Week 3: Clip/American Culture to Outsiders

In the clip, although in a humorous way, Americans are represented as nation loving people who are proud of their country and culture. Because the lyrics of the song consist of nothing else but “America” and the “States”, it gives us a connotation that America is somewhat self-centric and self-seeking. Although I do not agree to that because, personally, I found Americans to be one of the most caring and committed people in the whole world, it’s just that such was my interpretation of the song. From the view of British audience, I assume that they outlook Americans as people who love their nation and culture, but they laugh at that. It’s assumable that the American culture is spreading worldwide and is impacting them because of the punch. It shows us that the British are somewhat annoyed and tired of hearing about America. As mentioned in chapter 3, the French and Germans are becoming more concerned of the spread of American culture and English language and believe that a “cultural imperialism” is occurring. At the end of the clip, the American singer is punched by a British in order to stop his song about America. 

Week Two: The Milgram Experiment

     Another experiment similar to the Stanford experiment was the Milgram experiment that was completed in 1963 by Stanley Milgram. The goal of this experiment was to explain why and for what reasons the ordinary citizens of Germany could have participated in the mass extermination of millions of Jews. The experiment was conducted by a group of randomly selected people who played the role of teachers. The experiment exposed that people often obey orders even if it inflicts the innocent with pain. The experiment showed the effect of authority on obedience; people obey whenever ordered even if it hurts other.

      A group of recruited people were told that the study would show the effects of punishment on learning ability. The people were offered cash for participating and all of them chose to be the teacher. The teachers were asked to give electric shocks to the learners, who were Milgram’s assistance, whenever they made a mistake in memorizing the words given to them. The shocks ranged from 15 volts, slight shock, to 450 shocks which indicated danger, and severe shock. For each mistake, the voltage was increased until it reached the highest level. Eventually, after 75 volts, the learners (actors) would start complaining and asking to be released. After yelling and pleading to be released, the learners would complain of heart pain. At this point, most of the teachers hesitated to continue giving shocks. However, when ordered to continue, they proceeded with the next question.

     The resulted showed that 65% of the teachers continued giving the electric shocks despite of the learner’s pleads to release them while the rest disagreed to do so. The results showed that ordinary people were willing to inflict others with pain when ordered. To come to the point of ethics, in my opinion, this experiment shouldn’t be considered unethical for several reasons.  First, no one was actually harmed by this experiment. The learners who were actors were already aware of the procedure and were simply pretending to be hurt as the level of shocks went up. The result of the experiment showed the true nature of human beings and is something useful that may be used as reference in any related future experiments. Although today, the experiment wouldn’t be allowed because the teachers were deceived. However, according to my thinking, it’s not an important point. As mentioned in the book, people tend to behave unnaturally when they know that they are being observed and therefore, not telling them about the experiment is not deceiving them but simply practicing an experiment. Although, aftermath, the teachers could have experienced some emotional distressed, they should have been warned beforehand so that they could have the chance of changing their minds before the experiment began. Finally, at the end of the experiment, the truth was revealed to the teachers and therefore, ethics shouldn’t be a major issue. 

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I used the below site for some additional details that weren't given in the book. 

http://cnr.berkeley.edu/ucce50/ag-labor/7article/article35.htm

Week One Blog Entry: Introduction

Hi everyone!

This is actually my first time using blog and I'm very excited about it. To tell a little about myself, this is my second semester at Nova and currently, my major is Science. I'm planning on getting my bachelor's degree in Biology and going into the medical field. After 2 years at Nova, I'm going to transfer George Mason and for medical school, I will probably be going out of state.

Some of my hobbies are reading books and magazines. I believe that books are great friends that always teach you something new about this world. Whether it's a moral lesson or a method of completing a task, books are always a great way to spend any spare time I have. I also like staying up to date with news and therefore, I enjoy reading magazines and watching the news.

The reason why I chose to take sociology is because I feel like the society is an important part of everyone's lives and understanding how and why the society functions in a certain way is essential. Moreover, sociology seems like a subject that I would enjoy because I usually like all the social sciences. In fact, I was initially planning on majoring in International Relations, however, that didn't work out for me due to some issues.

Looking forward for this class!

Tahnaz