Flipping the Switch

A Journey from Obedience to Awareness

Though I didn’t know what was coming, I could feel the tension in the room. A subtle shift in the air made everything feel serious. I glanced around, noticing the other workshop participants, the facilitators, and the palpable sense of anticipation. Then, the screen lit up, and a video began to play.

The footage was in black and white, clearly dated — judging by the hairstyles and glasses, maybe from the 1950s? I leaned in, watching intently.

A man in a lab coat stood at the center, explaining an experiment to two other men seated nearby. He told them they had agreed to participate in a study on learning. Their role? To act as “teachers.” As he continued, my stomach twisted. The man in the lab coat explained that the teachers would administer an electric shock to a “learner” whenever they made a mistake. The punishment would escalate in intensity with each error. He gestured to a panel of switches, ominously lined up in rows, each labeled with increasing voltage.

The calm detachment of the lab coat man clashed with the growing unease inside me.

The experiment began. The learner, attempting to repeat word sequences, made mistakes. At first, the shocks seemed harmless, but soon, the learner cried out.

“Ouch!”

The teacher hesitated but followed instructions, delivering the next shock. The learner’s cries grew louder and more desperate.

“Please stop!” he pleaded.

The teacher scratched his head, visibly distressed, and turned to the man in the lab coat, now offscreen. “How far can you go on this thing?”

“As far as is necessary,” came the curt reply.

“What does that mean?” the teacher pressed, his discomfort apparent. But the man in the lab coat offered no real answer, only the same cold directive: “The experiment requires you to continue.”

The tension in the room grew unbearable as the scene unfolded. The learner begged for mercy, the teacher wavered, and yet, almost every time, he pressed the switch.

As I watched, a nauseating heat rose from my chest to my face. My mind screamed, How could the teacher knowingly hurt another human being?!

The film moved through a series of scenarios with different teachers. Some hesitated, others showed more discomfort, but the pattern was consistent: many went all the way to the maximum voltage, even when the learner stopped making any noise at all.

What the hell IS this? I thought. And why am I watching it?

When the video ended, silence filled the room. The facilitators stepped forward. Their calm presence anchored the unsettled energy swirling among us.

“Take out your journal,” one of them instructed, “and write your answers to the following question: Who in the video do you identify with more — the teacher or the learner?”

I stared at the blank page, wrestling with my emotions. Oddly, I didn’t identify with the learner. That realization gnawed at me.

Does that mean… I’m the teacher?

A wave of understanding flooded me. I had come to this workshop because I wanted to break free from being the “good girl.” For years, I had excelled at following the rules, meeting expectations, and avoiding conflict. But now, with a sinking heart, I saw how that same conditioning could make me the teacher in the experiment — the one who simply follows orders.

I was capable of inflicting harm.

My stomach churned. I bolted from the room, down the hall, and into the bathroom, where I vomited in the first stall I reached. Some part of me had always known this truth: under the right circumstances, I could abdicate responsibility and flip the switch — just as the teachers in the experiment had done.

The realization broke me open. Tears flowed as I confronted a part of myself I had never wanted to see.

When I returned to the room, trembling but resolute, the facilitators began the debrief. They explained that the learner in the experiment had been a paid actor and was never actually harmed. The study, they revealed, was the famous Milgram experiment, designed to explore obedience to authority in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Its findings were chilling: the majority of participants administered shocks up to at least 300 volts — enough to cause serious harm — and 65% went all the way to 450 volts, a potentially fatal level.

The takeaway was sobering. Evil, it seemed, didn’t lurk in some distant “other.” It lurks within us all, waiting for the right conditions to emerge. Most people will cave to perceived authority, simply because that’s how we’ve been conditioned — in families, schools, and societies — to obey rather than question.

The only antidote, they said, is to examine our relationship with authority and take radical responsibility for our actions. This demands deep introspection and immense courage. Without it, humanity is doomed to repeat atrocities like the Holocaust, over and over again.

For me, this moment was life-changing. It marked the beginning of a journey to reclaim my true power — not the power to control others, but the power to take full responsibility for my actions. I now embrace the shadows within me, knowing they are part of the human experience. With the capacity for great good comes the capacity for great harm. Acknowledging this truth is the strongest protection against evil.

I am no better than anyone else. Neither are you. And in that recognition lies our greatest opportunity to create a different world.