Entry 2403, on 2025-07-08 at 21:16:13 (Rating 2, Philosophy)
There has been a bit of research in the field of psychology (a subject I did an undergrad degree in) which examines people's relationship with power and authority. Some of these studies were pretty clever, and would probably not be allowed under current ethics regulations, and many revealed alarming elements of how people react in these situations.
For example, there is the famous Milgram experiment where subjects (called "teachers" in the experiment) were asked to administer electric shocks to others ("learners") if they didn't perform well in a test. There was an authority figure (the experimenter) watching this procedure and encouraging the teacher to press a button which shocked the learner with higher and higher voltages. Even when the learner pleaded with them to stop, or passed out, many teachers continued shocking them.
Of course, the person being shocked was part of the experimental team and was really just acting, and the subjects were being deceived, but that shouldn't detract from the idea that people will do things which they know are wrong if a person who appears to have authority is instructing them. Also, there is some reason to think at least some of the subjects realised there was some fakery going on, and the experiment cannot really be replicated due to modern day ethics issues, but I think it still has some relevance.
On a related subject, are you aware of the "Nuremberg Defence"? This refers to the legal defence used by many of the defendants at the Nuremberg war crimes trials after World War II, including Adolf Eichmann, who attempted to excuse their crimes by saying that they were just following orders.
In many cases, just following orders is a fair defence, because the consequences of not following them can be severe, but there are many who would carry out quite horrendous crimes when ordered to by an authority figure, even if there are no negative consequences, as indicated by the Milgram Experiment.
Other psychological research shows that many people do not want to make decisions themselves. There was another experiment done (sorry, but I can't remember the details right now) where people were given the choice of working without supervision, and were given the chance to make decisions by themselves. Many people couldn't cope with this and preferred a system where they were told what to do by a boss.
So it seems that the majority of people want to be told what to do, and will do what they are told even if they might normally think of it as a bad thing. If the person in charge is both competent and reasonable then everything is fine, but if they are not both of those things, then we usually get a bad outcome.
For example, in World War I, the trench warfare which resulted in massive casualties was largely due to the incompetence of the commanders. The troops had to do follow orders, but they were being commanded incompetently, and lacked the imagination to do much except suicidal attacks on enemy positions. In World War 2, the Russian forces were ultimately successful, but mainly because of an uncaring attitude of their commanders. They weren't necessarily incompetent, but their tactics did not pay much attention to minimising casualties in their own forces.
The two world wars are just extreme examples of failure due to poor supervision and the inability of those at the "lower levels" to refuse to do something they know is wrong. We see less consequential examples everywhere, from more junior politicians carrying out policies they know are wrong because the party leadership has told them what to do, to workers being forced to work inefficiently because of bad management.
Wouldn't it be better if everyone was free to do what they thought was morally right? Should they not have some personal autonomy in these matters? Well, as a person with libertarian tendencies, I would say yes, and I would certainly be one of those people who would prefer to be free from management, but based on that study I mentioned above, it seems like most people would not share that view.
And I can see that when people work in teams, including those in military units, there has to be some form of control of the group, and just having everyone do what they want might result in utter chaos and massive dysfunction, so it looks like this is yet another situation where some moderation is required.
So here's my compromise: keep the hierarchical systems we have now, but allow some flexibility for the "mavericks" to do their thing. Remember all those war movies where a loan hero takes out the machine gun post after his fellow soldiers have been massacred? That's where the maverick can work, but at the same time if everyone worked that way there would be no mechanism to control an action where a coordinated attack was required.
So I hope you don't think the war analogies go too far, but sometimes presenting the scenario in extremis is the easiest way to make a point. We need to allow some people to control others, but not too much. We need to value autonomy.
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