Naziism & Holocaust

Eichmann in Jerusalem

Obedience to Authority

Sanctioned Massacres

Anti-Semitism

• Christian: Jews as killers of God

agents of Satan / killers of babies

money-lenders• Nazi: communist conspiracy

conspiracy of financiers

biological race theory: parasites

bacteria

vermin

Nazi-ism:Leader Principle & Prejudice

Authoritarian Personality (T. Adorno et al)

Obedience to Authority (S. Milgram)

Eichmann

Eichmann

• Anti-Semitic?

• Authoritarian?

• Personality change?

• Conscience?

• “Banality of Evil”?

Milgram Obedience Experiment

• Subject: plays “teacher” role

• Confederate: plays “learner” role

• Confederate: plays “experimenter” role

Milgram Obedience Experiment

• Series of experiments:

Indep. variables: proximity of authority

salience of victim

group admin of shock

Dep. Variable: shock level

Results from main

variations

Results from main variations

Factors increasing obedience:

• Authority of experimenter

• Proximity of experimenter

• Distance form victim

• Absence of dissenters

• Presence of other compliers

• Reduced role in giving shock

• Authority of institution

Milgram’s Theory

• Force fields

• Subject switches state

“autonomous” “agentic”

conscience “inhibited” in agentic state

Zimbardo Prison Experiment

Abu Ghraib?

Zimbardo Prison Experiment

• Random assignment of prisoners & guards

• 5 released – “extreme emotional depression, crying, rage and acute anxiety”

• Ended after 6 days

Zimbardo Prison Experiment

• Guards found “sense of power was exhilarating”

• Prisoner responses:– Disbelief– Rebellion– Isolation, self-interest, deprecation– Half became “sick”

Zimbardo: Prisoner Responses

• Loss of personal identity– “Deindividuation”

• Learned helplessness

• Emasculation

Power of role

Nazi DoctorsRobert J. Lifton

• Doubling:

Doctors create “Auschwitz self”

Shift between two selves

States Selves

• Milgram: 45 min. state change

• Zimbardo:6 days role/identity change

• Lifton: months double self

State develops into self ??

Functions of the ExecutiveChester Barnard, 1938

Two “modes” of viewing & treating others:

1) outside of organizations, people can act as unique individuals

2) as member of organizations, people are “depersonalized,” and “regarded in their purely functional aspects, as phases of cooperation.”

Functions of the ExecutiveChester Barnard, 1938

“Every participant in an organization may be regarded as having a dual personality -- an organization personality and an individual personality.”

Functions of the ExecutiveChester Barnard, 1938

At lower levels in the hierarchy organi-zations create a “zone of indifference” …

“Within which orders are acceptable without conscious questioning of their authority.”

“Makes it possible normally to treat a personal question impersonally.”

Functions of the ExecutiveChester Barnard, 1938

Higher levels in hierarchy requires creation of 2nd personality -- “organizational personality” -- aligned with goals of organization:

“Most executive decisions appear in the guise of technical decisions, and their moral aspects are not consciously appreciated. An executive may make many important decisions without reference to any sense of personal interest or of morality.”

Sanctioned Massacres

Nazi “Mobile Killing Units”

MyLai

Rwanda?

Iraqi militias?

My Lai

MY LAI MASSACRE: MARCH 16, 1968

Lt. Calley

• Sentenced to life in prison; released in 1974

Hugh Thompson

Hugh Thompson

Sanctioned MassacresH. Kelman

• Authorization

• Routinization

• De-individuation of actor

• De-humanization of victims

Sanctioned Massacres

• Authorization: authority situation– relieves individual of moral responsibility– calls into play morality of loyalty & duty

• Routinization: role in organization– task becomes a job– violence broken into tasks– language of euphamisms

Sanctioned Massacres

• De-individuation of the actor– individual takes on identity of organization– de-emphasize personal characteristics

• De-humanization of the victims– victims given group identity– victims portrayed as non-human– Deprived of membership in common human

group

Sanctioned Massacres

• Killers & torturers can be made

• Tearing-down & re-construction of identity– separation– “liminal” phase of instruction, rehearsal &

testing– return in new status