“Milgram, une expérience qui dérange” podcast revisits one of the most disturbing experiments in psychology and what it reveals about our relationship to authority.
If you are not familiar with the “Milgram experiment,” or if you have never seen the famous scene where it is recreated in front of Yves Montand in I, comme Icare by Henri Verneuil, then listen to Milgram, une expérience qui dérange, a podcast in two episodes broadcast on France Culture.
You will discover how an American psychologist named Stanley Milgram imagined, in the early 1960s, an experimental setup in which an individual is asked to administer electric shocks to another person for each wrong answer during a memory exercise.
What the participant doesn’t know is that they themselves are the actual subject of the experiment. The goal is to demonstrate how far an individual can go in obedience to authority, even if it means causing harm to their fellow human being, simply because they are following the orders of a scientist.
This fascinating radio documentary features researchers, scientists, and psychologists to understand what this type of experiment reveals or does not reveal, which has sparked various interpretations since the 1960s. Some of these interpretations have been significantly nuanced over the years, especially around the concept of the “banality of evil,” developed by philosopher Hannah Arendt.
Milgram, une expérience qui dérange
A special story, on France Culture
2 episodes of 30 minutes
