What does it take to defy?
I read this book by Sunita Sah because one of my book clubs elected to read it. I was wary because I was afraid it was going to be political and I think I’ve had enough of that for a while.
But it’s really not.
It turns out Sah is a psychologist who has studied the science of defiance and compliance, so most of this book focuses on that, rather than the political implications of “defiance.”
That is right up my alley, so I enjoyed this book much more than I thought I would.
I know you can’t discuss defiance vs compliance without discussing Milgram’s famous experiment, Obedience to Authority, so I was waiting for it. It took Sah a chapter or two to get to it, but she did explain the experiment in a fair amount of detail, Milgram’s hypothesis, and his findings. And she kept referring to the experiment throughout the book.
I did find it interesting that, while Milgram called it “obedience,” Sah consistently referred to it as “compliance.” I wonder if that’s just because she sees compliance as the opposite of defiance, or if she had a different reason for her word choice.
This book is excellent. It explains the science of defiance vs compliance without getting too into the weeds.
Sah also does a good job of providing examples from real life, both her own life, as well as anecdotes some of her students shared with her, to demonstrate the principles she discusses. It makes the book more engaging, in addition to making the information she provides more accessible.
She does also apply her findings to politics, although it comprises a minority of the book. She starts by talking about Rosa Parks and how she worked her way up to defying the bus driver when he told her to give up her seat for white passengers.
I appreciated that Sah dispelled the common belief that Parks was “just tired” and not trying to start a movement.
Parks had, in fact, been active in organizations trying to dismantle Jim Crow.
And, yes, she was tired. Tired of racism. Tired of always being shoved to the bottom of society. Tired of always having to be the one giving and never the one receiving.
I also appreciate that Sah talks about the price Parks and her husband paid for her defiance. We tend to skip over those things in the history books because white people never want to face their own cruelty.
Sah does briefly mention ways we can defy in our current political climate, but it’s far from the focus of the book. She seems more concerned with the small ways we can defy in our daily life, even when those small defiances feel momentous.