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Show 6 - Tfce Dally Utak Chronicle at LETTERS Opinion A Final Reflection Supposedly, the experiment Christy Karros was designed to show how well negative reinforcement helps people learn. In reality, the experiChronicle ment was designed to test how far the teachers would go to folOpinion low the instructions they were Columnist given how high up the shock scale were they willing to go? of the benefits of People watching footage of this e a experiment are invariably surminor and current prised when they see what happsychology minor is that I've had pens: Many of the subjects are many opportunities to watch the willing to go all the way to the Stanley Milgram experiment top of the shock scale, even when the person receiving the shocks video. cries an set out, complains of chest pain Milgram experiment up in which a group of subjects was and then falls silent and stops divided into two categories, responding at all. It's obvious that the subjects "learners" and "teachers." The learners were to perform a cer- don't want to keep giving the tain task, and if they got it shocks, but when they ask the wrong, the teachers punished experimenter if they can stop, the them by giving them increasingly experimenter tells them to keep going, no matter what happens. powerful electric shocks. As an added element, the Most people obey. The experiment teaches a valuexperimenters rigged the scenario so the learner, who was receiving able lesson in why people are the shocks, claimed to have heart willing to go to great lengths to trouble. In reality, he was an follow authority, even in cases accomplice of the experimenters such as the Holocaust, when miland never actually received the lions died at the hands of other shocks. But the subjects didn't supposedly normal human know this. beings. One one-tim- TTsure to RW The thing that amazes me mx V HARRY TRwrlAN nouse head of A rr r. tl1 1115 Is uuutuuiuuwiai muuis. wmte briiu: : TMMmwMMimMii a ule. His birth mother, a teenager, gave him up. He lived in different foster homes. He had to scrape by in poverty. But he made it anyway, because he never took big-tim- e s I auuuinimcni. cut c uiK-uui- Ibarra hasn t had a privileged blue-colla- tet my noble ep.r. chin, KCMWFDYKQUE UAIR AND MY I Ibarra, who was just named the I'll admit it: I love being an editorial columnist. Where else can you get paid (not much, don't worry) for telling people what about the Milgram study not so much those who went along as instructed and shocked the hell out of the learners, but those who you think of everything? I'm refused to go along. going to miss it when I graduate in I remember one guy particu- a few days from now. r I've been forced to sit down lar, a type (maybe he was even wearing a plaid work and think about what I believe. shirt, I don't exacdy recall). The I'm an idealist, and I write about unithe stupid things I see going on in experimenter was a all kinds with of my world in hopes that someone versity professor education and authority, but this will read my column, agree with me, and join the fight against simple man still refused to continue with the experiment when the wrongdoing. other man seemed to be in pain. The truth is, maybe the The working-clas- s man seemed thought is what counts as much nervous, but he sat back and as anything. A lot has been said about the folded his arms and adamantly told the experimenter that there apathy of our generation. We're was no way he was going to go not apathetic. At least, I hope on. Not for science, not for we're not. I also hope we will never follow the demands of money, not for anything. That man makes me proud to authority or expediency at the be human. expense of our fellow beings or One of the great things about our own growth. Critical reflection is a good people is that we are able to take a look at our lives, sit back and thing. Someone once said the unexamined life is not worth livsay, "Whoa, maybe there's something better than the way we're ing. The examined life is scary, doing things now." We have the but it's better than the alternapower to change things, to make tive: a stunted existence. things better. We have the power, Yesterday's Salt Lake Tribune and we have an obligation. carried a story about Mickey is no for an answer and never believed those who said he wouldn't succeed. In my history classes, professors are always asking what we would have done if we had lived in different eras of history. Would we have been Tories or patriots? Unionists or secessionists? s Segregationists or civil-right- advocates? Our own time gives us many issues to think about, to act upon. How will we decide our own futures? I'm sorry if I wax a little sentimental here. Give me a break; it's my last column. Besides, I really do believe we have the chance to shape our own world. Isn't that great? Thanks, everybody, for every thing. You've been a great audi ence. Letters.; I i Diveraly. Needs New Approach Editor: 1 The University of Utah has spent a great deal of resources, talk and effort to promote diversity and multkulturalism. The people who haw been sincerely committed to promoting muh x culturalism should re commended. , I mean no disrespect to the people who have been sincerely . engaged in promoting muluculturalisra. However, I would like . to add that I think the wrong approach has been taken. The U. has taken a "trade school" approach to multiculturalisra. You want to educate about cultural diversity so that graduate will : encounter people from different cultures when they graduate and enter their professions. The reason given for multicultural ;i education at the V, is to improve one's ability to perform one's f job. Knowledge of other cultures is treated like vocational edit- - ; cation. s Because of this view, the cultures that are arc the ones in America and they are only atudi fat die con text of the or the African-Atao- k experience or whatever else can be hyphenated with Tie value of cultures is defined by our ability to into a hyf.?": vazue imart of America. Our I lived in another country duriaj a Monaoa r: ' ai and I speak and read several bcClzt Cr " rpecial knernitc'- -t is the culture and dral eastern 1 tlxnv tbici: Rich ;r:tcMitt!e : my -4 N Asian-Americ- t an Sxi.: -- ' hmaa VCttx The Daily Utah Chronicle Staf-f- Li winter and spring quarters (excluding test weeks and holidays) and weekly during the summer quarter. Chronicle editors and staff arc solely responsible for the newspaper's content. 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