“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinions, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum....” ― Noam Chomsky, The Common Good“Disobedience is the true foundation of freedom. The obedient must be slaves.”― Henry David Thoreau In the early 1960s Stanley Milgram (1963) performed an experiment entitled the Behavioral Study of Obedience to measure the levels of compliance of subjects induced to administer punishments to students. The experiment had surprising results. Purpose of the research. Stanley Milgram (1963), Behavioral Study of Obedience, measured how far an ordinary subject will go beyond their basic moral character to comply with the authority's directions to punish another person, and at what point they refuse to obey and end their participation. The arguments and methods used. Forty ordinary male citizens from New Haven and surrounding areas of New England, representing various occupations, ranging in age from twenty to fifty, were solicited and recruited under the premise of participating in a study of “memory and learning.” Each subject was given a fee of $4.50 for participation and was told that the payment was for his participation in the Yale University laboratory and that regardless of the outcome, the payment was his to make. The controlled assignments were an experimenter/authority figure, played by an impassive and somewhat stern thirty-one-year-old male, and the victim played by a mild-mannered and pleasant forty-seven-year-old male. Through rigged drawings, uncontrolled tasks or subjects were always selected as teachers (Milgram, 1963). To justify the administration of electrical punishment the subjects received... middle of paper... many benefits, and when used correctly it can maintain order, develop good habits, build strong moral character and encourage positive behavior. Works Cited Mankiewicz, J. (2009, July 25). Kidnapped Heiress: The Patty Hearst Story. Network. May 28, 2015.http://www.nbcnews.com/id/32089504/ns/dateline_nbc-newsmakers/t/kidnapped-heiress-patty-hearst-story/#.VXjUCPlVhBcMilgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Social and Abnormal Psychology, 67(4), 371 - 378. Web. June 3, 2015. http://academic.evergreen.edu/curricular/social_dilemmas/fall/Readings/Week_06/milgram.pdfObedience. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Obedience?s=tThoreau, H.D. (1849). Civil disobedience - part 2 of 3. Web. June 1, 2015.http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper2/thoreau/civil.html