11/12/2002 - 3:18 p.m.

Do not take me for some conjuror of cheap tricks.

Why must the universe make it so difficult to believe that Thomas Hobbes was wrong?

Why must psychology continue to assert that humans are nothing more than servile, selfish, backstabbing bastards?

Why must they also promote these talents as the ones that make us smarter than the "lesser animals"?

These are the philosophical questions of the day, and I just haven't got the answers. I will admit to the selfishness- people wouldn't do good things for others if they had nothing to gain by it (and feeling good about doing it is a gain), but why does it have to go so far as to suggest that we'd kill somebody for our own good?

Why can't we believe that Milgram's studies are false and it's not true that our desires are, above all things, to be obedient? Here's a quick overview of Milgram's "experiment", for those of you that might not be acquainted with it.

Male subjects were taken from all over Connecticut and asked to be part of a study which they were told would be the aid of improving short term memory. These men were to act as the "teacher".

In the experiment situation, each teacher met the "student". The teachers were unaware of this, but the student was one of Milgram's research team. The memory test consisted of groups of words associated in some way: sky-kite, leather-shoe, etc. The student would be given an entire list by the teacher, and would rematch the items through multiple choice samples. The teachers were also told that to aid in the memory process, an incorrect response would receive a shock, which they would administer through wires set up on the student's wrists. With each incorrect answer the voltage of the shock would increase on a scale of 15-450 volts. There was no real shock, but the teacher did not know this.

The teacher would go into a room seperate from the student to administer the test. Milgram was also present in the room. As the shocks increased, a tape was played of a man pleading to be let out. As the shocks became stronger and stronger, the student's "responses" would escalate to screams, and eventually to silence. There was little or no actual pursuasion by Milgram to force the teacher to continue, simply comments like "It's important we finish the experiment", or "You ought to keep going".

65 percent of the men in the study allowed the process to finish. Essentially, they killed their student. Actually, they didn't because it was all a sham, which is the reason the experiment could not be done today and the reason it caused problems at the time. Later tests with women came out to be almost precicely the same, about 65 percent. Less than a quarter of the subjects refused to continue when the student first expressed any sort of discomfort. None did so without first consulting Milgram.

I have little use for fulfilling the bizarre expectations of others. However, I am fully aware that others are more easily swayed- look at Nazi Germany. Hitler used everything he'd learned about religion (he was a devout Catholic until about the age of 20) to turn the sway of the people. There are hundreds of hours of propaganda footage of the Nazi's campaign that, in the US at least, you can find, but as soon as you do the government puts a watch on you because they're considered very dangerous films. I find nothing in the world more terrifying than watching clips of the parades of Nazi soldiers with little children standing by watching, arms raised in salute.

Is that all we are? Nothing more? Simply ugly people with ugly minds willing to do whatever we are told, no matter how insane, in hopes of saving our own skins? There is nothing beautiful or marvellous or wonderful or intelligent in that.

Life is more than just a giant game of Simon Says- make one move that Simon didn't say and you're out. It doesn't work like that. However, if we believe in Thomas Hobbes and Stanley Milgram, that is all we are. I refuse to believe in that. I believe there is magic in the world, and there is joy in the world. Not all things can be measured and given names. It is not so easy as that. It cannot be. All that is miraculous loses its miracle when faced with explanations. The magician is no longer mysterious when his tricks are cheapened by FOX's "Magic's Wildest Secrets Revealed".