Disturbing Quotes about Social Psychology – hat-tip Henry Chaussovsky

“The worst problem of all in any society is that the majority of human beings are 

sheeplike in their obedience and conformity to authority, even when they are 

instructed to commit acts that go against their real values and beliefs.” 

Israel W. Charny, How Can We Commit The Unthinkable? 

In the last few years, the majority of people complied with commands issued by authority figures which destroyed businesses 

and careers, regimented society, separated loved ones and families, wreaked havoc on the economy, pitted individuals 

against one another, heightened levels of stress and fear, and robbed us of irreplaceable time. What can account for this 

sheeplike obedience to authority? In this video, we are going to explore this question.   

In the mid 20th century, the social psychologist Stanley Milgram asked a sample of Americans how they would respond if 

commanded by an authority figure to perform an action that would harm another. The overwhelming majority answered that 

they would disobey, and furthermore, predicted that on average only 2% of human beings would comply with the command. 

Most people, do not see themselves, or others, as sheeplike in their obedience to authority. Milgram put this idea to the test.  

He constructed an experiment involving a “teacher” and a “learner”. The teacher was the test subject of the experiment, while 

the learner was a paid actor who was in on the experiment. The scientist directing the experiment, the authority figure, 

instructed the teacher to ask the learner a series of questions, and each time the learner gave an incorrect answer to push a 

button that would administer an electric shock of increasingly higher voltage to the learner. The shocks were fake, but the 

actor responded as if they were real and would cry out in pain, beg for mercy, pound his fists against the wall, and eventually 

mock unconsciousness. The conclusions of the experiment stunned Milgram. Although people like to think they would 

disobey commands from authority figures that conflict with their conscience, according to Milgram’s experiment 

approximately two-thirds of participants “fall into the category of “obedient” subjects” (Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority). 

They had the ability to stop the experiment at any point in time, yet they continued to comply with the requests of the 

authority figure and administer shocks to the “learner” at the highest possible voltage level.  

“The results, as seen and felt in the laboratory, are to this author disturbing. They 

raise the possibility that human nature…cannot be counted on to insulate its 

citizens from brutality and inhumane treatment at the direction of malevolent 

authority. A substantial proportion of people do what they are told to do, 

irrespective of the content of the act and without limitations of conscience, so long 

as they perceive that the command comes from a legitimate authority.” 

Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority 

Historical events of the 20 th  century provide ample evidence to support the conclusions of Milgram’s experiment, as death and 

suffering on an unimaginable scale was the consequence of widespread obedience to the commands of totalitarian 

governments. In reflecting on what needed to happen to the German people in order for them to comply with the commands 

of the Nazi government, George Victor wrote:  

“Unfortunately, nothing needed to happen. In nations across the world, people 

accept government crime.” 

George Victor, Hitler: The Pathology of Evil 

  

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Or as CP Snow observed:  

“…more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have 

ever been committed in the name of rebellion. ”   

C.P. Snow, Public Affairs 

What can account for this obedience to authority displayed by the majority of people? A childlike ignorance regarding the 

dark side of human nature is one factor. For many people naively believe that authority figures, solely because they are in 

positions of authority, are to be trusted, and ultimately have the best interests of the public at heart. They do not consider 

that authority figures can become possessed by destructive ideas, delusional beliefs, or anti-human ideologies. Nor do they 

consider the fact that those in positions of authority are corruptible by power and money and can be swayed to sacrifice the 

truth and human flourishing for the sake of self-serving ends.  

In the politically corrupt societies of the 20th century, such as the Soviet Union and Germany, doctors were participants in 

crimes against humanity, psychiatrists diagnosed as mentally ill and locked away those who opposed the regime, while 

politicians, professors, lawyers, physicians, scientists, and countless other so-called authority figures, adopted lying and 

dissimulation as a means of maintaining their livelihood or advancing their careers. Regarding communist Czechoslovakia, a 

society built on lies, Vaclav Havel observed:  

“For fear of losing his job, the schoolteacher teaches things he does not 

believe;…Fear of being prevented from continuing their work leads many scientists 

to give allegiance to ideas they do not in fact accept, to write things they do not 

agree with or know to be false, to join official organizations or to take part in work 

of whose value they have the lowest opinion, or to distort and mutilate their own 

works.”  

Václav Havel, The Power of the Powerless 

What is more, true believers in authority turn a blind eye to the idea that some authority figures in the modern day possess 

one – or all – of the dark triad traits of machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy. The world’s leading expert on 

psychopathy, Robert Hare, called psychopaths in positions of authority “snakes in suits”, and warned that what makes such 

individuals especially dangerous is their remarkable capacity to manipulate and deceive others into believing they are 

motivated by benevolent ends.  

“…psychopaths come from all walks of life; many of them are successful 

psychopaths…These are people who have the ability and the skill to remain out of 

the criminal justice system…Unfortunately, these psychopaths can be found in 

positions of power in the corporate world or in elected office.”  

Sheldon Itzkowitz, Psychopathy and Human Evil 

Or as the clinical psychologist George Simon writes:  

“Most folks find it unimaginable that some people are simply not “normal.” That’s 

why psychopaths are able to prey on the unsuspecting so effectively. Their victims 

dupe themselves with their inability to accept that the predators they’ve been 

  

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dealing with are heartless and devoid of normal human empathy….[Psychopaths] 

can do others great harm with absolutely no compunction. Those who fail to 

recognize this are extremely vulnerable.”  

George Simon, Character Disturbance: The Phenomenon of Our Age 

A naive and childlike trust in authority, widespread though it is, is not the sole factor that can account for the proclivity of 

most people to blindly obey commands of authority figures. For we must also consider the fact that a segment of the 

population derives feelings of pleasure and power from obeying and enforcing rules, regulations, and mandates that restrict 

freedom and beget suffering.  

“To see others suffer does one good, to make others suffer even more: this is a 

hard saying but an ancient, mighty, human, all-too-human principle which even the 

apes might subscribe; for it has been said that in devising bizarre cruelties they 

anticipate man and are, as it were his “prelude.”” 

Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality 

People who derive feelings of pleasure and power from obeying commands that harm others are the little unofficial street 

tyrants who carry out the immoral or criminal commands that come from the big political tyrants. They are the people one 

encounters in public who go out of their way to control and micromanage others and ensure everyone is following the rules – 

especially when such rules are backed with righteous sounding ideological justifications and easily repeatable slogans that 

are incessantly drummed into their minds by politicians and the media.  

“…the citizen…may be able to fulfill some of his irrational, instinctual needs in 

return for his submission to totalitarian slavery…He may live out in action his 

deeply repressed aggressions and desires for revenge…The system assumes the full 

burden of his guilt and hands him a ready-made list of thousands of justifications 

and exculpations for the release of his sadistic impulses. Flowery catchwords…help 

the individual to rationalize immorality and evil into morality and good.”  

Joost Meerloo, The Rape of the Mind 

However, not all the obedient derive feelings of pleasure and power from seeing, or making, others suffer. Rather, the blind 

obedience of many today is also a function of being raised in environments that reward compliance and conformity and 

strictly punish any form of critical thinking or independence. Many people grow up with controlling parents and attend public 

schools which, in the words of the former New York City teacher of the year John Taylor Gatto, “don’t really teach anything 

except how to obey orders”, and as a result, they develop what the clinical psychologist Edith Parker called a “dependent 

personality”. Never having experienced the values and virtues that spontaneously flow from conditions of freedom, such 

people erroneously believe that for society to function it must be tightly controlled by political authorities, and that any 

display of disobedience is a threat to the fabric of society that must be punished.   

In his book Fear No Evil, Natan Sharansky described the mindset of the dependent and obedient citizens of the Soviet Union, 

who functioned as the foundation of the totalitarian regime.  

“The authorities were the law, and the system knew best. And if, in this framework, 

the individual was left with some fragments of freedom, he ought to be grateful to 

  

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the leaders of the land and not make further demands. I soon came to understand 

that this mentality constituted the real power of the regime…The state was 

maintained not by tanks and missiles, or even by camps and prisons. These were 

necessary, of course, but only for strengthening the real base of the regime—the 

consciousness of the slave who looks for guidance to the good czar, the leader, the 

teacher.”   

Natan Sharansky, Fear No Evil 

One final factor that can account for the obedience that is so widespread today is cowardice. Some people are skeptical of 

authority figures, capable of critical thinking and independent judgment, and thus able to sense when authority figures are 

lying or acting immorally; yet their noncompliance in thought is betrayed by their obedience in action. They are too afraid of 

the consequence of acting in defiance of authority figures, too self-conscious of what others will think of them, and so they 

choose the path of least resistance by blending in with the blindly obedient herd. This type of obedience is the most 

inexcusable; for as history has shown time and time again, tyranny rides in on the backs of those who can see that evil is 

afoot, but do not speak or act against it. And in reflecting on the role which cowardice played in his obedience experiments, 

Stanley Milgram left us with the following warning:  

“Some subjects were totally convinced of the wrongness of what they were doing but 

could not bring themselves to make an open break with authority. Some derived 

satisfaction from their thoughts and felt that – within themselves, at least – they had 

been on the side of the angels. What they failed to realize is that subjective feelings are 

largely irrelevant to the moral issue at hand so long as they are not transformed into 

action…Tyrannies are perpetuated by diffident men who do not possess the courage to 

act out their beliefs.”  

Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority