Law Abiding Citizen

No one’s getting

A Nobel prize

For being the first

To lift their hand

From the buzzer

Letting all their

Shackled

Brethren run free

They will be captured

Cuffed

Shot down like a dog

That doesn’t mean

It won’t be

A victory

To be celebrated

Held aloft

K.B. Silver

People often forget that doing something righteous or noble doesn’t preclude you from suffering painful or negative consequences. They sometimes shrink back at the first sign of punishment. Usually, to accomplish something of moral value, there will be at least a minimum of punishment along the way. Or else that item would already be checked off the proverbial to-do list. Because of this, the prospect of punishment itself is not a good method of evaluation on whether something is worth doing or not; in fact, depending on what action we are considering, it may be a higher indication.

The poem itself references the Milgram Experiment, an ethically questionable study done at Yale University in 1963 that shed some light on how people react to authority. I am fascinated by this study as someone who has repeatedly proved bad at following poorly explained or obviously hurtful directions, but extremely good at carrying out well-explained and supposedly helpful directions. I have often wondered if I could be tricked into a situation such as this, if presented with enough evidence that it was for another person’s good. Unfortunately, science says yes, I can, and you can too.

The Milgram Experiment is not the only study to show that authority is a corrupting force. The Stanford prison experiment is horrifying, and frankly, the reality we live in continues to prove something we already know, and have to deal with to a greater or lesser degree every day.