Controlling the manner in which people interpret their world is one way to control behavior, Milgram argues. If they accept authority’s ideology, action follows logically and willingly. Hence “ideological justification is vital in obtaining willing obedience, for it permits the person to see his behavior as serving a desirable end.”29” Major Nagel, was summoned to discuss “a basic Jewish action” scheduled to take place on August 31 and September 1.” While this book discusses a specific Reserve Unit during WWII, the general argument Browning makes is that most people succumb to the pressures of a group setting and commit actions they would never do of their own volition. Evil that arises out of ordinary thinking and is committed by ordinary people is the norm, not the exception.”14”

Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and - Five Books

The behavior of any human being is, of course, a very complex phenomenon, and the historian who attempts to "explain" it is indulging in a certain arrogance.” Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil. urn:lcp:ordinarymen00chri:epub:698cc73c-7e7b-4556-8b59-030a8c50f612 Extramarc Columbia University Libraries Foldoutcount 0 Identifier ordinarymen00chri Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t6446rn1f Isbn 9780060190132 Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2011-12-08 21:32:36 Boxid IA174801 Boxid_2 CH119624 Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II City New York DonorWhat the conservatives conceived of as sufficient measures overlapped with what were for the Nazis scarcely the first steps.” Segmented, routinized, and depersonalized, the job of the bureaucrat or specialist—whether it involved confiscating property, scheduling trains, drafting legislation, sending telegrams, or compiling lists—could be performed without confronting the reality of mass murder.”

Ordinary Men Quotes by Christopher R. Browning - Goodreads Ordinary Men Quotes by Christopher R. Browning - Goodreads

This story of ordinary men is not the story of all men. The reserve policemen faced choices, and most of them committed terrible deeds. But those who killed cannot be absolved by the notion that anyone in the same situation would have done as they did. For even among them, some refused to kill and others stopped killing. Human responsibility is ultimately an individual matter.” Bauman argues that most people “slip” into the roles society provides them, and he is very critical of any implication that “faulty personalities” are the cause of human cruelty. For him the exception—the real “sleeper”—is the rare individual who has the capacity to resist authority and assert moral autonomy but who is seldom aware of this hidden strength until put to the test.” I fear that we live in a world in which war and racism are ubiquitous, in which the powers of government mobilization and legitimization are powerful and increasing, in which a sense of personal responsibility is increasingly attenuated by specialization and bureaucratization, and in which the peer group exerts tremendous pressures on behavior and sets moral norms. In such a world, I fear, modern governments that wish to commit mass murder will seldom fail in their efforts for being unable to induce “ordinary men” to become their “willing executioners.”What, then, is one to conclude? Most of all, one comes away from the story of Reserve Police Battalion 101 with great unease. This story of ordinary men is not the story of all men. The reserve policemen faced choices, and most of them committed terrible deeds. But those who killed cannot be absolved by the notion that anyone in the same situation would have done as they did. For even among them, some refused to kill and others stopped killing. Human responsibility is ultimately an individual matter.”