Abstract
Wayne E, Lee is a famous writer who explored the elements of obedience based on psychological concepts at University of Carolina. Generally, obedience is a type of social influence, which revolves around conforming one’s actions in line with a certain figurative authority’s decisions, which in turn helps bring out Warfare and culture experiences all over the world. It is varies from compliance which is altering traits to match the surrounding or another individual which occur in the absence of force. Wayne carried out an experiment on the struggle between obeying an authority and defying due to personal convictions. This paper will summarize the findings of Wayne Lee and compare his work on warfare and culture, its ties to obedience and components of civil war.
Conditions for Obedience during war
Power dictates whether one will obey or disobey an authoritative figure. According to Lee, during the World War II, genocide perpetrators cited obedience as the underlying reasons for their actions (González, 2016). Soldiers killed many innocent people because of a directive order from another soldier probably a commander or a superior figure in the army.
The experience commenced in 1961, immediately after the trials of Adolf Hitler. The author developed the experiment to answer questions concerning Holocaust. Either the soldiers adhered to the orders given or they were accomplices. Either way, obedience via a chain of command led to the loss of life (González, 2016). More so, a context in which a person gives a set of directives to his or her juniors, to hurt or even harm another occurs numerous times in human history. Hence, the case of the Nazis is not different, thus Milgram designed an experiment that would reveal whether obedience was the only reason for the deaths.
War is set on the grounds of obedience. One person orders another to terminate an enemy. Other things take place in the precedence of organization. For instance, an authority tells a soldier to kill an enemy, there are certain conditions that dictate or facilitate the orders. This condition perspective opens up various possibilities, which in turn unveils the motive behind the obedience (González, 2016). Underneath the intention, the author found the behavior of the people charged with responsibility of seeing to it that orders materialize.
The objective of the investigation was evaluation of a junior’s behavior after a superior gives an order. The conflict of interest arises between individual conscience and the directive order (González, 2016). Despite of the commands, everyone has a choice to either go against the actions or proceed even though it is against their values and beliefs. In the end, one can either follow a command or disobey especially if the order involves harming another individual.
The results from the experiment revealed some terrifying facts. In the present world, human are more organized than in the past worlds thus suppressing the killer instincts hidden deep in their nature. Laws and certain regulations put in place by governments all over the world hinder humans from senselessly killing each other. Many people follow orders despite of the content of the commands and do not grasp the consequences arising from enacting such actions.
Obedience in the Workplace and society in general ( contemporary issue)
Under working conditions, an employer has power over his or her employees. The decision making process relies on top management or authorities in question (González, 2016). The interplay between a worker’s conscience mind and the command rarely occurs in work place environment. Under the working condition, one’s attitude goes a long way in obeying a manager.
No matter how one looks at it, employees fear the boss because he or she is a good person or the consequences if they go against an order. Either way, employment holds people hostage and the only choice is obeying orders. One of the basic functions of socialization has to do with impact others have over the rest. Some employers have the ability to command respect, which later translates into obedience within the workplace. Even if other workers repel a superior, he or she may have the last laugh due to power he or she wields. In summary, power creates a condition that leads to conformity and influence over other people.
Bosses have the power and social influence over other people and can make anyone bend to their will. The author highlighted the extent to which people could go to obey and order from an authority (González, 2016). Likewise, an office setting presents a person with a rare combination of conformity and obedience. As elaborated earlier, conformity takes place when a person obeys due to pressure placed but obedience occurs through a higher authority. Thus, each one worker conforms due to the internal operations and obeys due to power of authorities over them. In other words, blind obedience is dangerous and people need to look into the content of instructions before they fully commit to carrying out the act. For example, the Nazis killed the Jews as a result of obeying orders from their superiors. It could make sense if the soldiers evaluated the consequences behind their actions before taking the lives of innocent people. Pointing out the need of using personal conscience to weigh the consequences of an order rightfully rescues a dire situation.
Further analysis
A vital idea that the author forwards to the public is the separation and evaluation of war with other factors other than the violence that takes all of the attention from the main issues that fuel violence and disunity. By isolating violence, the researcher gets the chance to investigate violent practices keenly such as usage of crude weapons (Lee, 2016) .Obviously, civil wars are bloody events, but the approach of separating violence from other factors gives the chance to distinguish and place other factors into context that go unseen due the blind emphasis placed on violence
If everything goes unnoticed in the essay, one thing stands out. Competitors in a civil war want power and total control of the whole territory regardless of whether the majority want it or not. To win the favor of the majority people, the combatants try to generate benefits for people who are willing to collaborate with them (Lee, 2016). In fact, they assure retaliation to people who resist or join other camps. Amid all these situations, opportunities and practical chances give a loophole for the struggle of power and control in the territory. The only resolve is fighting among themselves. This explanation falls in line with the stages of war. First, general violence erupts and affects everyone. After the negotiations between the conflicting parties, the war chooses a side and violence comes only to people who did not toe the line.
The book entails traits of violence during a civil war amid the conflicting interests. The writer proposes that interests are responsible for differentiating combatants and noncombatants in the civil war. For instance, an innocent individual who does not support any side can lose their life while the perpetrator spares another’s life due to interest (Lee, 2016). The combatants want to remain only with people who support their interests. Thus, at later stages of civil war there is no indiscriminate killing of people in order to protect the interest of combatants. Therefore, it is safe to say that lack of a pattern violence is not productive in a civil war.
In summary, Lee takes a unique perspective while discussing the mechanism that propels violence in a civil war setting. The mechanism pushes aside irrational feelings or anger. Ideology is neither a basis for arguing out civil war carries out a groundbreaking examination in the history of civil wars. As explained above, there is a contrast between the mechanism of violence and the results. Other previous studies focus on studying the civil war based on outcomes but not Lee. The isolation of violence gives chance for the dissection of the topic. In fact, violence depends on many other things and it is a dependent variable. Thus, after everything settles and decided, the outcome is violence. Perpetrators of violence are politicians and civilians with vested interests in a specific location. , immediately after World War I and II, nations started changing their culture perpetrating war. The author developed the experiment to answer questions concerning Holocaust. Either the soldiers adhered to the orders given or they were accomplices. Either way, obedience via a chain of command led to the loss of life.
Reference
González, R. J. (2016). Militarizing culture: Essays on the warfare state. Routledge.
Lee, W. E. (2016). Waging War: Conflict, Culture, and Innovation in World History. Oxford University Press, USA.
Lee, W. E. (Ed.). (2011). Warfare and Culture in World History. NYU Press.
