[Discombulator]

What I always find interesting is how Milgram’s experiments are put into context (“explained away” might be more apt) by various authors. Anecdotally, no one seems to be open to accept the conclusions of the experiments, just like in the article. When this topic was brought up at some point in school, I remember my teacher prefacing it with the experiments not having been replicated elsewhere (which they actually have been).

I cannot comment on the specific point raised here, it’s been a while since I read Milgram’s book, but I remember that many different experimental conditions have been tested, and I don’t think that picking out a single one of them and reinterpreting some minute aspect changes the overall significance.

Moreover, if you’re in the sorry situation of being on the receiving end of some punishment ordered by an authority figure, like the “learner” in the experiment, does it really matter that whoever doles out the punishment, does so not because of an explicit order but because he is being coaxed in various ways to obey?

One key point of the experiments is that the overseer has no formal authority over the teacher at all, and the fact that a lab coat and some easy psychological conditioning steps are sufficient to make over half of the population obey should give anyone food for thought.

Skipping a few steps of thought here, but my conclusion is that we are all being groomed to obey authority figures – the “con” aspect is not decoupled from that; it is one of many mechanisms that are used to exert control. What Milgram showed is a practical consequence of that process.