Milgram Experiment vs Rhythm 0
In this discussion, I define evil as any form of wanton, morally unjustifiable, harm caused by one person against another. By morally unjustifiable I mean anything which isn't a punishment for a crime or anything to do with self-defense. I don't know if disputes on these definitions have any relevance to what I have to say but if you think my definitions need to be altered then please feel free to do so.
Everybody knows of the Milgram Experiment. It basically reveals how authority can make people do evil things, even to the point of adminstering a lethal dose of electric current to a subject. I think the findings were used to ''exonerate'' people who committed crimes against humanity e.g. the Nazis. ''We had to follow orders'' was an acceptable defense in a court of law.
I, more or less, agree with the conclusion of the Milgram Experiment. People can be evil when commanded by authority to be so.
Then again...
Look at this: Rhythm 0. In this ''art piece'' the artist, Marina, promised to let anyone do anything to her with 72 objects over a period of 6 hours. If you read the wiki article you'll see that after some time people started doing ''evil'' things to the artist - one even pointed a loaded gun to the artist's head.
Marina's art piece can be construed as an experiment on how people would behave in complete freedom (no authority figure). The one crucial factor in which the Milgram Experiment differed from Rhythm 0 was the authority figure. Yet, people behaved the same way - escalating violence (evil?).
I'm afraid to say this but I think I'd have done the same thing as those people in the Milgram Experiment and the art exhibit Rhythm 0.
However, the point I'm trying to make is Rhythm 0 undermines the findings of the Milgram Experiment. Yes, people can be forced to do bad things but evil comes naturally to people too.
Your views on this...
Everybody knows of the Milgram Experiment. It basically reveals how authority can make people do evil things, even to the point of adminstering a lethal dose of electric current to a subject. I think the findings were used to ''exonerate'' people who committed crimes against humanity e.g. the Nazis. ''We had to follow orders'' was an acceptable defense in a court of law.
I, more or less, agree with the conclusion of the Milgram Experiment. People can be evil when commanded by authority to be so.
Then again...
Look at this: Rhythm 0. In this ''art piece'' the artist, Marina, promised to let anyone do anything to her with 72 objects over a period of 6 hours. If you read the wiki article you'll see that after some time people started doing ''evil'' things to the artist - one even pointed a loaded gun to the artist's head.
Marina's art piece can be construed as an experiment on how people would behave in complete freedom (no authority figure). The one crucial factor in which the Milgram Experiment differed from Rhythm 0 was the authority figure. Yet, people behaved the same way - escalating violence (evil?).
I'm afraid to say this but I think I'd have done the same thing as those people in the Milgram Experiment and the art exhibit Rhythm 0.
However, the point I'm trying to make is Rhythm 0 undermines the findings of the Milgram Experiment. Yes, people can be forced to do bad things but evil comes naturally to people too.
Your views on this...
Comments (40)
I think Rhythm0 was mainly predictable, right down to
"When the gallery announced the work was over, and Abramovi? began to move again, she said the audience left, unable to face her as a person".
The aspect of the "work" that makes it particularly distinctive from the Milligram experiment is that it is announced as art, and the artist's intentions and wishes are unknown. People might think that they are expected to be sensational, for example.
Added: I would have fired the gun into a safe place to discharge the bullets!
Perhaps a better place to look where there is iteration of moral choices in a truly private and consequence-free environment is in video games that simulate suffering where there are opportunities to imprison and torture. Games such as Dungeon Keeper, Dwarf Fortress and Crusader Kings 2 come to mind. I suspect that most gamers get bored of playing tyrannical torturers pretty quickly, and that once they are in psychological equilibrium with the game they tend to only torture and imprison a perpetrator in direct proportion to their sense of injustice and grievance due to the actions of the perpetrator.
The authority figure is usually the presence that stops people from being evil. In the Milgram experiment maybe it was a conflict of the role of the authority figure - being told it was OK seemed that wrong- that caused the perpetrators of the electrocutions to not enjoy the experience of torturing.
You of course also have the Stanford Prison experiment that lends another insight into this type of psychology.
I find the spontaneous rallying of people around the Rhythm 0 woman quite interesting from a conceptual point of view. I think that may be where a deeper truth tucked in their somewhere
Milgram's experiment purpose was to see how far people would go in their trust of authority. People trust doctors, professors. The results of his experiment are based on the ideological relationship between those in authority we trust and our willingness to retain this trust even when faced by what are apparently cruel actions. Free agency was not in doubt.
In Abramovic's performance she transforms herself into an object. An object exhibiting no agency. Its effect on the audience was not all the same, factions developed, people tried to stop others from hurting her. She allowed people to do whatever they wanted, which eventually brought out the most primitive aspects of the audience relationship to her. Taboos were dropped, and people acted in relationship to an object which presented itself as more than an object.
After 6 hours she stopped her performance and walked towards the audience who fled from her.
Good and evil are essential parts of what make us human, an amoral struggle within us that is never resolved.
But perhaps formal authority is simply a marker for internal justification, and it is the latter which ultimately drives the outcome of these experiments?
So, you're saying the artist was suggesting the audience to be ''sensational''. Isn't it strange that people would ''sexually assault'' under a creative license?
What I feel is that in the Milgram Experiment the authority was evil and so I think the subjects can be forgiven for their acts - at least that's what is the general consensus.
However, in Marina's art work people were given freedom - to be good OR bad or anything. Yet, they chose a path that was ultimately bad.
If this shows anything it's that in morality there has to be both incentive (for being good) and deterrence (against being bad). Human nature can't be trusted.
Quoting sime
Nothing is without consequence. In Rhythm 0, the acts of the audience has consequences for both it and Marina. The audience wasn't a bunch of troglodytes who didn't understand pain or death and were simply acting on curiosity. May be I'm not entirely correct on this - perhaps the audience wanted to test Marina's resolve. But they could've tickled her with the feather or done something benign and yet they chose to test the other end of the good-bad spectrum. Why is that?
Quoting sime
How evil can one get? Boredom or satiety will eventually reign in destructive habits. Or do they? Serial killers have to be forcibly stopped. Evil needs to be controlled and if that's impossible, snuffed out. So, you're views aren't mainstream on this one. Why do you think that way?
What the two cases show is that people can be evil under authority and in complete freedom. Basically, what it shows is that the current paradigm (incentive for good and deterrence for bad) is the correct one. It's tough being good - we need rewards to keep us motivated. It's easy being evil - we need tangible disincentives to keep us in control.
Quoting Cavacava
If this ''amoral struggle'', a very indifferent analysis in my opinion, defines us what's the point of being good?
Certainly at least, the audience/accomplices felt they had a certain amount of license to be sensational given the presence of a loaded gun, razor blades etc.
There is a difference between knowing what is good and doing what is good. In general we all know what is good, but we don't always do it. We continually struggle with ourselves. That struggle is not moral, our actions, the things we do, are moral or immoral.
If I recall correctly there was a version of this experiment in which the instructor issued orders, to be obeyed, it was not the prodding method of the original experiment. The results were far different in that experiment. While people are willing to follow orders based on authority such as a medical recommendation, they are far less willing to obey commands.
I find the resistive force that arose very interesting though. If we can dissolve the personalities and look at the pattern there is something there. I just can't put my finger on what it is though.
In our ordinary lives we live in an interference pattern of choice between wicked and good.
But there was also the feather. Why didn't people choose it over the gun? The feather and the gun are equally suggestive - the former associates with laughter and joy while the latter with pain and death. Why did the people pick the gun and the knife over the feather?
Quoting Cavacava
But our actions are determined by our decisions. This ''amoral struggle'' resolves into decisions and then actions. So, what tips the balance in this struggle?
In Rhythm 0, the leader is absent. The audience consisted of adults so no, curiosity doesn't fully explain its behavior.
Quoting MikeL
What if there isn't any choice, specifically, a rational choice to be good? Morality is just mirage and, obviously, people aren't convinced by the weak arguments promoting it. Think of it. The very fact that all moral theories fail to convince anyone, unless s/he is already convinced, is evidence that no one has, as yet, discovered anything substantial in the field.
Sorry, I was talking about two different things in the one paragraph. The Milgram experiment with the authority figure was one thing and the Rhythm 0 things was the other.
Quoting TheMadFool
Well that's a point. Perhaps though it may have to do with social hierarchy instincts. I think power over people is a thrilling proposition for many. We all jostle for our place at the table. It is the drive that causes many people to seek positions of power. That plays out though against empathy and social conformity. If Rhythm O was not showing any emotion, and the authority you alluded to was absent, the empathy and conformity drive may have been significantly impaired leading to an unchecked hierarchy drive.
Well, quite! People often find it easier to be aggressive than tender I guess, even in play/quasi play.
If ever I come across such a work I think I will attempt to upstage the artist and ermmm upstage a coup. I would tickle the gun with the feather and make a big speech.
"I would like to thank Marina for providing this interesting and exciting space in which we can consider human history, psychology and the future of politics and humanity. For that is the whole purpose of this wonderful work, of course.... No excuse me Sir - no you don't understand. Put that down please. You really can't do that. Thank you, now where was I?..."
:D
Your explanation is good but so much for morality then.
The part that got me about the experiment wasn't that people would do bad things when directed by authority, it was how trivial the level of authority that was required.
As for the Rhythm 0 set up, just because the "artist" said they could do anything they wanted, that doesn't mean they could. They were still subject to laws. If they physically hurt the woman, they would have gotten into trouble. What types of things did people actually do?
Milgram and Rythem 0 may show that people vary in moral reasoning development.
According to Kohlberg's stages of moral development, it makes sense that low development would result in obedience in the Milgram study, and due to the lack of constraining authority, transgression in Rythem 0.
I find the Milgram experiment chilling. Like most people, I put myself in the place of the subjects who "shocked" people when directed by the tester. Would I have done the same? I'm not sure. I'd really like to find out.
Rhythm 0 is different. The woman made herself a victim. Challenged people to dehumanize her. What would the people have done if they could really do anything they wanted with her? Maybe the important question isn't why the people did the things they did, but rather why did the others let them do it?
Actually some participants acted to protect her from the worst of it, I understand.
Well, that's a point. Maybe what they did was the partially the result of a frustrated sexual drive. If it was a guy would they have done the same thing? Were most of the perpetrators male?
I would assume most were male and that the proportion of the really bad things were done by males was even higher. It doesn't have anything to do with a frustrated sexual drive, it has to do with a lack of respect for people in general and women in particular.
For the Rhythm 0 piece, I think it has more to do with the ease in which we can regulate our empathy or make a shift in our perception from person to object. But come to think of it, isn't it a bit absurd to compare a rigorous scientific study (Milgram), to what basically amounts to an artistic stunt (Rhythm 0)? For all we know, Marina Abramovi? had people in the ready to escalate the situation if it didn't occur naturally. Artists are known to contrive publicity for profit. They're born tricksters.
I think that morality is perhaps an emergent compilation of many drives. It is these more fundamental drives that is being explored by Rhythm 0. We know morality is a natural cooperative expression as evidenced by societies around the world and that sometimes it all goes sideways.
As indicated in the video you posted earlier, Abramovic's work was performed in the 70's. Apparently it made a big splash then. In the interview you posted, which took place many years later, she seemed sincere and deeply affected by what had happened. I think her piece was misguided and maybe self-indulgent, but I assume it was honest.
I think you are probably right that juxtaposing the study and artwork doesn't make philosophical sense. The famous apples and oranges logical fallacy. Thank you for the opportunity to use the word "juxtaposing," which is one of my favorites.
Still a lot of thinking needs to be done, and the phenomena are complex, psychologically.
But the fact that the audience fled means that the audience was AWARE of doing wrong, and they still did it, despite the wrongness of it, and despite the recognition of wrongness.
There is a perpetration, a force which is not "evil" per se, but can be indistinguishable from evil if viewed as a black box effect, but which non-evil is a complex resultant vector of many causational factors, most of which we must first discover and then examine.
I strongly believe that 1. These experiments have a very rational explanation, and 2. we have not formulated those explanations, because 3. our knowledge of human nature is incomplete.
There may be, equally probably, an explanation which is a root explanation of man's cruel nature. By root explanation I mean it is not a complex behaviour, but an "atomic" behaviour pattern, which is not explained by other behaviour motivational patterns, but is by itself a very basic human response.
I've thought a fair amount about what you call teasing and I would call bullying. This isn't an original thought - I have observed that people generally bully those who have some trait, weakness, or behavior they are afraid of or ashamed of in themselves. I have found myself feeling contempt for people who make me feel that way. I can't think of any time when I actually bullied someone, but I know I've avoided them in an unsubtle way. I think some of that was probably going on in the Rhythm 0 presentation, but not in the Milgram experiment.
On a Freudian basis she broke through the societal taboos that are common to men and woman. Her work, the art, liberated the audience. It enabled them to act out their deep fantasies. Art is not moral it enlightens, it illuminates our nature as humans.
More Philosophically, the being of the work, the thing that glues society together became loose. Unlike Sartre's character sitting in the park beside the chestnut tree, who suddenly understands his connection with the being of the world, her work punches and disconnects any connection cracking our mirror, exhibiting the audience's most instinctual and profound wishes and desires, the reality.
She disconnected her body from subjectivity. She abandoned her self to the audience, who saw a body but not a corpse, something alien, more than what it presented. Its power liberated them, and enabled them to act in ways that no other art work could achieve. The beauty of the work lies in its liberation of the audience, in its ability to allow them to follow through with their fantasies.
The people fled because she became a self once more, and as such she was all fucked up, by them.
Possibly...
The one thing that strikes me the most is that when people are free to choose between a feather and a gun, their preference is for the latter and that too, as adults, fully(?) aware of the moral implications of the two objects. At the very least, Rhythm 0 implies that some form authority is necessary to control people and, paradoxically, this authority is itself designed and put there by the very people who are prone to, as you put it, ''go sideways''.
I think that's a really good explanation.
If it was me who chose the gun, the reason would be one of two fold. Firstly,I would believe the gun did not work and thus show the experiment to be false when the trigger was pressed, thus bringing the game the subject is playing with us to a conclusion. The second would be to watch closely to see if I could elicit a reaction or response from the subject who is not having one -like a child tickles someone to see if they can make them laugh. Like you I find it hard to imagine that an adult would intentionally try to kill the subject. The fact that it is a simulated environment suggests a game and games suggest solutions for the audience to solve.
So, if I understand you correctly, you see no tangible moral dimension in Marina's work? Perhaps, curiosity is a stronger drive than morality.
It's different to morality. A lack of morality might see someone approach someone defenseless on the street, grab their hand and force them put a bullet in themselves in point blank. There is no comparison.
I think a more interesting question might be what would have happened to the person if they had shot her? Would it be manslaughter or murder?
You don't get to shoot someone just to teach them a lesson. To win a game. No matter how big a potatohead they are.
Quoting MikeL
First of all, given the artists commitment to her vision, I'm pretty sure there was a live bullet in the gun. As for manslaughter vs. murder.....probably manslaughter.
If everyone knew the gun wouldn't work, it would be the first thing they would have grabbed, just to win the game. Instead, the audience is studying her. They are making value judgments about her. Is it a real gun or is it not? Is she that full on, or not? And every time the scenario escalates and she doesn't respond - far from demeaning her, she is winning points in the eyes of the viewers - a wow factor.
This is why there was a viewing audience who rushed in when the gun was chosen, because it was their value judgement that she was just serious enough to have put a live bullet into a functional gun. Do we know that the gun did work?
If you say that the charge would be manslaughter it suggests you understand the game being played.
That said, I believe there's a moral aspect to Marina's work. The Muslim world doesn't allow women to bare skin. I have a feeling that Muslim men may view rape as the woman's fault...dressing provocatively, walking alone without an escort, etc. How different is Marina from a young woman dressed in revealing clothes and walking alone in a deserted street?
I agree that there is a point of morality here. But it is not in the doing, it is in the defending. The audience begins making decisions for Marina to protect her from the ambitious nature of the game players. That's the morality- they walk the fine line of letting her express herself through this game, and taking protective steps as to how far they will let the game go.
I completely forgot about the elements in the audience who acted to protect Marina. These people counterbalance those who chose to ''harm'' Marina. So, it seems, people come in many shades and without looking at the whole, everybody, we can't get the entire picture on a situation. Thanks for the conversation