WRC 1013/1023: Freshman Composition: Exploring Critical Issues

Sources for WRC 1013: Christina Frasier, Darren Meritz & Pamela Mahan

Introduction: Obedience to Authority

History contains many examples of what happens when people neglect to speak out against corrupt authority, which has led to atrocities such as the Holocaust. There are also examples, such as the American Revolution, where people disobeyed government authority and achieved something good.

Sources in this section look at how people have responded to authority in various instances, such as the rise of Nazism, the Stanford Prison Experiment, and the Occupy movement. When and how should we speak out?

Link to Reading Comprehension Questions

Appelbaum, Peter and Belinda Davis, "Curriculum for Disobedience: Raising children to transform adults" JCT Online
Equally worth considering are present day-efforts to combat schwarze Pädagogik and to maintain Kinderläden as viable alternatives to state-sanctioned Kindergärten, for social change and political reasons rather than grounded only in arguments about the individual child or preparation for formal schooling. The common-sense history of early childhood education might be considered a received story about the merger of psychologists such as Pestalozzi and Fröbel with the love of childhood and concerns for peace education promoted by Montessori, and the cognitive developmental theories of Piaget and Vygotsky.
Brannigan, Augustine, "Stanley Milgram’s Obedience Experiments: A Report Card 50 Years Later," Society
Fifty years ago Stanley Milgram published the first report of his studies of obedience to authority. His work (1963) forged the mindset of how social scientists over the next two generations came to explain the participation of hundreds of thousands of Germans in the mass murder of European Jews during the Holocaust.
Harcourt, Bernard, "Political Disobedience," Critical Inquiry
The political phenomenon that was born in Zuccotti Park in the fall of 2011 and spread rapidly across the nation and abroad immediately challenged the vocabulary, grammar and political categories. Although it was quickly apparent that a political paradigm shift had taken place, it was hard to discern what Occupy Wall Street really represented, politically. It is time to begin to name this phenomenon and in naming to better understand it. Here, Harcourt proposes a term: political disobedience.
Milgram, Stanley, "Liberating effects of group pressure," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Fifty years ago Stanley Milgram published the first report of his studies of obedience to authority. His work (1963) forged the mindset of how social scientists over the next two generations came to explain the participation of hundreds of thousands of Germans in the mass murder of European Jews during the Holocaust.
Milgram, Stanley, "The Dilemma of Obedience," The Phi Delta Kappan
Nazi Germany, one of the most literate nationsl in history, exterminated millions of European Jews. Why did this happen? For two generations the question has haunted the world's conscience. Now, in a series of experiments call the most morally significant in modern psychology, a Yale professor has a piece of the answer. Two educators react to this report of his work, beginning on p. 607.
Neufeld, Jonathan, "Aesthetic disobedience" The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism
This article explores a concept of artistic transgression I call aesthetic disobedience that runs parallel to the political concept of civil disobedience. Acts of civil disobedience break some law in order to publicly draw attention to and recommend the reform of a conflict between the commitments of a legal system and some shared commitments of a community.
Volk, Kyle, "The Perils of 'Pure Democracy': Minority Rights, Liquor Politics, and Popular Sovereignty in Antebellum America," Journal of the Early Republic
"Beyond the goals of temperance reformers and the interests and traditions of liquor dealers and drinkers, at stake in local option debates were competing visions of America's commitment to popular self-rule. Was the United States a democracy (or to some, a republic) where elected officials and government officers made policy decisions or where the people acting through their agent- the majority- would directly decide public policy at the ballot box?"

Raqib, J. (n.d.). The secret to effective nonviolent resistance. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/jamila_raqib_the_secret_to_effective_nonviolent_resistance

Zimbardo, Philip, "The Psychology of Evil (transcript)," Ted.com

"Philip Zimbardo knows how easy it is for nice people to turn bad. In this talk, he shares insights and graphic unseen photos from the Abu Ghraib trials. Then he talks about the flip side: how easy it is to be a hero, and how we can rise to the challenge."
Raqib, Jamila, "The secret to effective nonviolent resistance (transcript)," Ted.com

We're not going to end violence by telling people that it's morally wrong, says Jamila Raqib, executive director of the Albert Einstein Institution. Instead, we must find alternative ways to conduct conflict that are equally powerful and effective. Raqib promotes nonviolent resistance to people living under tyranny -- and there's a lot more to it than street protests. She shares encouraging examples of creative strategies that have led to change around the world and a message of hope for a future without armed conflict. 'The greatest hope for humanity lies not in condemning violence but in making violence obsolete,' Raqib says."