Naziism & Holocaust Eichmann in Jerusalem Obedience to Authority Sanctioned Massacres.
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Transcript of Naziism & Holocaust Eichmann in Jerusalem Obedience to Authority Sanctioned Massacres.
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