The Authority of Jesus

Some of you may have watched the TV series  'The Experiment' which was based on the Stanford Experiment. In the Stanford experiment 2 Groups of volunteers were randomly selected. The first group were asked to take on the role of prison warders and the second group were the prisoners. The experiment had to be stopped because the prisoners' health was being endangered by the warders' brutality.

In the TV programme, safeguards were put in place to prevent brutality. However, during the experiment the guards gradually lost control over the prisoners, because a few prisoners successfully undermined their authority. The guards also consistently undermined each other through an unwillingness to be over-authoritarian. This was a major factor in the breakdown of discipline. The volunteers (guards and prisoners), realising that experimental prison system had broken down completely, suggested to the psychologists that the experiment continued as a self-regulating commune.

However, this new order was itself undermined. First, two prisoners (the same two who brought down the old system) refused to go along with the wishes of the rest of the group. Then a third ex-prisoner planned to re-establish the division between guards and prisoners - but with himself and carefully chosen associates in charge. At this point the psychologists, fearing for the well-being of some volunteers, stepped in to stop the experiment.

After the experiment was stopped, the psychologists pointed out that the guards fear of appearing to be over-authoritarian created a power vacuum, which increased the desire for strong leadership, and as one psychologist observed, created the breeding ground for a fascist dictatorship.

As a society we don't much like authority, but the Experiment suggests that we need it.

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