No, Sir

“I haven’t in the 23 years that I have been in the uniformed services of the USA ever violated an order, not one.” - Oliver North, Iran-Contra Affair testimony.

I grew up in a military family. Yes, Sir. No, Sir. You were supposed to follow orders. Not the orders you chose, but all orders. Perhaps Oliver North - who chose to follow all orders - wouldn’t have ended up testifying before Cngress in the Iran-Contra Scandal if he had chosen to disobey illegal orders. But, he didn’t. Because orders were orders.

History is riddled with people who’ve followed orders because they were orders. If the person above me says to do something, that’s all the authority I need to do something.

That was at the heart of Stanley Milgram’s Obedience Study. His big question was, How far will you go in following orders? Will you harm other people if an expert tells you it’s what you’re supposed to do?

Milgram’s experiment had three participants. Though the study was advertised as being about memory, it was really about obedience.The Learner (who by trickery was also part of the research team) was placed in a room and electrodes were strapped to his body. He was supposed to repeat lists of words that were spoken to him. But, he was supposed to get some repetitions wrong. When he did, he was supposed to pretend like he was getting shocked. Every time he got shocked, he was supposed to act like the pain was worse until finally, he was supposed to go silent. We’ll keep calling him Learner.

The second person was a poor guy hired off the street to be a Teacher in the research study. He’s called Teacher. The experiment wanted to see how far Teacher would go in harming the Actor. Would he listen to his consscience or the third Participant, the Doctor. Though he didn’t know it at the time, the research was being conducted on the Teacher, not the Learner. In front of the Teacher was a row of switches with markings indicating an increasing order of voltages all the way to Lethal. The Teacher was told that the Learner was wired up to electrodes. The Teacher was told his job was to recite lists of words into a microphone. If the Learner inside the room recited the words wrongly, the Teacher was supposed to give increasing levels of shock for each wrong repetition of the words. Though the Teacher didn’t know it, he wasn’t really harming the Learner. He was tricked into believing he was.

The third participant - the Doctor - was also acting. He appeared to be a Doctor, someone who was an expert, a trusted authority figure. Whenever the Teacher started to have doubts about shocking the Learner, the Doctor would tell him - with equally stern admonitions - to continue with the shock protocol. When the Teacher says that the guy in the room is screamimg, the Doctor Guy in The White Coat Who Knows What’s Really Right tells the Teacher to proceed with the more aggressive shock, even if the Learner in the room is wailing in (fake) pain. Even if the next switch has a label indicating the shock may be lethal.

There were many Teachers in Milgram’s chilling study. It’s horrific watching the videos of a Teacher looking back at the Doctor as though the Doctor is crazy. But, the Doctor tells Wayne to go ahead. Wayne, despite his moral compass proceeds with the shocks. Many of the Teachers followed the Doctors commands all the way to Lethal.

This study harmed a number of Teachers (probably decent, good human beings and I think I would have liked them all). They believed they were harming or killing the Learner, especially when he quit screaming and moaning? It’s gut-wrenching to watch. Could you live with being that obedient? Milgram’s study could never be done today. How many of us would do what we’re told by a Boss, a governmental authority, or a religious authority? Please watch the video for a better explanation than I’ve given.

And what did Milgram conclude from his study?

The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous importance, but they say very little about how most people >behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would >inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the >subjects’ [participants’] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects’ [participants’] ears ringing >with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths >on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.

Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority. - Stanley Milgram describing the results of the Milgram Experiment, Perils of Obedience.

What Milgram’s experiment highlighted was the need to reset how we teach obedience. Our education should balance obedience with the need for critical thinking and moral judgment. As part of their experience, children should learn that respectful disagreement, even disobedience, is not just acceptable but sometimes necessary. We might even provide practical experiences along those lines.

Parents want their children to follow directions. But they should also want them to follow moral directions. So, as well as teaching our children to respect and obey, we should teach them to have enough self-respect - respect for their own moral compass - to say No, Sir (notice the Sir). No, Sir combines an appropriate respect for authority and self-respect.

A former boss taught me a valuable lesson about all this: How do we teach employees to say ‘This isn’t appropriate? You can’t talk to us like this.’ We should have enough self-respect for our professional roles to say, ‘you can’t talk to me like this.’

My boss’s words contrasted with what I heard as a child: follow orders, do what you’re told. The alternative she offered was, The way you talked to us is not acceptable.

The balance between respect and self-respect isn’t just about parenting or workplace dynamics - it’s about creating a society where moral courage is as valued as orderly conduct. When we teach our children to say ‘No, Sir’ when necessary, we’re preparing them to be both respectful and ethically strong. Terrible things can happen if we don’t harness the ability to say, No.

And to N., whose wisdom during that meeting helped reset my moral compass: thank you for teaching me this valuable lesson about balancing respect with self-respect.

Another part of this equation is courage. You have to possess the courage necessary to live with the consequences of saying, No. The parent-child relationship is the perfect space for children to practice both listening to their moral compass and leveling up the courage to respectfully decline what is asked of them.

Claude.ai provided help with idea clarification and formatting.