We've all experienced Facebook hate or read the comments section on an article online, but have you heard of the Milgram experiment? Glenn shared his theory on how the two are connected and what this means for our society on The Glenn Beck Program Wednesday.
Glenn explained what the Milgram experiment was, for those who might be unaware.
"It happened at Yale," Glenn said. "It came from a guy who was Jewish who was trying to understand, how did you get the Nazi guards to do those things in Germany? And he expected to find that Germans would be different than Americans."
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The experiment consisted of two parties who agreed to have one ask questions to the other, administering electric shocks for each question answered incorrectly. What the participant doesn't realize is that the one receiving the shocks is actually an actor and the shocks aren't real.
"They don't know what the experiment is about. They just know they have to administer the shocks. So every time you get one wrong, you have to give more juice to the person," Glenn explained. "And it's marked at a certain point, these are fatal shocks."
The experiment showed people administering the shocks would keep on going when told to by an authority figure with a lab coat and clipboard.
"By the time he gets close to fatal, you hear him in the other room. 'Oh, yeah. Hey, I want out. This is getting too much.' And the guy will look back to the guy in the white coat. And he says, 'look, he's in trouble. I don't feel comfortable with this anymore,'" Glenn said.
The authority figure tells them to keep pushing because they agreed to it and can't stop. After a little back and forth the person begrudgingly continues. As soon as they start giving the fatal dosage of electricity, you actually heard the guy in the other room going begging to stop and asking for help. And then he didn't say anything.
Here's the kicker:
"Everyone did it, except for two people," Glenn said.
Dr. Milgram was destroyed by the medical community because nobody wanted to hear this "shocking" study. But what they found was, if you don't see the person and you have somebody in authority saying, "It's okay. Just keep doing it," you'll administer lethal shocks.
Fascinating and slightly disturbing, but where does Facebook come in?
"We are living the Milgram experiment"
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"I contend, if you read Facebook, you read anything, you read any comment section right now, we are living the Milgram experiment. We are living in a time when people will say, 'It's okay. It's okay. You can do that,'" Glenn said.
He went on to describe how the approval to behave this way is coming from the top down, emanating from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
"Barack Obama was the first to say, 'and you're walking around with your little teabags.' That was the beginning of the Milgram experiment. Somebody in authority was saying, 'It's okay to bash them,'" Glenn said. "Now, Hillary Clinton is doing the same thing. 'It's okay to bash them.' Donald Trump, 'Get 'em.'"
So there are people in authority telling us it's okay to do, and we're not seeing the people because we're living in a virtual reality. We're having conversations with people we can't see. So there's no real ramification. And society is giving us an okay to do it.
"And what's happening? The good people are either starting to bash back and become part of it, or they're retreating and saying, 'I can't read that anymore. I just --- turn it off,'" Glenn said. "And so it's going to become just this bastion of hatred. And it's a river of slime."
Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:
Featured Image: Team USA athletes Paige Railey (C) with guests attend Samsung�s Virtual Reality Experience Powered by Gear VR during the 2016 Road to Rio Tour in Times Square on April 27, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for Samsung)
