“And God said: Take your son, your only Isaac, whom you love, go to the land of Moriah and offer him there for holocaust on a mountain that I will show you (...). And arriving at the place, Abraham bound Isaac and took the knife to slay his son, when an Angel of the Lord stopped him” (Genesis 22: 1-24) ⁽¹⁾

“I understand the tragic meaning of the atomic bomb (...). It is a terrible responsibility that has come down to us (...). We thank God who came to us instead of going to our enemies; and we pray that He will guide us to use it in His ways and for His purposes.” ⁽²⁾.

“Turn on the shock, because he missed the answer... again... now increase the shock voltage... Yes, continue... The researcher's instruction was calmly given to the research collaborator, who then, turned the knob increasing the voltage”. Summary record based on publications on research conducted by Stanley Milgran ⁽³⁾, on obedience to authority, sixteen years after the end of the 2^nd World War. ⁽³⁾

The first record above is from the Bible (Genesis), a book of various Christian religions. The narrative provides clues to the assignment of a task to Abraham by God. Abraham was instructed to offer his son for holocaust. The order was not in doubt, as it mentioned the name Isaac (“only son, Isaac whom you love”), and also specified the place where the execution should take place (Moriah). A huge number of religious argues that the biblical accounts refer to real events and that, in this passage of the Bible, God would have appeared to Abraham and ordered him to execute his son.

The second entry is an excerpt from the speech given by Harry S. Truman, president of the United States, addressed to the nation a few days after the explosions of the atomic and plutonium bombs (8/9/1945), launched, respectively, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The terms of the order used by the president, transmitted to the high command, were not disclosed in full. It is known that there was an order given by the president, since it was up to him, as the supreme authority of the nation, to authorize the use of these weapons of great destructive power. Therefore, as they were artifacts not yet used in a war, it was up to the president to make the decision to address the flight order for the dropping of bombs to the high command. The high command immediately relays the order to the task force in the person of the mission leader ⁽⁴⁾. The information passed on to society and Truman's speech had as main objective to justify the use of these weapons of great destructive power in a country that was close to surrender, considering that the other nations of the axis had already signed the capitulation. The American nation and the world needed a justification for these devastating attacks, and so advisers convinced the president that the best justification would be to thank God who had guided the Americans' steps in that direction. In other words, taking God as a partner, which was readily accepted by Truman. The third selected record on the obedience-authority theme, curiously took place 16 years after the end of the Second World War and it is a laboratory investigation conducted by a Jewish researcher, Stanley Milgran. Briefly, Milgran, perplexed by what he observed during the war, intended to investigate whether ordinary citizens, fulfilling their duties in society, would obey orders to produce pain in others by means of electrical shocks of increasing voltage. The research was conducted at Yale University, but also in non-university settings. Those interested in more detail can access the experiment description in a less academic style on YouTube. It should be anticipated for the reader that the participants in Milgran's research thought they would be shocking people who participated in a “learning experiment”.

However, those who “suffered” the shocks were members of the research team and simulated reactions of discomfort, but suffered nothing. Those who “delivered the shocks” following instructions could refuse to do so, but the majority continued to “obey”, as in the biblical passage where Abraham agreed to sacrifice his son in the same manner as the American officers agreed to destroy the two Japanese cities when President Truman authorized the use of the bombs. The full report of Milgran's research shows that the participants signed the TCLA (Free and Informed Consent Form), which guaranteed the right to each participant to leave the research at any time he wanted, without any consequences for himself ⁽³⁾.

The first record was taken from a religious book and the other two from lay sources and they allow some digressions on the subject regarding obedience and authority. The inclusion of the first record could be questioned, given its source. In fact, since what happened to Abraham cannot be guaranteed as real, what would justify its inclusion here? However, although this may surprise us to produce suffering at “God's command”, it still has its relevance and over time it has been used as a military strategy to obtain adherence to suicide missions by the faithful.

The attentive reader may also reflect that these accounts are not the only ones that illustrate the theme of obedience. Many other cases could be included for study, for example, that of Adolf Eichmann ⁽⁴⁾, a Nazi executioner, captured in Argentina on the accusation of having led to their death hundreds of thousands of Jews, following orders to deport them in convoys to the concentration camps, where they were murdered. Notwithstanding other cases, the three selected registries exemplify generic conditions present in those who order and those who obey. Even though they are separated by distinct temporal and geographic periods and, therefore, not culturally reducible among themselves, they are similar in the characteristics of ordering-obey behaviors and in the predictable results contained in the behavior of obedience.

1. Obedience and authority

Throughout history obedience has played an important role in the survival of humans and also of non-human organisms, for example anthropoids such as gorillas. It can be said that it is almost impossible to live in a group without commanders and obedient people. This duality, when productive for the group, results in norms that can generate desirable behaviors. Anthropological studies ⁽⁵⁾ show that social skills were essential for the survival and expansion of homo sapiens on the planet. Among these social skills, the subclasses listening, agreeing, and answering to request or order are present in most dyadic or group interactions.

2. Results of command and obedience

Commanding and obeying do not always bring benefits to the community. All too often they can have devastating negative results, subdividing groups (us and them) that target innocent people by creating rivalries. They can also encourage intrigues and conflicts, which sometimes last for generations. Hence the importance of investigations by different sciences on this issue, such as Anthropology, Psychology, Sociology, Education etc. Hanna Arendt ⁽⁶⁾, who accompanied the trial of Adolf Eichmann, was surprised to find an ordinary and harmless-looking individual. After much observation, she proposed the category “banality of evil” to help explain this phenomenon. In other words, when many of the orders are uncritically accepted by a certain contingent of people, it is because the banalization of evil is becoming widespread. Currently, the command exercised by someone in authority and obedience by collaborators and mainly by anonymous individuals, has gained a worrying dimension. The spread of orders (more or less disguised) on various internet channels can, in just a few hours, produce delusional collective reactions.

3. Whom and what order to obey?

First, we can reflect on the likely effects of the orders that are addressed to us, with the help of some questions: Does the result of accepting this order bring benefits or harm to others? Are the possible benefits arising fair and not harmful to third parties? After or simultaneously with these questions, others can be useful for the decision: Who is giving the order? Who benefits from the fulfillment of the order? What are the reasons for executing the order? What are the problems arising from order acceptance? What are the consequences for refusing to comply with the order? These items, in our view, should be part of family and school education, adapted to the language and dosed according to the children's age.

In the family, children can learn from an early age who they should approach or avoid, which invitations to refuse, which endeavors and subjects to participate. The main educational resource available, both in the family and at school, is the model. Children imitate parents, older brothers, cousins, friends, uncles, grandparents, teachers, fictional heroes, without needing instruction. Kardec ₍₈₎ asked the Spirits about the model given by God to men, evidently aiming at spiritual progress. The answer was: Jesus. We all know that the more evolutionarily distant in spiritual progress one finds, the more difficult it is to imitate Him; however, Jesus never proposed tasks that were impossible to be carried out. An example is the parable of the good Samaritan ^(9), which certainly each of us has observed someone acting in a similar way, even if in a different situation.

4. Banality of the good

In the current social crisis, we are experiencing, there is a phenomenon that has called the attention of some communication analysts. It is a happy generalization of solidary behaviors in different communities, most of which are unattended by the public authorities. People who buy, organize, prepare, transport and deliver the meals to those who often don't have any more food to face hunger. There are many “Samaritans” who engage in this worthy task. In these cases, the speed of communication via internet is an essential tool and instead of groups that exchange orders, intrigues, gossip, there are exchanges on WhatsApp about the time to collect bread, beans, and the inclusion of another small trade in meat, whose owner also wants to contribute... And the growing solidarity movement allows us the audacity to dream of the trivialization of the good, the opposite of what Arendt observed in his study.

5. By way of conclusion: know yourself

This sentence written in the temple of Delphi in Athens seems very opportune for the subject discussed here. Do we need to know each other to verify that: (a) we accept orders with content that instigates us to harm?; (b) do we identify fakes and objectives underlying their disclosure; (c) do we respond to the invitation to participate in groups that are dedicated to giving new clothes to past events?; (d) our cultural practice, disguised or explicit, remains in the code of Hammurabi, "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" or we have already rehearsed the practice of the Golden Rule, defended by Jesus, "doing to the other what you would like him to do to us ”? It is also worth remembering that Jesus was grappling with similar issues. The Master disobeyed all cultural norms that opposed the major laws (defense of life). For example, the practice of healing on Saturday. Also, he refused to grant abusive requests when a group of Pharisees and Sadducees asked him to exhibit some extraordinary sign ⁽⁸⁾. Finally, I invite the reader to reflect on the excerpt from the item CHARACTERISTICS OF THE GOOD MAN: “The true good man is the one who practices the law of justice, love and charity in its greatest purity...” ⁽⁹⁾

References:

(1) Holy Bible (Genesis). Pauline Editions, 1990.

(2 and 4) Wikipedia (Consultations, 8/11 and 8/23/21).

(3 and 5) Milgran, S. Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of abnormal and social Psychology (Vol. 67, 1963, Page 371-378).

(6) Harari, Y.N. Homo God. Sao Paulo. Amazon, 2018

(7) Arendit, A. Eichmann in Jerusalem. An account of the banality of evil. Sao Paulo. Companhia das Letras, 1999.

(8) Mt,16, 1-4

(9) Kardec, A. The Book of Spirits.   Spiritist Diffusion Institute. Araras (SP), 1998

Author's Note:

My thanks to Zilda AP Del Prette for reading this text and for her suggestions.