January 27, 2022
A few weeks ago I wrote an article about the Milgram’s Experiment and how it demonstrated how we humans respond to perceived authority figures. I’d highly suggest you read it now if you haven’t already.
The topic of authority is important in conversations about faith deconstruction because so much of deconstruction involves challenging the authority that the Church once placed over us, which can be a scary thing to do.
However, I’ve noticed that after spending so much time in the Church and becoming accustomed to being subject to false authority, many Deconverted Men, even after leaving the Church, still subject themselves to other false authorities, albeit not ones that have anything to do with religion.
This isn’t entirely their fault, in my opinion. I think there’s an element of human nature that likes to keep us obedient to authorities. That’s why social experiments that demonstrate this interest me. So in this article, as a continuation of my article on the Milgram’s Experiment, I’ll discuss the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment.
The Stanford Prison Experiment was a social psychology experiment conducted by Philip Zimbardo in 1971. The premise was simple: he set up a simulated prison environment and participants flipped a coin to determine if they would assume the role of “guard” or “prisoner.” For the purposes of the experiment, the “guards” were given absolute authority. The “prisoners” had no autonomy. So essentially, it resembled a real-life prison situation. From this basic premise, Zimbardo pretty much just let things run.
And the consequences were horrifying. Originally scheduled to last two weeks, the entire thing had to be called off after only six days.
When given absolute authority, the volunteers who were the “guards” wreaked havoc over the “prisoners.” They controlled them with strict authoritarian measures. There were instances of psychological abuse. The volunteer prisoners—who of course had done nothing wrong in the real world—quickly conformed to their role and just took it. Some prisoners even chastised other fellow prisoners who tried to stand up to the guards.
Philip Zimbardo was, unfortunately, willing to let the experiment continue on for the full two weeks. It took someone else outside of the experiment to step in and tell him that he needed to stop it before things went too far.
Since then, the SPE has been subject to a lot of criticism, not just for the way the “prisoner” volunteers were treated, but because of Zimbardo’s methodology. Zimbardo has gone on to defend the SPE, saying that it was meant to be a “demonstration” more than an experiment and its findings were valid: that people, when put into certain roles of authority or no authority, will quickly conform to the expectations of those roles. It’s human nature.
While I’ve read the critiques of the experiment, I’ve also explored some of Zimbardo’s responses to the critiques. It gets a bit messy, but I do tend to draw the same conclusion as Zimbardo: human nature can be bleak sometimes.
It doesn’t take long for someone, once put into a position of authority over others, to start seeing their fellow humans as “less than.” On the flip side of that, it doesn’t take long for people who are told they have no authority (whether that’s actually true or not) to assume the role of someone who accepts what is done to them and declines to stand up for themselves. With us humans, the power of suggestion is strong.
I think about the “guards” and how, while they were mistreating the prisoners, knew the entire time that they didn’t actually have any legitimate authority. Yet they continued to hurt people.
I think about the “prisoners” and how, while they were being subjected to psychological torture, only did so because they were simply told that someone else had authority over them and that’s just the way it was.
I’ve written this article and the previous one because I think it’s very important to deconstruct the very idea of authority. Authority is very important in the Church—there’s God’s authority, the pastor’s authority, the authority of a father who is “the spiritual head of the household” to name a few examples. It can be tempting to think that once you leave the Church, you’ve busted free of a bunch of false authority that kept you down.
While that’s true, you’re not quite done, at least in my opinion. Once outside the Church, there are plenty of other people and institutions that are quite happy to let you know that they, too, have authority over you, and that’s just the way it is. And just like you once did in the Church, you may just accept it as true and go along with their authority.
To live happy and free and autonomous, I think it’s worth deeply analyzing and removing all forms of false authority from your life. One strong way to get started is to ask yourself if there are any real consequences from refusing a source of authority. By real consequences, I don’t mean minor inconveniences.
For example, were there any real consequences from going against the Church and God’s authority and deconverting? No. In fact you’re probably doing much better now. The Church sure does like to tell you there are consequences (by threatening you with hell) but once you determine that isn’t real, you realize there’s nothing they can really do to you. Their so-called authority was a sham all along.
You can follow the same process for other so-called authorities in your life, and it’ll likely greatly benefit you.