The first thing I thought about was why Stanley Milgram decided to skip United States history and focus on Germany as a basis for his experiment to explore “how the German people could permit extermination of the Jews” according to the narrator. I don’t think that this experiment was necessary because all he had to do if he really wanted to know the answer to his question was read the history of our nation. Better yet, watch the news during the time of his experiment, which was 1962 or focus on his own opinion of who was worthy of such a test and why. The assassination of President Kennedy, the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement all occurred during this time. I am positive that he would have been reminded of the answers he chose not to acknowledge in the first place. What is more disturbing about the reason for this experiment is that in this short documentary, Dr. Thomas Blass another educator who was teaching about this in his class, did not mention this point either. Instead, he articulated Milgram “focused on the darker side of obedience”. The experiment itself was not terrible, I believe to explore human nature is worthwhile. Milgram did not need anyone else to perform this experiment because he exposed himself as an individual not concerned about other human beings struggling under the noses of those who could in some way assist. He chose to turn his attention almost 30 years prior into a different continent.
Karia Hill