Stanley Milgram's book Obedience to Authority is experiments directed at understanding the problem of the Nazis, starting on page 5 with Adolf Eichmann and the death camps. We can't avoid it. But we are here to apply his work to a much lesser evil—Republicans—and to ourselves.
Nazis in the concentration and death camps, among others, said
I was just following orders.Adolf Eichmann, architect of the entire Final Solution against Jews, Gypsies, Communists, gays, and many others, claimed
I was never an anti-Semite…My sensitive nature revolted at the sight of corpses and blood…I personally had nothing to do with this. My job was to observe and report on it.The Nuremburg Tribunal rejected those excuses. American military commanders also rejected the excuse from many Germans that they didn't know what was going on, and forced locals to tour nearby camps.
In the Milgram experiments, large numbers of people who said in advance that they would not harm others if ordered to do so gave up their personal consciences and went ahead and did it, excusing their behavior and ducking responsibility in many different ways. But by no means everybody. What would your excuses be? Or have you actually stood up to authority and made it stick?