prasad1
Active member
In July 1961, Stanley Milgram performed one of the most important experiments ever, in the history of human psychology. He had recently obtained his PhD in Social Psychology from Harvard University at a time when “the Architect of the Holocaust”, Adolf Eichmann was undergoing trial for crimes against humanity. During the war trials following World War II in 1945-46, Nazi War Criminals had used what had since come to be referred to as the Nuremburg Defense. Simply put, they were not vindictive masochists who enjoyed torturing and exterminating millions of Jews, Poles and Gypsies in grotesque concentration camps; they were merely following orders from superior officers. The Allied Powers refused to admit this defense in these trials as they believed that no human being would follow orders that they found morally reprehensible. Stanley Milgram’s experiment changed all that.
How would the Indian youth fare at this particular experiment? Replications of the experiment have come up with a scary average of around 60-70% of people willing to administer the highest shock on a stranger just because they were informed to by an authority figure.
Indian youth are brought up with a surplus of authority figures. We have our parents, elder siblings, uncles, aunts, cousins, teachers, professors, principals, senior students at school and college and even de facto leaders in social circles. At every step of the way, we are told what we have to do. Our parents don’t ask us to study for exams, we are instructed to. We are told that we have to follow our parent’s religious beliefs and share their same ideologies. At school, we are instructed in moral values. Our moral code is an amalgamation of the ideologies of our parents, our school and our social circle.
Yet, how many of us have stopped to think about the implications of the instructions being imparted to us by our parents, teachers and friends? How many of us took a puff of that first cigarette, fully aware of all the harmful effects of smoking, just because the authority figure in our social circle is a smoker and told us to? Or because we wished to impress someone and have been instructed by years of stereotyping that smoking is cool? How many of us have ever had the fortitude to not involve ourselves in something we do not wish to be a part despite authority figures telling us to? How many of us have not blindly accepted the knowledge given to us by our teachers and professors to be true even though even a moment’s reflection will show us that it is tainted with their personal bias?
The Indian youth is the biggest source of power in the world today. We are a land of one billion people with a median age of 25. And it frightens me how easily we can be molded to follow the instructions of an authority. A hundred years ago, highly educated young Indians would end letters to British Colonists with the Valediction: “Your Most Obedient Servant”. We are little different. Subservience to authorities is a culture genotype that needs to be weeded out of our communal DNA if we are to succeed in the world.
I recently saw a TV program called Dance +6, It made me realize why Indians in India do not succeed but once they are out of India they simply flourish.
No one in the west would demean themselves to please others. They will do whatever needs to be done, keeping their dignity.
Of Course, I am talking of financial and career success.
Are Indians Subservient to Authorities? — A culture genotype | Youth Ki Awaaz
The Indian youth is the biggest source of power in the world today. We are a land of one billion people with a median age of 25. Subservience to authorities is a culture genotype that needs to be weeded out of our communal DNA if we are to succeed in the world.
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How would the Indian youth fare at this particular experiment? Replications of the experiment have come up with a scary average of around 60-70% of people willing to administer the highest shock on a stranger just because they were informed to by an authority figure.
Indian youth are brought up with a surplus of authority figures. We have our parents, elder siblings, uncles, aunts, cousins, teachers, professors, principals, senior students at school and college and even de facto leaders in social circles. At every step of the way, we are told what we have to do. Our parents don’t ask us to study for exams, we are instructed to. We are told that we have to follow our parent’s religious beliefs and share their same ideologies. At school, we are instructed in moral values. Our moral code is an amalgamation of the ideologies of our parents, our school and our social circle.
Yet, how many of us have stopped to think about the implications of the instructions being imparted to us by our parents, teachers and friends? How many of us took a puff of that first cigarette, fully aware of all the harmful effects of smoking, just because the authority figure in our social circle is a smoker and told us to? Or because we wished to impress someone and have been instructed by years of stereotyping that smoking is cool? How many of us have ever had the fortitude to not involve ourselves in something we do not wish to be a part despite authority figures telling us to? How many of us have not blindly accepted the knowledge given to us by our teachers and professors to be true even though even a moment’s reflection will show us that it is tainted with their personal bias?
The Indian youth is the biggest source of power in the world today. We are a land of one billion people with a median age of 25. And it frightens me how easily we can be molded to follow the instructions of an authority. A hundred years ago, highly educated young Indians would end letters to British Colonists with the Valediction: “Your Most Obedient Servant”. We are little different. Subservience to authorities is a culture genotype that needs to be weeded out of our communal DNA if we are to succeed in the world.
I recently saw a TV program called Dance +6, It made me realize why Indians in India do not succeed but once they are out of India they simply flourish.
No one in the west would demean themselves to please others. They will do whatever needs to be done, keeping their dignity.
Of Course, I am talking of financial and career success.
