Not too long ago I came across a story on NPR about a French documentary that conducted a psychological experiment in which a reality show encouraged participants to seemingly torture subjects in order to win money. While the concept is disturbing and sounds terrible, such an experiment has actually been done before.
In the 1960s, Stanley Milgram famously conducted studies in which participants were ordered to punish individuals for answering incorrectly to questions by pushing a button that they were told would send an electric shock to the erring participant. In reality, the individual providing the wrong answers was an actor and the experiment was designed to better understand how far individuals go in complying with orders, even if they are led to believe it puts other individuals at risk of severe harm or death.
During our doctoral studies, we have learned about the Milgram Studies as an example of unethical experiments that took advantage of unknowing participants. Even in the French documentary, participants came away feeling "haunted" by the experience once they realized what had happened. At the same time, the results of the study - which were for the most part replicated by the French documentary - provide alarming considerations for the ability and willingness of humans to hurt others in order to protect or promote themselves. In the Milgram Studies, participants complied with orders despite being led to believe they were causing extreme physical harm to another individual in order to avoid being perceived as disobedient or non-compliant. Similarly, in the French documentary, participants were willing to proceed in order to appease an "overbearing" crowd and win the contest.
A quote from one of the participants piqued my interest in the article, who "wanted to stop the whole time," but "just couldn't" and "didn't have the will" to stop. The participant was confused why he acted the way he did, certain that his harmful actions go against his nature. To me, this is a fitting description of how we as fallen humans deal with our sin. While we feel that we know what is right and what we should do, we often find ourselves behaving in terrible and selfish ways that seek our own self-interests and promotion. Even when we want to give up our sinful ways, we find that, on our own, we just don't have the power to stop, and we become haunted by our sinful past.
The good news from this is that we have hope that Christ has delivered us from our slavery to sin, earning righteousness through faith in Christ's perfect redeeming sacrifice. "I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ... For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. ... Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" -- Romans 7:15, 18-20, 24-25
To read the NPR story about the French documentary and Milgram studies, click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment