Sanctioned Massacres

1. Sanctioned Massacres Nazi “Mobile Killing Units” MyLai Rwanda? Iraqi militias? Abu Gharaib?

2. Einsatzgruppen “Mobile Killing Units”

6. My Lai

7. MY LAI MASSACRE: MARCH 16, 1968

8. Sentenced to life in prison; released in 1974 Lt. Calley

9. Hugh Thompson

10. Hugh Thompson

11. Prisoner Abuse / Torture Stanford Prison Experiment Abu Ghraib

16. Sanctioned MassacresH. Kelman • Authorization • Routinization + De-individuation of actor • De-humanization of victims

17. Sanctioned Massacres 1. Authorization: authority situation • relieves individual of moral responsibility • calls into play morality of loyalty & duty 2. Routinization: role in organization • task becomes a job • violence broken into tasks • language of euphamisms

18. Sanctioned Massacres 2a. De-individuation of the actor • individual takes on identity of organization • de-emphasize personal characteristics 3. De-humanization of the victims • victims given group identity • victims portrayed as non-human • Deprived of membership in common human group

19. Sanctioned Massacres • Killers & torturers can be made • Tearing-down & re-construction of identity • separation • “liminal” phase of instruction, rehearsal & testing • return in new status

20. Obedience / Compliance:Building a Theory

21. Milgram’s Theory • Force fields • Subject switches state “autonomous”  “agentic” conscience “inhibited” in agentic state

22. P. ZimbardoThe Lucifer Effect:Understanding How Good People Turn Evil

23. Zimbardo: Prisoner Responses • Loss of personal identity • “Deindividuation” • Learned helplessness  Power of role: suspends conscience undermines identity

24. Zimbardo: Guard Responses • Deindividuation • “Mardi Gras” effect (disorientation, unreality of situation) • Role • Authorities sanction abuse  Character transformation

25. Zimbardo:“Transformation of Character” System: Bush Cheney Rumsfield Sanchez M.I. Situation & Roles: deindividuation ambiguous roles night shift Graner England Frederick Darby

26. Nazi DoctorsRobert J. Lifton • Doubling: Doctors create “Auschwitz self” Shift between two selves

27. Doubling: Tree Analogy • Schizophrenia: split trunk • Multiple personality: split main branches • “Doubling”: split distant branches

28. Effects of obedience / conformity ? State  Role  Self

29. 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.”

30. 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.”

31. 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.”

32. 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.”

33. States  Selves • Milgram: 45 min. state change • Zimbardo: 6 days role/identity change month character change • Lifton: months double self  State develops via role into self ??