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Were/are there rabbis that wrote or spoke about Milgram's experiments, presenting a Torah view on the matter (the question of whether the Nazis were unique or the theory that anyone could potentially be a Nazi)?

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    דברי הרב דברי התלמיד דברי מי שומעין
    – Alex
    Jul 20, 2021 at 22:34
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    The obvious problem with the Milgram experiment is it ignored the documented fact that many Nazis visibly enjoyed torturing Jews, not just that they were pressured into it.
    – robev
    Jul 21, 2021 at 5:54
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    This is a great question. I vaguely remember similarly learning in my degree course many years ago, about a leading historian called Omer Bartov who theorised that the sense of violence that the Nazis ym"sh adopted was something that escalated to the point that it became very normal i.e. the brutality built up and became more frequent until the Nazis didn't register that there was anything wrong with what they were doing. It reminds me a bit about the gemara in Kiddushin 80b - sefaria.org/Kiddushin.80b.13?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en
    – Dov
    Jul 21, 2021 at 10:13
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    Besides some psychopathological cases, I suppose most perpetrators were seemingly normal people who just felt totally indifferent and shifted the responsibility on someone else. This is so radically against the continuous self-reflection and both individual and collective sense of responsibility required by Jewish ethics, that I can't imagine what a Jew could say besides warning anyone not to degrade oneself to such depths. Jul 21, 2021 at 16:16
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    I don't accept Milgram's conclusion. Unlike Milgram's experiment the Nazis, (1)weren't being micromanaged by an authority figure (2)had the option to get out of it if they requested to (3)had time to think over what they were doing (4)did not show the signs of distress Milgrams subjects did (5)Did not have a drop out rate as high as the subjects in Milgram’s experiment did (6)Were not as clueless about the reputation of the SS before joining it as the subjects of Milgram’s experiment were clueless about what they signing up for
    – Schmerel
    Jul 21, 2021 at 21:19

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