver or the armed guards) but neither one had the nerve to dissent. Each blindly followed society’s rules of obeying authority and feared some kind of repercussion if they did not. We talked about how people walk through the airports and stand in line–for what reason? We are told that it is the system developed to protect us, it’s better for our overall safety, but how do we know? How do we know that taking off our shoes and having random red dots put on our tickets will protect us from the next 9/11? It certainly won’t protect us from the real dangers, i.e. bad weather or a plane malfunction causing our flight to crash. Perhaps we should be spending time checking weather patterns and making sure our airlines (cough, Southwest) are following all the protocol for safety.