Psychologists, social scientists and writers have long been interested in the ‘whys’ of obedience and disobedience; many experiments have been conducted to help in understanding these issues and the influences exerted by outside forces on individuals in their decision making processes. Unthinking obedience can be as dangerous as unthinking rebellion in any society, neither is done with self-reflection as a part of the process; however, care must be used in determining the appropriate time for thoughtful disobedience so that society is not destroyed by the dissention. In a short story by Shirley Jackson entitled “The Lottery,” reprinted in Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum, a fictional New England town is introduced in which all the villagers participate annually in a lottery used to determine which inhabitant is to be stoned to death; performed out of habit, it demonstrates ritualized, unthinking obedience to custom.
After the publication of the story in 1948 by the New Yorker, many people objected to the perceived implication that the people of New England or America could be as blindly obedient as the characters in the story to any custom, good or bad. As Erich Fromm observed in “Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem”, disobedience is the first step towards independence and freedom. He noted that human history began in an act of disobedience, that of Adam and Eve’s “…original sin…”, which set man free to develop and grow. One of his main points is “In order to disobey, one must have the courage to be alone, to err and to sin”.
Along with Fromm, Solomon Asch, noted psychologist, asserts in his article, ‘Opinions and Social Pressure” (336), that it is most likely the case that a solitary person facing a group espousing a different opinion from his own will go along with the group....
