Other differences should at least be mentioned briefly: to resist Nazism was itself an act of heroism, not an inconsequential decision, and death was a possible penalty. Penalties and threats were forever around the corner, and the victims themselves had been thoroughly vilified and portrayed as being unworthy of life or human kindness. Finally, our subjects were told by authority that what they were doing to their victim might be temporarily painful but would cause no permanent damage, while those Germans directly involved in the annihilations knew that they were not only inflicting pain but were destroying human life. So, in the final analysis, what happened in Germany from 1933 to 1945 can only be fully understood as the expression of a unique historical development that will never again be precisely replicated.
Yet the essence of obedience, as a psychological process, can be captured by studying the simple situation in which a man is told by a legitimate authority to act against a third individual. This situation confronted both our experimental subject and the German subject and evoked in each a set of parallel psychological adjustments.
A study published in 1972 by H. V. Dicks sheds additional light on this matter. Dicks interviewed former members of the SS concentration camp personnel and Gestapo units, and at the conclusion of his study relates his observations to the obedience experiments. He finds clear parallels in the psychological mechanisms of his SS and Gestapo interviewees and subjects in the laboratory:
Milgram was . . . able to identify the nascent need to devalue the victim . . . we recognize the same tendency as, for example, in BS, BT, and GM (interviewees in Dicks’ study). . . . Equally impressive for an evaluation of the “helpless cog” attitude as a moral defence was Milgram’s recording of subjects who could afterwards declare that “they were convinced of the wrongness of what they were asked to do,” and thereby feel themselves virtuous. Their virtue was ineffective since they could not bring themselves to defy the authority. This finding reminds us of the complete split of a man like PF (member of the SS) who afterwards managed to feel a lot of indignation against what he had to do.
Milgram’s experiment has neatly exposed the “all too human” propensity to conformity and obedience to group authority . . . His work has also pointed towards some of the same ego defences subsequently used as justifications by his “ordinary” subjects as my SS men. . . .
The late Gordon W. Allport was fond of calling this experimental paradigm “the Eichmann experiment,” for he saw in the subject’s situation something akin to the position occupied by the infamous Nazi bureaucrat who, in the course of “carrying out his job,” contributed to the destruction of millions of human beings. The “Eichmann experiment” is, perhaps, an apt term, but it should not lead us to mistake the import of this investigation. To focus only on the Nazis, however despicable their deeds, and to view only highly publicized atrocities as being relevant to these studies is to miss the point entirely. For the studies are principally concerned with the ordinary and routine destruction carried out by everyday people following orders.
CHAPTER
15
Epilogue
The dilemma posed by the conflict between conscience and authority inheres in the very nature of society and would be with us even if Nazi Germany had never existed. To deal with the problem only as if it were a matter of history is to give it an illusory distance.
Some dismiss the Nazi example because we live in a democracy and not an authoritarian state. But, in reality, this does not eliminate the problem. For the problem is not “authoritarianism” as a mode of political organization or a set of psychological attitudes but authority itself. Authoritarianism may give way to democratic practice, but authority itself cannot be eliminated as long as society is to continue in the form we know.27
In democracies, men are placed in office through popular elections. Yet, once installed, they are no less in authority than those who get there by other means. And, as we have seen repeatedly, the demands of democratically installed authority may also come into conflict with conscience. The importation and enslavement of millions of black people, the destruction of the American Indian population, the internment of Japanese Americans, the use of napalm against civilians in Vietnam, all are harsh policies that originated in the authority of a democratic nation, and were responded to with the expected obedience. In each case, voices of morality were raised against the action in question, but the typical response of the common man was to obey orders.
I am forever astonished that when lecturing on the obedience experiments in colleges across the country, I faced young men who were aghast at the behavior of experimental subjects and proclaimed they would never behave in such a way, but who, in a matter of months, were brought into the military and performed without compunction actions that made shocking the victim seem pallid. In this respect, they are no better and no worse than human beings of any other era who lend themselves to the purposes of authority and become instruments in its destructive processes.
Obedience and the War in Vietnam
Every generation comes to learn about the problem of obedience through its own historical experience. The United States has recently emerged from a costly and controversial war in Southeast Asia.
The catalogue of inhumane actions performed by ordinary Americans in the Vietnamese conflict is too long to document here in detail. The reader is referred to several treatises on this subject (Taylor, 1970; Glasser, 1971; Halberstam, 1965). We may recount merely that our soldiers routinely burned villages, engaged in a “free-fire zone” policy, employed napalm extensively, utilized the most advanced technology against primitive armies, defoliated vast areas of the land, forced the evacuation of the sick and aged for purposes of military expediency, and massacred outright hundreds of unarmed civilians.
To the psychologist, these do not appear as impersonal historical events but rather as actions carried out by men just like ourselves who have been transformed by authority and thus have relinquished all sense of individual responsibility for their actions.
How is it that a person who is decent, within the course of a few months finds himself killing other men with no limitations of conscience? Let us review the process.
First, he must be moved from a position outside the system of military authority to a point within it. The well-known induction notice provides the formal mechanism. An oath of allegiance is employed to further strengthen the recruit’s commitment to his new role.
The military training area is spatially segregated from the larger community to assure the absence of competing authorities. Rewards and punishments are meted out according to how well one obeys. A period of several weeks is spent in basic training. Although its ostensible purpose is to provide the recruit with military skills, its fundamental aim is to break down any residues of individuality and selfhood.
The hours spent on the drill field do not have as their major goal teaching the person to parade efficiently. The aim is discipline, and to give visible form to the submersion of the individual to an organizational mode. Columns and platoons soon move as one man, each responding to the authority of the drill sergeant. Such formations consist not of individuals, but automatons. The entire aim of military training is to reduce the foot soldier to this state, to eliminate any traces of ego, and to assure, through extended exposure, an internalized acceptance of military authority.
Before shipment to the war zone, authority takes pains to define the meaning of the soldier’s action in a way that links it to valued ideals and the larger purposes of society. Recruits are told that those he confronts in battle are enemies of his nation and that unless they are destroyed, his own country is endangered. The situation is defined in a way that makes cruel and inhumane action seem justified. In the Vietnamese War, an additional element made cruel action easier: the enemy was of another race. Vietnamese were commonly referred to as “gooks,” as if they were subhuman and thus not worthy of sympathy.
Within the war zone, new realities take over; the soldier no
w faces an adversary similarly trained and indoctrinated. Any disorganization in the soldier’s own ranks constitutes a danger to his unit, for it will then be a less effective fighting unit, and subject to defeat. Thus, the maintenance of discipline becomes an element of survival, and the soldier is left with little choice but to obey.
In the routine performance of his duties, the soldier experiences no individual constraints against killing, wounding, or maiming others, whether soldiers or civilians. Through his actions, men, women, and children suffer anguish and death, but he does not see these events as personally relevant. He is carrying out the mission assigned to him.
The possibility of disobeying or of defecting occurs to some soldiers, but the actual situation in which they now function does not make it seem practical. Where would they desert to? Moreover, there are stringent penalties for defiance, and, finally, there is a powerful, internalized basis for obedience. The soldier does not wish to appear a coward, disloyal, or un-American. The situation has been so defined that he can see himself as patriotic, courageous, and manly only through compliance.
He has been told he kills others in a just cause. And this definition comes from the highest sources—not merely from his platoon leader, nor from the top brass in Vietnam, but from the President himself. Those who protest the war at home are resented. For the soldier is locked into a structure of authority, and those who charge that he is doing the devil’s work threaten the very psychological adjustments that make life tolerable. Simply getting through the day and staying alive is chore enough; there is no time to worry about morality.
For some, transformation to the agentic stage is only partial, and humane values break through. Such conscience-struck soldiers, however few, are potential sources of disruption and are segregated from the unit.
But here we learn a powerful lesson in the functioning of organizations. The defection of a single individual, as long as it can be contained, is of little consequence. He will be replaced by the man next in line. The only danger to military functioning resides in the possibility that a lone defector will stimulate others. Therefore, he must be isolated, or severely punished to discourage imitation.
In many instances, technology helps reduce strain by providing needed buffers. Napalm is dropped on civilians from ten thousand feet overhead; not men but tiny blips on an infrared oscilloscope are the target of Gatling guns.
The war proceeds; ordinary men act with cruelty and severity that makes the behavior of our experimental subjects appear as angel’s play. The end of the war comes not through the disobedience of individual soldiers but by the alteration in governmental policy; soldiers lay down their arms when they are ordered to do so.
Before the war ends, human behavior comes to light that confirms our bleakest forebodings. In the Vietnam War, the massacre at My Lai revealed with special clarity the problem to which this book has addressed itself. Here is an account of the incident by a participant, who was interviewed by Mike Wallace of CBS News:
Q.How many men aboard each chopper?
A.Five of us. And we landed next to the village, and we all got on line and we started walking toward the village. And there was one man, one gook in the shelter, and he was all huddled up down in there, and the man called out and said there’s a gook over there.
Q.How old a man was this? I mean was this a fighting man or an older man?
A.An older man. And the man hauled out and said that there’s a gook over here, and then Sergeant Mitchell hollered back and said shoot him.
Q.Sergeant Mitchell was in charge of the twenty of you?
A.He was in charge of the whole squad. And so then, the man shot him. So we moved into the village, and we started searching up the village and gathering people and running through the center of the village.
Q.How many people did you round up?
A.Well, there was about forty, fifty people that we gathered in the center of the village. And we placed them in there, and it was like a little island, right there in the center of the village, I’d say. . . . And . . .
Q.What kind of people—men, women, children?
A.Men, women, children.
Q.Babies?
A.Babies. And we huddled them up. We made them squat down and Lieutenant Calley came over and said, “You know what to do with them, don’t you?” And I said yes. So I took it for granted that he just wanted us to watch them. And he left, and came back about ten or fifteen minutes later and said, “How come you ain’t killed them yet?” And I told him that I didn’t think you wanted us to kill them, that you just wanted us to guard them. He said, “No. I want them dead.” So—
Q.He told this to all of you, or to you particularly?
A.Well, I was facing him. So, but the other three, four guys heard it and so he stepped back about ten, fifteen feet, and he started shooting them. And he told me to start shooting. So I started shooting, I poured about four clips into the group.
Q.You fired four clips from your . . .
A.M-16.
Q.And that’s about how many clips— I mean, how many—
A.I carried seventeen rounds to each clip.
Q.So you fired something like sixty-seven shots?
A.Right.
Q.And you killed how many? At that time?
A.Well, I fired them automatic, so you can’t— You just spray the area on them and so you can’t know how many you killed ’cause they were going fast. So I might have killed ten or fifteen of them.
Q.Men, women, and children?
A.Men, women, and children.
Q.And babies?
A.And babies.
Q.Okay. Then what?
A.So we started to gather them up, more people, and we had about seven or eight people, that we was gonna put into the hootch, and we dropped a hand grenade in there with them.
Q.Now, you’re rounding up more?
A.We’re rounding up more, and we had about seven or eight people. And we was going to throw them in the hootch, and well, we put them in the hootch and then we dropped a hand grenade down there with them. And somebody holed up in the ravine, and told us to bring them over to the ravine, so we took them back out, and led them over to—and by that time, we already had them over there, and they had about seventy, seventy-five people all gathered up. So we threw ours in with them and Lieutenant Calley told me, he said, “Soldier, we got another job to do.” And so he walked over to the people, and he started pushing them off and started shooting. . . .
Q.Started pushing them off into the ravine?
A.Off into the ravine. It was a ditch. And so we started pushing them off, and we started shooting them, so all together we just pushed them all off, and just started using automatics on them. And then . . .
Q.Again—men, women, and children?
A.Men, women, and children.
Q.And babies?
A.And babies. And so we started shooting them and somebody told us to switch off to single shot so that we could save ammo. So we switched off to single shot, and shot a few more rounds. . . .
Q.Why did you do it?
A.Why did I do it? Because I felt like I was ordered to do it, and it seemed like that, at the time I felt like I was doing the right thing, because, like I said, I lost buddies. I lost a damn good buddy, Bobby Wilson, and it was on my conscience. So, after I done it, I felt good, but later on that day, it was getting to me.
Q.You’re married?
A.Right.
Q.Children?
A.Two.
Q.How old?
A.The boy is two and a half, and the little girl is a year and a half.
Q.Obviously, the question comes to my mind . . . the father of two little kids like that . . . how can he shoot babies?
A.I didn’t have the little girl. I just had the little boy at the time.
Q.Uh-huh. . . . How do you shoot babies?
A.I don’t know. It’s just one of these things.
Q.How many people would you imagine were killed that day?
A.I’d say about three hundred and seventy.
Q.How do you arrive at that figure?
A.Just looking.
Q.You say you think that many people, and you yourself were responsible for how many?
A.I couldn’t say.
Q.Twenty-five? Fifty?
A.I couldn’t say. Just too many.
Q.And how many men did the actual shooting?
A.Well, I really couldn’t say that either. There was other . . . there was another platoon in there, and . . . but I just couldn’t say how many.
Q.But these civilians were lined up and shot? They weren’t killed by cross fire?
A.They weren’t lined up. . . . They [were] just pushed in a ravine, or just sitting, squatting . . . and shot.
Q.What did these civilians—particularly the women and children, the old men—what did they do? What did they say to you?
A.They weren’t much saying to them. They [were] just being pushed and they were doing what they was told to do.
Q.They weren’t begging, or saying, “No . . . no,” or . . .
A.Right. They were begging and saying, “No, no.” And the mothers was hugging their children, and . . . but they kept right on firing. Well, we kept right on firing. They was waving their arms and begging. . . .
(New York Times, Nov. 25, 1969)
The soldier was not brought to trial for his role at My Lai, as he was no longer under military jurisdiction at the time the massacre came to public attention.28
In reading through the transcripts of the My Lai episode, the Eichmann trial, and the trial of Lieutenant Henry Wirz, commandant at Andersonville,29 the following themes recur:
1. We find a set of people carrying out their jobs and dominated by an administrative, rather than a moral, outlook.
2. Indeed, the individuals involved make a distinction between destroying others as a matter of duty and the expression of personal feeling. They experience a sense of morality to the degree in which all of their actions are governed by orders from higher authority.
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