A Few Good Men Disobedience
When tragic events occur, society often points to the people who carried out the crime itself. However, often times the orders may come from a superior authority, and the automatic override to be obedient kicks in. Especially in the military, obedience is a form of order and without it, there would be no organization or respect of one’s upper authorities. In Columbia Picture’s “A Few Good Men”, Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee, is a lawyer defending two men being accused of the murder of Private First Class Santiago. In the movie, Kaffee along with Galloway searches for the truth to discover whether an illegal code red occurred, killing PFC Santiago. Within the movie are many examples of disobedience to authority, when it comes to respecting higher
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In the movie “A Few Good Men”, Lieutenant Kendrick is on trial, and seems like an unbreakable character. Kendrick does not realize the intensity of the punishment he gave to PFC Curtis Bell, because of falling down the slippery slope leading to pure obedience. Kendrick says, “The only proper authorities I'm aware of are my commanding officer Colonel Nathan R. Jessup and the Lord our God” stating openly that the only authorities he respects is his superior officer and God. (A Few Good Men) Because he says this, it supports the claim that military personnel carry out their orders regardless of danger, and in result, was considered one of the villains in the movie. They feed the soldiers information represented in the movie such as, “we follow orders or people die,” to scare them into submission to authority which is one of the initial steps to achieving blind obedience by authority and dehumanization. (A Few Good Men). However, Kelman and Hamilton explain how soldiers fall into an obedient state in three simple steps- authorization, routinization, and dehumanization in “The My Lai Massacre”. These authors advance the idea that soldiers continually feel obligated to follow authorities whether they agree with them or not, which leads to a psychological state where they lose the ability to make decisions, and finally are completely dehumanized to the point where they lose all human feelings especially empathy. The authors claim, “authority requires subordinates to respond in terms of their role obligations...often people obey without question even though [it] may entail great personal sacrifice or great harm to others” (Kelman and Hamilton 140). This point exercises the authors viewpoint that soldiers are being stripped of their humanity and becoming robots of mass destruction regardless of the danger they may
In the movie “A Few Good Men”, Lieutenant Kendrick is on trial, and seems like an unbreakable character. Kendrick does not realize the intensity of the punishment he gave to PFC Curtis Bell, because of falling down the slippery slope leading to pure obedience. Kendrick says, “The only proper authorities I'm aware of are my commanding officer Colonel Nathan R. Jessup and the Lord our God” stating openly that the only authorities he respects is his superior officer and God. (A Few Good Men) Because he says this, it supports the claim that military personnel carry out their orders regardless of danger, and in result, was considered one of the villains in the movie. They feed the soldiers information represented in the movie such as, “we follow orders or people die,” to scare them into submission to authority which is one of the initial steps to achieving blind obedience by authority and dehumanization. (A Few Good Men). However, Kelman and Hamilton explain how soldiers fall into an obedient state in three simple steps- authorization, routinization, and dehumanization in “The My Lai Massacre”. These authors advance the idea that soldiers continually feel obligated to follow authorities whether they agree with them or not, which leads to a psychological state where they lose the ability to make decisions, and finally are completely dehumanized to the point where they lose all human feelings especially empathy. The authors claim, “authority requires subordinates to respond in terms of their role obligations...often people obey without question even though [it] may entail great personal sacrifice or great harm to others” (Kelman and Hamilton 140). This point exercises the authors viewpoint that soldiers are being stripped of their humanity and becoming robots of mass destruction regardless of the danger they may