Experimenter - The Movie

"You could say we are puppets. But I believe that we are puppets with perception, with awareness. Sometimes we can see the strings. And perhaps our awareness is the first step in our liberation."— Stanley Milgram

It's an entertaining and interesting movie starring Peter Sarsgaard and Winona Ryder about the "obedience" research of Dr. Stanley Milgrim in the 1960s. I personally, didn't remember Milgrim or the controversy surrounding his research. I was familiar with the results of several of his research projects. The film itself is a kind of project: the main character breaks the fourth wall, some scenes are portrayed with the backgrounds projected behind the actors, and much of the emotion of the film seems to be left up to my interpretation. There are important human behavioral questions brought up. Two that particularly interest me are: why will we hurt others just because we are told to; and are we justified to hurt others in order to learn. There are at least two sightings of actual "elephants in the room." I am not sure if the elephants represent that Milgram was justifying what the subjects endured in the name of his own research or that our society still doesn't act any different than the Germans did carrying out Hitler's atrocities.

Everyone would like to believe that "I would not have shocked the stranger." How we can learn as individuals or as a whole how to get there? How can we get to a point where we no longer do what we're told just because we we're told?  How can we be sure that we will act within our conscience?