The Push - Netflix Special on Social Compliance to Extremes

[Forever]

The Push is a Netflix Documentary where people are in a social compliance experiment if the people are chosen to commit murder.

There are other experiments such as the Milgram experiment where people are pressured to comply and hurt those behind in the other room out of sheer obedience for authority by pressing a simple button.

I watched it this morning and I am really in awe of how the experiment went from finish to end. There were 4 in total in this experiment.

Spoiler warning on result if they committed "murder" conveniently placed under spoiler tags who don't care to watch.

The guy Chris throughout the majority of the documentary does not decide to go along with the murder.
But leading up to that, he does lie about his identity, puts a dead body in the box, and then tells the board member staff what he's done.

The other 3 did though and you get to see them "push" the guy off" one lady even kicked the body 3 times in the stomach.

The body was made extremely convincing for perhaps the first time in history, a convincing fake corpse.

The show ultimately does warn about social compliance and how we as humans can easily be misled and manipulated and coerced into it. Anyone who has taken or studied social psychology, has known that peer group pressure and people following authoritative action to things that wouldn't be considered in line with their personal values and personality. (So yes you too Fi users, can be at risk for being manipulated)

Thoughts about this?

 

[Agent Washington]

People suck and everyone deserves to die, news at 11.

 

[Lyra.I]

ohhh this looks interesting, i may check it out. I actually happen to know quite a bit about the Milgram experiment, i had to make an assignment on it last semester :3 I'd say the more people are aware of just how susceptible they are to blindly following authority, the better. Because that makes them kinda less likely to do it the next time when they encounter a situation of this sort

 

[EcK]

Well, few ppl really tried the limits of their own morality, so they generally do lip service to the rules but don't have real overarching ethics. So when things conflict (like : follow the authority figure vs what should be a non aggression principle ) appeals to authority often win against an ethics that they don't really have - but rather acted like they had via social mimetism.

I mean 15% of ppl can't read a bus schedule, so how can we expect even 50% of ppl to have an actual advanced understanding of ethics or the ability to formulate their own coherent code of ethics.

It's really, ego shattering to discover our own immorality when push comes to shove, most people don't want to face that and never put themselves in situation chaotic enough so that they would have to discover this about themselves.

A somewhat imperfect but really interesting concept around that idea is Kohlberg's stages of development, most adults range from stage 2 to 4. Which is fine if you live in a society based on universal ethics with impersonal law (as western societies originally were) but becomes a real problem if these ppl are brought up in inhumane regimes (nazi germany, saudi arabia etc.)

Level 1 (Pre-Conventional)
1. Obedience and punishment orientation
(How can I avoid punishment?)

2. Self-interest orientation
(What's in it for me?)
(Paying for a benefit)

Level 2 (Conventional)

3. Interpersonal accord and conformity
(Social norms)
(The good boy/girl attitude)

4. Authority and social-order maintaining orientation
(Law and order morality)

Level 3 (Post-Conventional)

5. Social contract orientation

6. Universal ethical principles
(Principled conscience)

According to Kohlberg, many individuals never progress beyond Level II. He sees the stages of moral development as closely tied to Piaget's stages of cognitive development, and only if a person has achieved the later stages of formal operational thought is he capable of the kind of abstract thinking necessary for postconventional morality at Level III. The highest stage of moral development (Level III, stage 6) requires formulating abstract ethical principles and conforming to them to avoid self-condemnation. Kohlberg reports that less than 10 percent of his subjects over age 16 show (...) kind of "clear-principled" Stage 6 thinking (...)"

 

[Cellmold]

I might come back to this with a lot more detail.

But initially I am (to a certain level) aware of this kind of danger and I am also prescient of the fact that my personality (non-typologically) is prone to this kind of compliance. To combat this takes a great deal of personal effort and investment towards training myself to recognise it as it arises and turn that into a habit during relevent contexts.

This is right up my street in any case, thanks, I'll be giving this a look when I get a bit more time.

 

[kyuuei]

I find it an important wake up call on several points.

- People are easily manipulated. It's part of their nature. No one is immune to this. It takes a LOT of introspection, critical thinking, and active thought exercises to push yourself even somewhat outside of this. There is nothing easier than lying to another human being. It takes effort to protect yourself against the lies and manipulation of the world--from totally harmless lies like telling some kid that drawing looks great even if you don't think so but it is objectively great for them, to seemingly harmless lies like infomercials for products that don't work like they say, to the insidious David Avocado Wolfe style where a simple funny meme can turn into manipulations of fearmongering and deception to sell products and seminars and force people to change their entire lives. We all manipulate those around us.. Some for the good and some not so much. It is part of humanity, for the good or ugly of it.

- People aren't inherently evil or bad people because they were manipulated--but they are weak. The people doing the shock-em-til-they-die experiments are not bad people... they just aren't strong willed ones. That + the point above is a recipe for disaster. This accounts for much of society actually. It's why the bystander effect is such a thing.

- If you think you are immune to this, you're dead fucking wrong. Maybe you wouldn't shock someone to death--but if you can think of one single time in your life where someone manipulated you, or your emotions, to get their ends met, you can easily see you are not immune. It's REALLY easy to say "I'd just stand up and say NO!" and, with the sweep of your hand holding a get-out-of-humanity-free monopoly card, dismiss everyone as bunch of jerkwads. It is a whole other thing to be there dealing with it. Any maybe you are that rare bird that instinctively knows just the right things to say or do in the moment.. but if you've ever thought of the witty comeback AFTER the moment has passed, you too are subjected to only truly knowing what is going on with time.

- Know where you stand with issues--any issues. With others, people, life... think about it. Assess yourself and what you know and where you are, and go actively seaching for information.. It is within these exercises that we learn what we are truly capable of doing.

 

[Lyra.I]

A somewhat imperfect but really interesting concept around that idea is Kohlberg's stages of development, most adults range from stage 2 to 4. Which is fine if you live in a society based on universal ethics with impersonal law (as western societies originally were) but becomes a real problem if these ppl are brought up in inhumane regimes (nazi germany, saudi arabia etc.)

Level 1 (Pre-Conventional)
1. Obedience and punishment orientation
(How can I avoid punishment?)

2. Self-interest orientation
(What's in it for me?)
(Paying for a benefit)

Level 2 (Conventional)

3. Interpersonal accord and conformity
(Social norms)
(The good boy/girl attitude)

4. Authority and social-order maintaining orientation
(Law and order morality)

Level 3 (Post-Conventional)

5. Social contract orientation

6. Universal ethical principles
(Principled conscience)

According to Kohlberg, many individuals never progress beyond Level II. He sees the stages of moral development as closely tied to Piaget's stages of cognitive development, and only if a person has achieved the later stages of formal operational thought is he capable of the kind of abstract thinking necessary for postconventional morality at Level III. The highest stage of moral development (Level III, stage 6) requires formulating abstract ethical principles and conforming to them to avoid self-condemnation. Kohlberg reports that less than 10 percent of his subjects over age 16 show (...) kind of "clear-principled" Stage 6 thinking (...)"

Wow we really need to be more introspective as a society *-* This is kind of surprising because being clear on my values and sense of morality is so important to me.

i read up a bit on the levels and there's some things under stage 6 that i particularly relate to a LOT-
{ "Right is defined by the decision of conscience in accord with self-chosen ethical principles appealing to logical comprehensiveness, universality and consistency. These principles are abstract and ethical (the golden rule) and are not concrete moral rules like the Ten Commandments. At heart, these are universal principles of justice, of the reciprocity and equality of human rights, and of respect for the dignity of human beings as individual persons."
The Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." }

It's really simple, a lot of people may think of it as a given but not many have internalized it enough to really apply it in their lives. I guess this approach can be vulnerable to the differences in how each individual subjectively sees things, considering there can't really be objective morality. Though we can still get somewhat close to achieving an objective right/wrong for ourselves anyway, if we set a base line to jump off from, like seeing general well-being as a priority. Like for me, it is "nothing is wrong as long as you don't hurt someone or rob them of their integrity" which of course has it's exceptions depending on situational nuances, adding much more to the "wrong" list (like robbing someone literally lol) but it provides a good outline still.

 

[EcK]

Wow we really need to be more introspective as a society *-* This is kind of surprising because being clear on my values and sense of morality is so important to me.

i read up a bit on the levels and there's some things under stage 6 that i particularly relate to a LOT-
{ "Right is defined by the decision of conscience in accord with self-chosen ethical principles appealing to logical comprehensiveness, universality and consistency. These principles are abstract and ethical (the golden rule) and are not concrete moral rules like the Ten Commandments. At heart, these are universal principles of justice, of the reciprocity and equality of human rights, and of respect for the dignity of human beings as individual persons."
The Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." }

It's really simple, a lot of people may think of it as a given but not many have internalized it enough to really apply it in their lives. I guess this approach can be vulnerable to the differences in how each individual subjectively sees things, considering there can't really be objective morality. Though we can still get somewhat close to achieving an objective right/wrong for ourselves anyway, if we set a base line to jump off from, like seeing general well-being as a priority. Like for me, it is "nothing is wrong as long as you don't hurt someone or rob them of their integrity" which of course has it's exceptions depending on situational nuances, adding much more to the "wrong" list (like robbing someone literally lol) but it provides a good outline still.

Well that's the thing, western societies like the USA were at the root - I think - stage 4 societies set up based on stage 5 and 6 morals.
So this type of society will tend to help 'drag up' ppl who would tend to fall into stage 2 into stage 3 etc.

Now the issue with that is that lots of ppl will essentially 'parrot' these universal ethics without understanding them. ie: "we shouldn't hurt others without cause" - why ? - "because.. feelings" - this type of miscaracterization of universal ethics code can quickly degenerate into "he hurt my feelings so I can hurt him physically" or "We can go hurt these ppl because we don't agree with them".
Which explains why many ppl who seem at the surface level to aspire to universal ethics in fact don't. The universal principle is a cultural 'skin deep layer' while their actual moral drives are at an often much lower stage (usually stage 2-3 probably for SJW types)

now to be fair kolhberg's stages are not perfect, the reality is that a stage is more like 'your default / dominant ethical drive behind your actions' rather than something ppl will always consistently do as we have other drives / needs etc. So even a stage 6 individual will tend to have issue applying stage 6 morality in situation where say his children's lives are at risk.

I'm a solid stage 6 as an adult - for example - and were at stage 5 during my teenage years. but if you told me 'let 2 kids die or save your own child' I would still save my own child. So there are other factors influencing this type of moral decisions. of course.
Now the trick is that ppl don't generally understand what universal ethics is , any child can come up with 'ppl shouldn't be hungry' - so it's a better term to say 'universalizable ethics'.

ie : to give a simple example anyone would agree with - murder canno't be a universalisable code of ethics. because if ppl thought murder was a good, it wouldn't be murder. Just like if you think theft is something positive, it would be voluntary, theft by definition cannot be voluntary. So universal code of ethics are the ones that are universalisably applicable without being self defeating.

 

[Agent Washington]

Well, few ppl really tried the limits of their own morality, so they generally do lip service to the rules but don't have real overarching ethics. So when things conflict (like : follow the authority figure vs what should be a non aggression principle ) appeals to authority often win against an ethics that they don't really have - but rather acted like they had via social mimetism.

I mean 15% of ppl can't read a bus schedule, so how can we expect even 50% of ppl to have an actual advanced understanding of ethics or the ability to formulate their own coherent code of ethics.

It's really, ego shattering to discover our own immorality when push comes to shove, most people don't want to face that and never put themselves in situation chaotic enough so that they would have to discover this about themselves.

A somewhat imperfect but really interesting concept around that idea is Kohlberg's stages of development, most adults range from stage 2 to 4. Which is fine if you live in a society based on universal ethics with impersonal law (as western societies originally were) but becomes a real problem if these ppl are brought up in inhumane regimes (nazi germany, saudi arabia etc.)

Level 1 (Pre-Conventional)
1. Obedience and punishment orientation
(How can I avoid punishment?)

2. Self-interest orientation
(What's in it for me?)
(Paying for a benefit)

Level 2 (Conventional)

3. Interpersonal accord and conformity
(Social norms)
(The good boy/girl attitude)

4. Authority and social-order maintaining orientation
(Law and order morality)

Level 3 (Post-Conventional)

5. Social contract orientation

6. Universal ethical principles
(Principled conscience)

What would be the minimum stage of development that would be required for ppl to not push the button?

 

[Agent Washington]

It's REALLY easy to say "I'd just stand up and say NO!" and, with the sweep of your hand holding a get-out-of-humanity-free monopoly card, dismiss everyone as bunch of jerkwads.

I'm just going to quote this one because the rest are quite on point, but I don't care to differentiate between 'weak' and 'bad', when the end results are the same. Is this part about be, because of what I specifically wrote earlier in the thread?

 

[EcK]

What would be the minimum stage of development that would be required for ppl to not push the button?

What do u mean 'the minimum' ? The minimum is obv. stage 1. If you mean minimum 'on average' I'd say stage 5.

ie: it probably would look like this

• an overwhelming majority of level 1 would have pushed the button
• a majority of level 2 would have pushed the button
• a majority of level 3 stage 5 would not have pushed the button,
• an overwhelming majority of level 3 stage 6 would not have pushed the button.

Well I suspect anyone who didn't already know about that experiment and between level 2 and 4 would have been very likely to push the button, except maybe if they were naturally extremely high in agreableness. But the high agreableness ppl would still push it if u dehumanize the subject enough. Agreableness / empathy has a dark side, which is brutality against those that are perceived as defenceless (children, migrants, minorities...)

 

[Agent Washington]

What do u mean 'the minimum' ? The minimum is obv. stage 1.

Well I suspect anyone who didn't already know about that experiment and between level 2 and 4 would have pushed the button, except maybe if they were naturally extremely high in agreableness. But the high agreableness ppl would still push it if u dehumanize them enough. Agreableness / empathy has a dark side, which is brutality against those that are perceived as defenceless (children, migrants, minorities...)

Hmmm
You mean stages 2-4? Becoz the quote you made was Levels 1-3, Stages ... 1-6, so just clarifying
Hmmm what specifically is social contract orientation? Is it like rousseau's social contract where a person enters into morals based on social contract as agreed by the society so as to minilize personal loss from going into a wild state?

 

[EcK]

Hmmm
You mean stages 2-4? Becoz the quote you made was Levels 1-3, Stages ... 1-6, so just clarifying
Hmmm what specifically is social contract orientation? Is it like rousseau's social contract where a person enters into morals based on social contract as agreed by the society so as to minilize personal loss from going into a wild state?

I've edited my previous post to clarify my thought

here is the edited parts

If you mean minimum 'on average' I'd say stage 5.

ie: it probably would look like this

• an overwhelming majority of level 1 (stage 1 & 2) would have pushed the button
• a majority of level 2 (stage 3 & 4) would have pushed the button
• a majority of level 3 stage 5 would not have pushed the button,
• an overwhelming majority of level 3 stage 6 would not have pushed the button.

 

[EcK]

Hmmm
You mean stages 2-4? Becoz the quote you made was Levels 1-3, Stages ... 1-6, so just clarifying
Hmmm what specifically is social contract orientation? Is it like rousseau's social contract where a person enters into morals based on social contract as agreed by the society so as to minilize personal loss from going into a wild state?

Rousseau was a higly immoral man who preached about things he didn't act by.
He had no moral understanding what so ever.

The idea of the 'noble save' is silly and even back then baseless. The 'noble savage' societies they were encountering had huge murder rates etc. They would only look 'noble' to someone who's read romantized novels and drawings.
The man gave up his children for adoption and wrote a book about how to raise children, he was a small, detestable, evil man whose main drive in life was self agrandizement. (just read his self descriptions, where he spends pages going on about how smart and good looking he was despite neither being the case)

 

[Lyra.I]

Well that's the thing, western societies like the USA were at the root - I think - stage 4 societies set up based on stage 5 and 6 morals.
So this type of society will tend to help 'drag up' ppl who would tend to fall into stage 2 into stage 3 etc.

Now the issue with that is that lots of ppl will essentially 'parrot' these universal ethics without understanding them. ie: "we shouldn't hurt others without cause" - why ? - "because.. feelings" - this type of miscaracterization of universal ethics code can quickly degenerate into "he hurt my feelings so I can hurt him physically" or "We can go hurt these ppl because we don't agree with them".
Which explains why many ppl who seem at the surface level to aspire to universal ethics in fact don't. The universal principle is a cultural 'skin deep layer' while their actual moral drives are at an often much lower stage (usually stage 2-3 probably for SJW types)

now to be fair kolhberg's stages are not perfect, the reality is that a stage is more like 'your default / dominant ethical drive behind your actions' rather than something ppl will always consistently do as we have other drives / needs etc. So even a stage 6 individual will tend to have issue applying stage 6 morality in situation where say his children's lives are at risk.

I'm a solid stage 6 - for example - but if you told me 'let 2 kids die or save your own child' I would still save my own child. So there are other factors influencing this type of moral decisions. of course.

This makes a whole lot of sense. I think a big problem is that people don't try to see things from the other person's perspective, especially in difficult situations and when they're the ones who got hurt. That is ALL you have to do really, jeez. Having some understanding of where the opposing person, as a human being and an individual, may be coming from can get rid of so much unnecessary hate. The why behind things is so important and it often gets lost amidst people trying to superficially uphold established societal values and winning arguments to prove how right they are. I separated myself from that plane of social functioning when i was much younger because i've always questioned the existing rules we're taught to live by and realized how faulty they can be. When deciding on if something is right/wrong, all we really need to do is shake off all the external norms we've been dumped on by society, and judge for ourselves on a universally humane level, is this okay for me/someone else to do? and WHY.

 

[Agent Washington]

I've edited my previous post to clarify my thought

here is the edited parts

If you mean minimum 'on average' I'd say stage 5.

ie: it probably would look like this
an overwhelming majority of level 1 would have pushed the button
a majority of level 2 would have pushed the button
a majority of level 3 stage 5 would not have pushed the button,
an overwhelming majority of level 3 stage 6 would not have pushed the button.

yeah i just saw, thanks
for the record i kinda ... hmm agree with what you said about the big five attribute /agreeableness, but from the perspective of in-/out group based on 'on killing', the psychological mechanics utilised in military to make ppl kill. just throwing this out here in case u r interested.

 

[Peter Deadpan]

This is kewl. I'll watch it and come back.

 

[Agent Washington]

Rousseau was a higly immoral man who preached about things he didn't act by.
He had no moral understanding what so ever.

The idea of the 'noble save' is silly and even back then baseless. The 'noble savage' societies they were encountering had huge murder rates etc. They would only look 'noble' to someone who's read romantized novels and drawings.
The man gave up his children for adoption and wrote a book about how to raise children, he was a small, detestable, evil man whose main drive in life was self agrandizement. (just read his self descriptions, where he spends pages going on about how smart and good looking he was despite neither being the case)

sdfjhsj i meant the book, 'the social contract'
to be frank i don't know about both rousseau or his book in specific detail, i was just trying to clarify what kohlberg meant by 'social contract stage 5'

 

[EcK]

sdfjhsj i meant the book, 'the social contract'
to be frank i don't know about both rousseau or his book in specific detail, i was just trying to clarify what kohlberg meant by 'social contract stage 5'

Rousseau is despicable. Just read his stuff and make up your own mind, after reading about his actual life and what he did. As far as I'm concerned he deserves nothing but contempt and should never have been considered as one 'of the great'.

 

[Agent Washington]

Rousseau is despicable. Just read his stuff and make up your own mind, after reading about his actual life and what he did. As far as I'm concerned he deserves nothing but contempt and should never have been consired as one 'of the great'.

I'm not really personally emotionally invested in rousseau, it's just that he's very influential, and people refer to his work a lot.