Even Eichmann Was Sickened When He Toured

The Disappearance Of A Sense Of Responsibility Is The Most Far-reaching Consequence Of Submission To Authority.

A Substantial Proportion Of People Do What They Are Told To Do, Irrespective Of The Content Of The Act, And Without Pangs Of Conscience, So Long As They Perceive That The Command Comes From A Legitimate Authority.

The Essence In Obedience Consists In The Fact That A Person Comes To View Himself As An Instrument For Carrying Out Another Person's Wishes And He Therefore No Longer Regards Himself As Responsible For His Actions.

Each Individual Possesses A Conscience Which To A Greater Or Lesser Degree Serves To Restrain The Unimpeded Flow Of Impulses Destructive To Others. But When He Merges His Person Into An Organizational Structure, A New Creature Replaces Autonomous Man, Unhindered By The Limitations Of Individual Morality, Freed Of Humane Inhibition, Mindful Only Of The Sanctions Of Authority.

I Would Say, On The Basis Of Having Observe A Thousand People In The Experiment And Having My Own Intuition Shaped And Informed By These Experiments, That If A System Of Death Camps Were Set Up In The United States Of The Sort We Had Seen In Nazi Germany, One Would Find Sufficient Personnel For Those Camps In Any Medium-sized American Town.