the dilemma of obedience

From the very beginning, human is a highly socialized species. From tribes to cities and states, socialized organization become increasingly sophisticated. Like any socialized life like bees or wolves, human get an edge to survive on earth from this feature of highly socialization that is still driving the development of human civilization.

Human live by customs as socialized animals live by rules. A society always shows some kind of division of labor which is considered as the driving force of human evolution and also the foundation of classic economics. Apparently human benefit a lot from society by playing a role in it. However, sometimes human do enormous harm to others by doing the same thing. Numerous notorious genocides in human history are the most noticeable evidences for this case.

A few decades ago the famous Milgram experiment was conducted as an attempt to shed light on this sort of humanity disasters. It shows that a majority of people tend to inflict distress to any extent on others when they are forced to by an authority. It seems that the blind obedience of the majority to the authority is the culprit, because when people do something against his conscience, the blame can be shifted from the individual to the authority so that the individual feels less guilt than he should. And when the number of people getting involved reaches a threshold, herding mentality comes into play, which reinforce the power of authority. And finally a catastrophe is inevitable. This is a psychological explanation of why moral individuals constitute immoral society.

As long as the society exists, the authority, more or less exists. If the authority is doing the right thing, it is a fortune. Otherwise, the harm is beyond anyone's imagination. So what we can do to prevent it? Social psychology give us a special lens to peer into the human nature and give us some clue to figure out a preemptive solution. The key is to limit any forms of authority to develop rampantly. This is where check and balance comes in.

It seems ridiculous that we are battling against our innate nature. But it is the truth. We must employ our reason to won this battle. And there is no way to escape.