phenomenology: July 2008 Archives

Heavy talk with friends, lately - about the ethos of the age being caught up in urgency and crisis, possibly such that we fail to recognize the sweep of history and our complicity with trends we would ethically not choose if we were aware of the relation between our immediate, daily lives and how the simple things we do, moment-by-moment, actually compose larger historical trends.

The NYTimes published a piece on the infamous Milgram Experiments (social psychology) earlier this month, posing the question: would you pull that switch? The article details some new findings that help to understand both the context (why were - and are :-/ - so many people willing to cause pain to others?) and the range of individual reasons for responding to the context as they actually did.

Contextually, subjects were disoriented by the unfamiliarity of the situation, and they were rushed - put under time pressure. The combination of uncertainty and urgency resulted in disorientation - with its obvious (if undetermined) influence on decision-making. This may be a stretch, but it brings to mind some audience reactions to "The Dark Knight" last night, in which people laughed at moments that seemed produced to disturb, while missing designed moments of humor. It struck me as a delayed reaction caused (possibly) by the frenetic pace of volatile action. Similar dynamics occur in interpersonal interactions too, for instance, when people laugh upon hearing awful news - a miscued reaction because of the awkwardness of the situation.

So, there is the matter of complicity - a rather unconscious going-along-with the zeitgeist (or, for some, a conscious embrace of the spirit of the times - for all kinds of reasons), and then there is the matter of compliance. Expressions of pain, per se, were not usually conclusive in convincing switch-pullers to stop. This is what is used to illustrate that the obedience factor is such a deep component of human behavior, and - more subtly - "demonstrate[s] individual differences in perceptions of accountability." (In my imagination, it is not hard to extend this to all the ways in which we - the relatively privileged - turn away from the cries of the relatively un/underprivileged. Pain - especially that of others - is insufficient as a motivator.)

However, "the demand by the subject to stop [is now identified] as the turning point." People who disregarded this were going to continue, no matter what - their conception of authority/authorization/responsibility/accountability simply ended at the "fact" of the social scientific structure. Those who did stop - whether sooner or later - exercised some personal judgment, "decid[ing] that the learner's right to stop trumped the experimenter's right to continue."

The phrasing of this interests me, particularly in my professional role as teacher, and even more specifically as a teacher interested in cultivating critical thinking skills, using non-standard pedagogies and experimenting with the boundaries of student expectations concerning what a college class is supposed to be. There is power in this position, and I use it - intentionally, deliberately, yet - I hope - with compassion for how challenging it is to have the common or usual disrupted in service of a goal that can only be presented in amorphous and ambiguous terms.

Related information at "Psychologists find a way to replicate Milgram's classic obedience experiment."

Mike said that, talking (to himself?!) as he entertained a couple of neighborhood girls by trying to figure out one of their toys.

Yesterday was full of tugs. I spent the afternoon and evening enjoyably, after taking a much longer time than usual to blog (and cook! shhhhhhh). Being on the periphery of two kidnappings with happy endings left me full of vicarious emotion. For the last three days I have been feeling a bit de-centered, as if there's "a disturbance in The Force" (!), or - as the new roomie said, I am "out of alignment" with myself. My thinking is slow, difficult; my self-consciousness heightened. I speculate that I'm experiencing fallout from being (now) in a timespace different than expected (on land rather than still at sea), or the process of absorbing recent life lessons, or the malaise that lingers from old wounds . . .

I know I don't have the jazzy hectoring tone considered most successful in writing on/for the web. The thing is, I don't want to play into that collusively heeyyy cowboy insider attitude that Jack Shaffer promotes. Yet, I appreciate that friends do (sometimes, smile) actually read the blog and (rarer still, hence precious) give me feedback on my writing. Building "indexes" over the past few days must have put me in a summative mood, because I carried that mode into writing about Alf's freedom instead of just blogging the moment. Perhaps I'm feeling it more necessary than usual to justify my existence (I got flamed!), to explain the reasons for my choices, or otherwise try to articulate how I perceive things going together? I am also prepping to teach, and I never (ever!) stop learning.

Even though I'll probably never capture the tone of our times, my mind resonated with resemblances to another angle of Caleb Crain's reflections on online literary style. In particular, he writes (and I insert comments):

I've kept a blog for several years (ditto), and although its readership is tiny (mine too), I of course notice when the hits rise and fall. (I should pay more attention!) I seem to get more readers when I post frequently, when I write about people or topics in the headlines, when I have been drawn into a conflict, and when I write something that speaks to a self-image that a group of people share. (Hmmm, it would be interesting to know if any such patterns are evident here in Reflexivity.) Over the years I've gradually revealed more personal details (we differ in this); I still reveal very little, comparatively, but enough to entitle me to say that I feel a tug there, too. Perhaps the tugs that I feel are a better data source, come to think of it, than my blog's underemployed hit counter. If I were to interpret those tugs, I would say that writing on the internet tends to be more popular when it satisfies the reader's wish to be connected--the wish not to miss out.

Funny - is Crain suggesting an internal (his own) or external (from others) tug to reveal more? Where (with whom) does the wish to be connected originate, and can it be cultivated as a social/relational force for institutional/historical change?

Only if we act on those wishes. :-)