Hasn't he? > Bregman's digging into subsequent critiques of the [Milgram] experiment revealed that it was not quite as bad as it seemed: a substantial proporti

Hasn't he? > Bregman's digging into subsequent critiques of the [Milgram] experiment revealed that it was not quite as bad as it seemed: a substantial proportion of the "torturers" had figured out that it was not real. Several more protested that it was wrong. Those who did continue were convinced by the researchers that what they were doing was for the greater good. Bregman, with something of a leap, goes from there to the Holocaust and the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Bregman is horrified by the Holocaust, as anyone who believes in the goodness of humankind must be. He suggests that people will indeed do nasty things on a mass scale if they are convinced that it is for the greater good. It was not inherent nastiness that led to the Holocaust, Bregman suggests, but years of indoctrination. Himmler complained obliquely in one of his Posen speeches, I believe, about how difficult this indoctrination was to enforce and maintain. While that's not a source I would ordinarily be happy to cite, this complaint in particular seems not without relevance here.