In the aftermath of WWII people began to ask how
the perpetrators of atrocities such as those who ran the Nazi death camps were
not restrained by conscience.
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| Nazis shooting Jews |
One explanation put forward was the “Germans are different”
hypothesis. This suggested that Hitler was only able to put his evil plans into
operation because Germans had a basic character defect which meant they tended
to obey orders without question, regardless of the acts demanded of them.
For the purposes of psychological research, obedience is
defined as doing what one is told to do by someone else. In real life, this
usually works in conjunction with conformity where the example of others and
social pressure also drive behaviour.
Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, set out
to test the “Germans are different” hypothesis. He set up an experiment in
which subjects were told that they were studying the effects of punishment on
learning.
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| The "learner" is connected to the electrodes |
When the subjects were taken into the experimental situation
they were met by a man in a laboratory coat who introduced himself as Jack
Williams, the experimenter. Also present was a Mr Wallace, supposedly another
subject, in his late fifties, an accountant.
The subject and Mr Wallace were told that for the purpose of
the experiment one of them would be the teacher and the other the learner.
Their roles were determined by drawing pieces of paper from a hat. In fact both
pieces had “teacher” written on them. Mr Wallace (actually an accomplice of
Milgram) always went first and called out “learner” so the true subject was
always the teacher.
They all went into an adjoining room where the learner (Mr
Wallace) was strapped into a chair with his arms attached to electrodes which
would deliver a shock from a shock generator situated in an adjacent room. The
subject (teacher) was given a 45 volt shock to convince him that the voltage
was real.
The machine had the appearance of being able to deliver a
range of shocks from “slight” (15-60 volts) all the way to “danger: severe
shock” and “XXX” (450 volts).
The teacher had to read out a series of word pairs (e.g.
Blue-girl) and then the first of one pair followed by five words, one of which
was the original paired word. The learner had to press a switch to indicate
which word belonged to the original pair. This showed up on a light panel in
the teacher’s room.
Each time the learner made a mistake, the teacher had to
deliver a shock, and each successive mistake was punished by a shock 15 volts
higher than the one before.
In response to the shocks, the learner made progressively
louder and more anguished groans of pain. At 315 volts he let out a violent
scream, protesting that he was no longer willing to participate. After 330
volts there was ominous silence.
So, how many people in Milgram’s study were prepared to take
follow orders into the danger zone?
65% of subjects continued to give shocks to 450 volts - beyond
the danger level. All subjects continued to 300 volts.
Of course, it was all faked but the subjects believed they were giving electric
shocks. Just in case you’re sceptical: many ‘teachers’ showed intense anguish,
laughed nervously, twitched and grimaced; three ‘teachers’ had violent
seizures.
When the subjects hesitated or questioned the experimenter,
Milgram offered the following prompts:
- ‘Please continue’ or ‘Please go on’
- ‘The experiment requires you to continue’
- ‘It’s absolutely essential that you continue’
- ‘You have no other choice, you must go on’
Why did people obey?
Whilst being told what to do, we can argue that what we are
doing is not our responsibility. As Milgram stood beside them and insisted they
continue, they assumed he knew what he was doing and who were they to argue
with a psychologist?
However, there was clearly for many an intense conflict
between what they were being told to do and what their conscience was saying,
and indeed how they felt about hurting someone.
In this type of situation, people will often enter what‘s
known as the ‘agentic state’; that is, a mental state in which they exonerate
themselves from all responsibility by submitting themselves totally to the
authority figure and doing his/her bidding. “I was only following orders.”
Milgram summed up his findings in this way: “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.” (Milgram, Obedience to Authority, 1974)
Summarised from Richard Gross “Psychology: The Study of Mind and Behaviour”
So, given Milgram’s conclusion above, what happens when the
authority is believed to be the ultimate authority – God?
Within Islam, the chain of command is Allah > Muhammad
> Muslims. Between Muhammad and Muslims there are a series of intermediaries
in the form of scholars, clerics, writers of commentaries (Ibn Kaldun), Sharia
jurists, mullahs, imams etc, who articulate what the ‘orders’ are.
The Koran can be read by anyone and, contrary to what some
Muslims say, verses generally mean what they appear to mean and are taken to
have those meanings by ‘radical’ Muslims (that is Muslims who go back to the
roots – the roots being Muhammad (the Sunna
) and the Koran.).
The Koran contains hundreds of instructions, both plain and
oblique, to believe. Read it and
you’ll see it over and over again. Many verses begin with, “Oh ye who
believe!”; warnings for those who fail to believe are abundant; the rewards for
those who do believe equally so. This theme is endlessly repeated.
To command belief is to command a form of obedience. This is
the first act of obedience in Islam. The failure to believe (kufr) is one
of the worst sins in Islam.
Those who do not believe are denigrated and despised. The
central dynamic of Islam is for believers to attack and subjugate
non-believers.
9:29 Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last
Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made
unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given
the Scripture - [fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are
humbled.
9:5 And when the sacred months have passed, then kill the
polytheists wherever you find them and capture them and besiege them and sit in
wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they should repent, establish
prayer, and give zakah, let them [go] on their way. Indeed, Allah is Forgiving
and Merciful.
9:14 Fight them; Allah will punish them by your hands and
will disgrace them and give you victory over them and satisfy the breasts of a
believing people.
The first act of obedience is encapsulated in the saying of
the shahada: there is no God but
Allah and Muhammad is his messenger.
Upon this premise further claims to obedience are built.
64:12 So obey Allah, and obey His Messenger: but if ye turn
back, the duty of Our Messenger is but to proclaim (the Message) clearly and
openly
8:24: O you who believe! Answer Allah (by obeying Him) and As His
Messenger (obeying him) when he calls you to that which will give you
life.
9:24 And Allah does not guide the defiantly disobedient
people.
The following verse commands that what the believer does not like
must still be followed. Even those acts which would arouse moral revulsion in a
morally healthy person should be carried out.
2:216 Warfare is ordained for you, though it is hateful unto
you; but it may happen that ye hate a thing which is good for you, and it may
happen that ye love a thing which is bad for you. Allah knoweth, ye know not.
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| IS shooting captives |
Mark Durie reports an account of an ex-Salafi from Egypt who
told him that a great deal of effort is expended getting believers to do things
they find repulsive, thereby erasing their natural conscience.
The psychological study of obedience has also found that
people suppress their consciences when obeying instructions that they would
otherwise reject on moral grounds. They abdicate personal responsibility.
Having submitted to the first act of obedience and committed
to the proposition that Islam is the true religion, the believer finds himself in
the position of determining what he must do. The whole edifice of Islamic
scripture and the example of Muhammad supplies the answers. The believer must
obey these instructions as he has committed to the premise that they are God’s instructions,
otherwise he ceases to be a believer and is deemed to be an apostate. There are
also clear instructions for the believers on what to do with apostates:
“Whoever leaves his Islamic religion, kill him.” Bukhari 9.84.57
Commands to kill are very common in Islam.
Unlike Milgram’s subjects, Islamic believers are under pain
of death to believe and therefore comply with the instructions given. The
parallels with Nazi Germany are obvious. If anything, Nazi Germany was less totalitarian than Islam.
Where Milgram prompted his subjects with a gentle, “Please
continue” or “You have no other choice, you must go on”, Islam has the full
weight of God and accusations of apostasy for non-compliance. The common
tendency among all of us to follow the orders of authority figures is greatly
amplified in Islam where the religion and the cultures dominated by it are
heavily authoritarian.
Muslims are brought up in an environment where there is no
alternative to Islam – only persecution and death. Non-Muslims are generally
vilified and instances of persecution are common. How does a person wrest
themselves from such a state of submission and obedience?
Perhaps the most chilling aspect of the current situation in
Iraq and Syria is the fact that millions of Muslims are actually drawn to
Islamic State rather than repelled by what is being done. Apart from
psycho-pathological reasons, the explanation for this is that Islamic State are
fulfilling Allah’s will. They believe (and their scriptures and imams given
them every reason to believe) that what Islamic State is doing is the will of
Allah and they too wish to obey his will. To do otherwise is disobedient.
Such people must be well down the road of erasing their
conscience in full submission to Islamic authority. The beheading of four
Christian children in Baghdad is all the evidence one needs to realise that
these devout followers of Islam have jettisoned their consciences in favour of
obedience to Allah’s will. To become a mindless instrument of His will is after
all the goal of Muslim devotion.
In summary, Islam builds on a common human tendency to
obey authority. Muhammad claimed to have the authority of God. He instituted a
religion in which submission and obedience are key. The obedience demanded of
Muslims by Islam conditions them to erase their conscience and submit to
instructions to kill, persecute and dominate.
We must always count on the obedience of Muslims to the
doctrines of Islam because the doctrines of Islam are principally about
obedience. That which should not be done and that which must be done are defined down to the tiniest detail.
Unless Muslims are prepared to abandon Islam and thereby
reject that first obedience, we must assume that they will “follow orders” when
the time comes.
It is perhaps those four brave children from Baghdad who
have shown us what is needed. Faced with the demand to submit to Allah or face
a gruesome and cruel death, these four brave souls responded with, “no, we love Yesua; we have
always loved Yesua; we have always followed Yesua; Yesua has always been with
us”. They thereby demonstrated both great love and great courage.
It is these qualities that we all need. They don’t have to be expressed in a
Christian context but they do have to be expressed.
