Epic Adventures of Lydia Bennet (9781476763248) (8 page)

“Wonderful! This makes me feel like you're well prepared for the transfer to Central Bay College,” she noted. “But more importantly, how does it make you feel?”

“Did you really just ask, ‘How does it make you feel?' ”

“Yes, and mocking it doesn't make it any less valid of a question,” she said.

I hedged. “It makes me feel . . . okay, I guess.”

“Can you expand on that?”

“I . . . I know it's not the
norm
that I do well in a class, but this is what I want to be doing, so, shouldn't I be at least a
little
good at it?”

“Of course,” Ms. W said gently. “But I'm sensing a little defensiveness.”

“Just not used to it, I guess,” I said.

She eyed me. “Lydia, you realize that when you graduate from here, our therapy sessions will be over.”

My head shot up. “They will?”

“Counseling through the school is only available to students. Besides, you'll be moving.”

“Yeah . . .” I said, not entirely sure what she was getting at.

“So, I want us to make the most of the time we have. If there's anything you want to discuss . . .”

It was weird, but I hadn't thought about therapy ending. I thought about school ending, and about moving up to the city with Mary, but never these Sunday sessions ending.

I should've been using the time better. Ms. W was right. I don't know why I wasn't telling her the truth. Telling her that Professor Latham has been patently ignoring me. Or telling her that I was going cross-eyed on the reading. Or about Harriet and Cody. Or my dreams coming back. Basically, about anything.

But if Ms. Winters and I are only going to have the next couple of weeks together, I want her to think she did a good job, I guess.

“Honestly, I'm great.” I shrugged, putting on my best “I'm Lydia, Bitches, I Don't Care” posture. “I'm totally feeling ready to move up to San Francisco. Just these two classes and I'm gone.”

If Ms. W suspected something, she didn't say it. She just kept her face neutral.

“Two classes and your application,” she amended.

“Right. Which is almost done.”

“Almost?” Her eyebrow went up. One thing Ms. W does not do is judge. It's one of the core rules of being a therapist. But that eyebrow felt judgy. “Isn't the deadline—”

“I've still got a little time. I'm just putting the finishing touches on it. Want to make sure it's perfect before I send it in.” The eyebrow stayed up. “It's basically completely filled out. I'm just dotting t's and crossing i's.”

It's at least kinda true. Most of my application is finished. Name, date of birth, social security number—I'd even found two professors at my school who don't completely think I'm a lost cause to write letters of recommendation for me. It's just those pesky essay questions giving me trouble.

Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure.

Well, it won't be now. I might be covering a little, but I'm actually doing fine. Maybe not as stellar as I've been making it out to sound, but I'm getting it done. I have two classes to pass and I'm gone. And I still have a couple of weeks before my application is due. I have a reminder set up on my phone. And I wrote it in my day planner, too—which turned out to be from two years ago, so I also put it on a Post-it and stuck it to my computer monitor. There's no need to worry.

And that's exactly what I told Ms. W.

“Don't worry about me, Ms. W. I'm fine.”

Summarize the experiment.

The Milgram Experiment was a psychological behavior experiment conducted in the 1960s, around the same time that Nazi war criminals were being tried for their actions in the Holocaust. This is relevant, because Dr. Stanley Milgram wanted to see if it's possible that people would be willing to do terrible things simply because they were ordered to by someone in charge, like their boss or an authority figure. So Dr. Milgram set up an experiment where volunteers were told they were supposed to teach a set of vocab words to another volunteer, who was located on the other side of a wall. If the person learning the words got one wrong, the teaching volunteer would have to administer an electric shock to the learning volunteer, to “help” him learn. With each word he got wrong, the voltage of the shocks would go up.

An overseer in a white lab coat would be watching the teaching volunteer, to make sure the experiment ran properly.

What they didn't tell the teaching volunteer is that the other volunteer was just an actor. And he wasn't getting electroshocked, he was faking being more and more hurt. But that didn't matter, because the teaching volunteer
thought
he was shocking the other person.
¹

If the teaching volunteer ever wanted to stop, or questioned what was happening, the overseer in the white lab coat would tell them to continue. And a lot of the time they would, all the way up until they
delivered a massive 450-volt shock to the other person, which would likely be fatal.
²

This experiment has also been run many times since Milgram, in many different cultures, with consistent results.

What conclusions can we draw from this experiment?

We obey people who have authority over us . . . or those who at the very least seem to. After all, that white lab coat wasn't worn by someone with a medical degree, it was worn by someone who was paid to be in that role. But that lab coat conveyed knowledge—and when in doubt, we trust the people who know more than us.

Obedience and trust are twisted together—when you find yourself in a situation where you are the less experienced, you automatically trust the person who seems to have more experience. Or even just the person who speaks the loudest. This effect does not need clinical experiments to be shown. It's observable every day: My father trusts the mechanic to fix his car and not knowingly cause it or him any harm. We trust the police officer guiding traffic in the middle of the street to do so fairly and safely. I trust my friends to have considered my well-being when we go out and not make me eat pickles because they are disgusting. We trust people. But we especially trust people who need us.

The experimenter needed the teacher to shock the other person. That's what they were asking. We are conditioned to do as we are asked—especially in pressured situations, where the person asking has the appearance of control.

The fact that this experiment has been conducted multiple times in many different situations—some of the people tested had higher levels of education, some were poor, etc.—and that the results remain so consistent through the years is the proof that this is not a conditioning restricted to one social class or time period. This is
much closer to human nature—and a kind of human nature that we all have to fight against to become better people.

In this situation, what would your reaction be personally?

I have enough experience defying authority that I absolutely would tell the experimenter to stop, and refuse to give shocks to the other guy. Because, come on. If you don't want to hurt another person, don't. It's that simple.

C. Good summary, but poor analysis and conclusion.

1
. The person told him that he had a heart condition, too, so this experiment might kill them. If it were real.

2
. Again, if it were real.

“Excuse me, Professor Latham?” I said, approaching the front of the room cautiously. Class had been dismissed for the day, and he was packing up his bag. I could feel Cody still in the room, slowly packing up his bag, too, wondering if he should wait for me. Then one of the other guys in class said, “Hey, Cody—did you get the notes from Monday?” And he was gone. Good. I didn't need an audience for this.

“Yes, Miss . . . Bennet?” Professor Latham said, only glancing up from his bag briefly.

“I wanted to ask you about my grade.”

I never did this. Before last semester, I never really cared about my grades—but that was because I never really tried in school. Then, Mary tutored me in history, and I worked and worked at it, and ended up with an A-minus! But that was history class, where there are definite right and wrong answers. I never needed to have my grade explained to me before.

“I have office hours Tuesday mornings if you want to discuss your grade.”

He zipped up his bag and started for the door. I stepped in his path.

“I'm not here Tuesday, and I just . . . I got a C?” I said, holding out the paper to him. And there it was, in bright red Sharpie with a circle around it. C. Like, Copyright You Screwed Up.

He sighed deeply, but then put his bag down and took my paper from my hand. He glanced at it for three seconds before giving it back to me. “Right. It was a C paper.”

“But . . . I worked really hard on it . . .” My voice trailed off, tiny. I hate it when my voice gets tiny.

But the way Professor Latham was barely looking at me and my paper made me feel even tinier. So I drew myself up straight, and pretended I knew what I was talking about.

Oh, all right. I pretended I was Lizzie.

“Professor Latham, I'm planning on transferring to a four-year college and studying psychology to become a therapist. So if you could tell me where I went wrong, I would really appreciate the guidance.”

Professor Latham stopped and looked up at me—and actually saw me this time.

“Your summary was fine. You tone is a little too conversational for the subject, and you need to include more of the hard data in your analysis rather than trying to tie the concepts of obedience and trust together, but your real problem is your answer to the last question.”

I glanced at it.
If you don't want to hurt another person, don't. It's that simple.
“What's wrong with it?”

“It's a complete fallacy.”

“No, it's not,” I said. “I totally wouldn't shock someone for not knowing vocab words!”

“You like to think that. We all like to think that of ourselves,
but that's the point of the experiment. To state definitively that you would defy the authority figure is complete hubris.”

Okay, I would have to look up “hubris” later for the exact definition, but I got the gist. Still, I argued, “But it wasn't like the lab coat was holding a gun to the person's head. He just told him to continue.”

“He didn't need one. Do you think anyone
wanted
to shock another person? Not recognizing the effect someone with authority has over your actions tells me that you didn't really understand the experiment.”

“I understood it,” I said. “But you asked what
I
would do, and that's what I would do. I don't like hurting people.”

“No one does,” Professor Latham said, his tone patronizing, like when Lizzie tries to explain something to me that she thinks I don't know. When Lizzie does it, it pisses me off. When my professor did it . . . it felt different. “Do you honestly think you would invite that kind of confrontation? Or would you just go along—no matter how uncomfortable it made you?”

I paused. Considering the swirling nervousness in my stomach right now when I was only asking my teacher about a grade . . . maybe I wouldn't? Maybe I would just do what felt easier. More often than not, I do what's easier.

Because it's not like I stood up for myself when George challenged me to “prove my love” for him.

“If you're going to spend the better part of the next decade studying psychology, then you need to not only write more scientifically but learn to think analytically about the subject and how you relate to it.” Professor Latham glanced at his watch. “Now, if that's all, I have another class to prep for.”

“Yes . . . thank you,” I said, distracted. But then, as Professor Latham headed up the steps . . . “What do you mean, the better part of a decade? I should have enough credits to transfer into my next
school as a second-semester junior. That plus a master's is only, like, four years tops.”

“Yes, but if you are taking Intro to Psych now, you will definitely be behind on your required classes for your undergraduate degree. You'll probably have to take freshman-level courses. Plus, if you want to study clinical psychology, you might even have to go for your doctorate. That's a lot of time.” He gave a pained smile. “Trust me.”

He left, and suddenly I was alone in the middle of the lecture hall. Alone with a C paper, and feeling like I got hit by a truck.

*  *  *

“So how do you feel about living with someone else?” Mary asked, putting a mochaccino down in front of me and a black coffee for herself.

I nearly knocked over my drink. “What?”

“I've been looking online, there's no way we can afford even a one-bedroom on our own in San Francisco. So what do you think about looking for roommates?”

“Oh,” I said, my heartbeat slowing back down to seminormal. “Fine with it, I guess. Though I can't believe you of all people are suggesting cohabitation with other not-us humans. Who were you thinking about? Violet?”

“No,” Mary said, taken aback. “Why would you think that?”

“Well, you know her and she's moving to San Francisco, too,” I replied. “Don't you like Violet?”

“No!” Mary said. “I mean, no, she's okay, I guess. For someone who's basically my boss. But she'll be living with her band, and I don't want to live with people playing instruments all the time. Do you?”

Ah. The band again.

“Well . . . I sort of will be, assuming your bass makes the trip to the city.”

“That's different from living with a
band
. I'm not going to make
my living at it. It's not exactly practical. I still can't believe Violet's going to try to live off her music, with no backup plan.”