As IF Times

link:  22.2: Milgram’s Studies On Obedience To Authority – Social Sci LibreTexts

It’s a curious time as we observe all of the puzzling responses by people to naked attacks on their natural freedoms.  If you were to ask a random sampling of individuals, the concept of ‘freedom’ likely lands near the top of the list when itemizing the desirable attributes of a given society.  In reality, the  actual practice of freedom is quite abstract when compared against the reality of societal living.

We know of course that there are specific rules of behavior required of people to live in a civilized society.  Of course, there are explicit rules as dictated by formal laws, but there are also non explicit rules which are dictated by cultural conventions.  These unwritten rules are more critical and are embedded in our psyches as we live in a society since they form the the backbone of our moral value systems.

In the optimal scenario, explicit laws should be very minimal if the value structure of a society is strong enough to rein in undesirable behavior.  As an example, consider Japanese culture;  In that society, the constrictions dictated by personal morality are so high, that transgressions are deemed reprehensible and never even to be considered.  Dishonesty and theft are critical personal and shameful failings there.  The notion of theft is as abhorrent to most Japanese as the idea of cutting off a finger would be for those in our society.  However, here in the west, those traits are actually vocational skills required in politicians.

Unfortunately the West does not have such a resolute value system.  Instead, we are dependent on an ever expanding net of rules and laws to reign in ‘undesirable’ behavior.  The sinister part of this reality is that a very small part of any society is very aware of the willingness of people to abide by almost any rule, written or unwritten by those in positions of power.   This is not conjecture.  Scientific studies have demonstrated exactly this and people who attain influence are quite aware of it.  The question is, why do people put up with rules which are counter to their moral code or in the worst case, against their own well being?

The link above outlines the sociological experiments by Dr. Stanley Milgram in the mid 1970’s.  His research provided some fascinating but very frightening revelations about the proclivity of people to defer to obedience under the persuasion of someone notionally in a position of power; without regard to actual reality.  The revelations and conclusions of his work should be stark warnings for all citizens of a governed nation.  Instead, the veracity of his experiments are being played out in ever greater scale in all societies.  This explains the various regimes that we consider to be rogue around the world, but the realities are relevant to our own society.

Milgram’s revelations are dovetailing with another psychological condition which afflicts people and that is, Stockholm Syndrome, wherein a captive begins to empathize with his captors as time goes on and becomes a willing and perhaps participating victim.  We can see the intersection of these two human phenomena in the activities surrounding two very critical current events.

The first of course is the aftermath of the US presidential election last November.  In the face of irrefutable evidence and mathematical logic, over 300 million people have acquiesced to the narrative offered by ‘those in charge’.  There has been only very ineffective push-back from small groups protesting against the blatant manipulation.  The most fundamental right of individuals to choose who governs them, has been taken from at least half the nation without sufficient indignant outrage.  Try declaring blackjack against a dealer showing 20 without showing your cards and see how that goes.  People have rolled over to accept the results because someone told them to.  Most have acquiesced with the attitude of ‘we’ll get ’em next time’ which is illogical because the same outcome will happen again with the same input.

The second and perhaps more sinister manifestation of compliance are the on-going edicts concerning Covid-19.   A year of lock-downs, masks, social distancing and quarantine measures are still being imposed upon a gullible public.  In some regimes, notably North Canadia, governments are imposing mandatory incarceration protocols upon travelers trying to enter the country.  This, despite a year of data from medical scientists which disproves most of the claims made by politicians during this time.  If the extreme suppression of personal freedoms hasn’t worked to quash a condition which was supposed to take two weeks…. a year ago, then why continue them after a year?  The scientific method appears to have been abandoned for political theater.  Even more damning is the evidence of entire societies and nations that did not subject their residents to extreme measures and yet did not result in the human disasters sold by the alarmists.

There’s a favorite scene of mine from the film, Intolerable Cruelty, starring George Clooney.  I will paraphrase the conversation he has as a lawyer to his client and apply it to what we see now in the Covid space:

“You mean to tell me that in the face of blatant oppression of the citizens and demonstrable ineffectiveness of your controls that you want to impose even more pain and suffering??”

“Can you do it?”

“It’s a challenge”.

In another fascinating set of experiments in 1971 at Stanford, Phillip Zimbardo created an environment in which student volunteers were divided into two groups, one half would be prisoners and the other half to be the guards.  This experiment was to run two weeks in an enclosed environment. It was intended to measure the effect of role-playing, labeling, and social expectations on behavior over a period of two weeks. However, mistreatment of prisoners escalated so alarmingly that principal investigator Philip G. Zimbardo terminated the experiment after only six days.  The subjects were taking on extreme behaviors according to their assigned roles, such as the ‘guards’ using fire extinguishers on the prisoners.

Here is a description from Britannica.com:  In keeping with Zimbardo’s intention to create very quickly an “atmosphere of oppression,” each prisoner was made to wear a “dress” as a uniform and to carry a chain padlocked around one ankle. All participants were observed and videotaped by the experimenters.

On only the second day the prisoners staged a rebellion. Guards then worked out a system of rewards and punishments to manage the prisoners. Within the first four days, three prisoners had become so traumatized that they were released. Over the course of the experiment, some of the guards became cruel and tyrannical, while a number of the prisoners became depressed and disoriented. However, only after an outside observer came upon the scene and registered shock did Zimbardo conclude the experiment, less than a week after it had started.

Note the last sentence.  This only stopped because an outside observer was shocked at the events.  If only we had outside observers in real life.

link: Booze and no shoes: Inside the Vancouver ‘makeshift nightclub’ that flouted COVID-19 orders (msn.com)

How many times have we heard the nauseating line expressed in the blog title? Sure, it usually emanates from the mouths of sanctimonious politicians and we expect that.  The underlying premise of every program that they foist upon the public must have the underlying plank of “it’s for the good of the people”, as if we needed governments to tell us what’s in our best interests, since you know, they govern mental inferiors.   Aided by a compliant media, the message seeps into the psyche of the general public as would the stench of manure from simply standing in a barn.  The genius of sanctimony is that it makes those not in compliance, automatically unvirtuous people.  The other line oft heard is “well if it only saves one life”.  These are the sentiments of idiots.

In effect this program deputizes the masses of morally weak sycophants to rush to prove their worth in the virtuous society. This dynamic is being played out daily now that the “great pandemic of 2020” has moved into the one year anniversary of a voluntary 14 day quarantine.  It’s like the infamous Gilligan’s Island 3 hour tour. Instead of abating, we are now to believe that, not just one, not two, not three but FOUR waves of this deadly malaise is wreaking havoc on all civilized societies.  Notwithstanding the glaring absence of healthy people falling like flies who are not connected to care facilities, people actually are embracing the tyrannical rules foisted on them by their political masters.   It’s bizarrely like the taste of very strong cheese, which is first repulsive and then you become acclimatized to the smell of a cadaver and the taste of mold and begin to like it.  They even coined a name for this phenomenon years ago, Stockholm Syndrome.

Those brave enough to question the preposterous edicts are gaslit to believe that they are irresponsible and anti social. Only now, they are under the beady eyed scrutiny of their fellow citizens if they dare to have opposing views.  Whole populations of Karens have emerged to enforce the dictates of pearl clutchers who were only elected to catch dogs, keep the water clean and the streets safe.  They were not elected to direct people how to assess risk in their daily lives.  As the edicts become more preposterous, the public seemingly has an unlimited capacity to bend to them.  Closing down businesses, losing income, banned contact with family, friends and church….the line keeps moving.  We’ve heard talk of double, triple, or even quadruple masking to ensure ‘safety’.  Let’s not forget anal swabbing, also on the horizon.  Canada has a policy of sequestering visitors in hotel rooms at traveler expense after spending 3 days in a Covid clink.  We’re not even sure who is supposed to be protected.

The scofflaws in the linked article held a party and invited people to it.  Presumably the attendees all knew the risks and they weren’t forced at gunpoint.  They weren’t going to a bubble wrap party. This is reminiscent of the infamous prohibition days when people had to knock on a door with a sliding slit to enter a premise with any booze.  If that seemed preposterous then, it’s worse now.  In Florida, a very popular and busy grocery store was filmed by a medical doctor and he took umbrage with all of the unmasked people assembling within.  In fact, he tweeted “I hope they all die”.  A doctor.

The threshold for personal indignities imposed by the elected braintrust will continue to ratchet up as new rules are made up to adversely affect the lives of normal people. The more Karens that embrace these rules, the more likely that the politicos are emboldened with their reign of terror.  For those skeptical of this, I refer them to the present day Kabuki which is airport security. We see the effects of this brainwashing by observing the airport protocols that were initiated over 20 years ago.  We are still taking off shoes and being felt up at airports though not a single terrorist has tried to run the gates in all that time.  As terrorism threats then are to Covid now, the  real viruses endangering people are compliance and stupidity.