[malmsteen]

I've never understood how the classic interpretation of milgram that "people can become monster under authority" were remotely relevant.

"hurting other people" is just a natural tendency inside at least a large proportion if not all humans. That's why we've had so many wars in the history, bullys at school and abuse in generally ANY UNREGULATED ENVIRONEMENT (chrisitan schools in the 50s in france for example, prisons and in some way even the weinstein compagny). That's also why a lot of us love watching MMA, boxing, and why many people love, even secretly because society doesn't acknowledge this feeling, going at war [1].

We can argue all day whether it stems from a domination instinct, a fear of our own weakness or how this instincs have to be channeled into a more constructive force / healthy contribution for society but the point is that this instinct exists... probably in most persons.

At some point i suspect most participants in milgram experiment switched from the "this is horrible" voice in their head to the "my feelings tells me it's not horrible I feel in power it's cool I almost like it plus there's authority so i wont get punished so it's fine". It's not so much of a big deal.

[1] https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a28718/why-men-lo...

[whytaka]

> I've never understood how the classic interpretation of milgram that "people can become monster under authority" were remotely relevant.

> "hurting other people" is just a natural tendency inside at least a large proportion if not all humans.

Many societies convince themselves that they are civilized and others are not.

[projektir]

Claiming that people love war seems like a pretty dangerous statement to me without some very solid study. There's a lot going on there, most notably, trauma. People who went to war are not necessarily the people who come back.

[dsego]

Why is it dangerous? You explain nothing.

[projektir]

Wait, I really have to explain why an incorrect gender-based generalization could be dangerous? How about the conclusions the person I'm responding to arrived at.

It's one thing to describe the experiences of soldiers returning from Vietnam, because that is valuable information. It's another to interpret it and make conclusions when there are 50 other valid explanations.

"People/men like war/aggression/risk" is honestly not a new concept, and it's seems pretty correct on the surface, especially when you cut out the whole part of your comrade slowly dying due to a stray shell. This is the glorification of war that books like Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse Five were written against.

Most incorrect claims are dangerous, and the reasons are not always all enumerable since you often can't see the problem when you think a false thing is true. I.e., if you already think women are hysterical, treating them as hysterical doesn't seem like an issue because, well, they're hysterical.

[malmsteen]

Late answer: your answer is quite level-headed I think.

I would say that first that I never said anything about gender-specific, or if i did it was a mistake.. My point is that every human (men or women) has a potential of violence that can be unleashed in many situations. This potential is the kind of thing that look "unnatural" "scary" or "bad" when you see it and don't feel it but feel naturalyou experience it.

Granted there's not many data / source in my answer. My point is just that I feel a bit weird when I see a lot of articles like this who talk about violence being an "unnatural" tendency of the humans when I think it is a very natural tendency (which we constantly try to make disappear in our peaceful societies, which is why it might look unnatural nowadays.).