Experimenter Page #4

and brought him to trial.

...to completed

the translations,

I beg to submit a translation

into the German of our number, 887.

Eichmann didn't

deny his crimes,

showed no trace of guilt

or remorse.

Said he was merely a transmitter.

"I never did anything great or small

without express instructions

from my superiors."

The cradle rocks above an

abyss and common sense tells us

that our existence is but

a brief crack of light between

two eternities of darkness.

Let me out of here!

Hey, that really hurts!

I told you,

I have a heart condition!

I will not be in

this experiment anymore!

Ow! Let me out.

Let me outta here! Let me out!

Let... me... out... of here.

I will no longer be here

Ah, hey, Stanley,

a nice day to wrap up

- the new obedience experiment.

- Yeah, yeah.

Hmm.

I should tell you about Asch.

Solomon E. Asch.

He oversaw my thesis at

Harvard, and I worked for him,

diligently and miserably,

at the Institute for Advanced Study

at Princeton.

Asch did the thing with the lines,

right?

About a dozen years ago.

The study you are taking part in

today involves the perception

of the lengths of lines.

As you can see, there are

a number of cards,

and on each card there are

several lines.

Your task is a very simple one.

You're to look at the line on

the left and determine which of

the three lines on the right

is equal to it in length.

This is a recreation

from a film I made in the 70's.

Five of the six participants are

confederates.

The single true subject

in the white T-shirt

hears everyone else's answers

before announcing his decision.

- Two.

- Two.

- Two.

- Two.

Two.

Very good. Let's move onto

the next card. Same thing, gentlemen.

- Three.

- Three.

- Three.

- Three.

After the first few

rounds, members of the group

choose the wrong line.

- Two.

- Two.

The subject denies

the evidence of his own eyes

and yields to group influence.

Two.

Very good. Thank you.

In the language of social science,

the experiment

was known as "The Effect of Group

Pressure Upon the Modification

- and Distortion of Judgments."

- Pff. Great title.

It made Asch famous...

amongst social scientists.

It always bothered me that

the experiment was about lines.

I wanted to do something

more humanly significant.

He hears the bell.

Stanley, it's so good

to see you.

- Hi. Nice to meet you.

- This is Sasha.

Sasha, how are you?

So lovely to see you. Come in.

- Stanley

- How are you?

Glad you made it.

Can we tell you what a miserable

time I had working for Asch?

Princeton, the bureaucracy,

the institutional arrogance.

Not permitted to use a scrap of

paper without it becoming

an issue to be settled behind

closed doors.

A candy bar in the office

and I was reported

via formal letter.

I assumed he'd introduce me to

the leading intellectuals of the day.

This did not happen.

I assumed that he'd acknowledge

me in the book I was researching

for him, a book on conformity.

He did not finish the book.

It was like drinking from

a glass with a false bottom.

I thought there'd be more.

I was thirsty.

Please call me Sholem,

I would prefer it.

There's no need to be so stuffy.

In an elevator? Really?

They met in an elevator.

Can someone please pacify

the dog?

Here I am,

still trying to impress him.

Human nature can be studied

but not escaped,

especially your own.

Well, I was on my way

into this party

and I could feel somebody

walking behind me

as I went into the building.

We both got onto the elevator,

and it turned out we were going

to the same floor.

And one of us said,

I don't remember which,

"Are we going to the same party?"

My fate was sealed.

He didn't leave my side

the whole night.

And he drove me home,

and it turned out we had

a lot in common.

We were both from the Bronx,

my mother was born in Russia.

So my sister's friend,

her parents in Vienna

had sent her and her brothers

to New York during the war.

But when I was over there

visiting, they had

just reclaimed their factory,

and it was a coat factory,

and that's where I got this.

So, you're a well-travelled

American girl, born in Switzerland,

who took dance lessons in Paris

and is wearing a Viennese coat?

Why haven't we met before?

Stanley, why do you feel

compelled to dwell on

the negative aspects of obedience?

Why must you focus on

its destructive potential?

Obedience isn't necessarily

an instrument of evil.

I think we can both agree,

looking at recent history,

the history that brought you

to this country,

a history in which

we see abusive power

assuming unprecedented

murderous dimensions.

Why does your experiment give me

a dirty feeling?

He didn't expect these results.

He tried to change

the conditions

so that people

would refuse to obey.

Ah.

We met in a library.

Oh, him, not him.

The whole time...

I'm sorry, this is startling.

Out of 780 subjects,

not a single person got up,

went to the door and looked in

to see if the man screaming

was all right.

Not a single one.

Sasha goes back

to school, Smith College,

for her degree in social work.

My first obedience paper

submitted almost two years ago

to the Journal of Abnormal

and Social Psychology

is finally published

in October 1963,

just after I start

a new job at Harvard,

Assistant Professor,

Department of Social Relations.

Am I impressed with myself

being at Harvard?

Well, I got my PhD here,

Harvard is the best place to be.

The subjects were seen to swear,

tremble, stutter,

bite their lips, dig their

fingernails into the flesh,

and these were characteristic

responses, not exceptions,

and yet, despite this behavior,

the majority complied.

Yes?

How do you justify

the deception?

I like to think of it as illusion,

not deception.

Semantics, you may say,

but illusion, you know,

has a revelatory function,

as in a play.

Illusion can set the stage

for revelation,

to reveal certain

difficult-to-get-at truths.

But still, when you go to see

a play, you pay for a ticket.

You know you're seeing a play.

These people didn't know

it wasn't real.

You tricked them.

Hello, today we'll be

doing an experiment about

blind obedience

to malevolent authority.

I'd like for you to pretend

that this machine is delivering

painful shocks to a person in

the other room.

How truthful do you think

that would be?

But if you think of it, really,

you were delivering shocks

to your subjects.

Psychological shocks.

- And the anxieties...

- No...

...methodically, for one year.

If your facts were

as solid as your imagination,

you'd realize that this is

a false analogy.

As Kierkegaard says,

"Take away paradox from the thinker

- and you have a professor."

- An assistant professor.

For the moment,

Dr. Milgram and myself

are only assistant professors,

it's true.

The gentleman

in the elevator now

is a Candid star.

These folks who are entering,

the man with the white shirt,

the lady with the trench coat,

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