How should those who have participated in genocide or mass murder (such as the Holocaust, Cambodia, Rwanda, Srebrenica, and the list goes on)be dealt with by society. To what degree should individuals be held accountable? What about those who give orders and those who carry them out? Do experiments such as those conducted by Milgram, Zimbardo and others mitigate responsibility? Why or why not? In order to get full credit on this response, you must cite specific evidence from Ordinary Men, as well as other class sources.
Due Monday 5/16
67 comments:
Those who are responsible for the deaths of thousands, possibly even million of deaths, should be punished and potentially rid from the world. Such a potential for danger should allowed not be allowed to be present within society. People like Hitler should not be given to chance to create more destruction than they already have caused. These oppressive leaders, presented the chance would most likely continue their rampage even if they were ousted of power. Many of these leaders were demagogues who, even powerless could regain power, much like Napoleon in his hundred days. There is no doubt among the general populace that the actions of these leaders have performed are atrocities. Thus, those who order these actions must be put away from society either through imprisonment or through death.
The people who carry out these actions on the other hand should be punished, but only lightly according to the degree of their crimes. Many of these people are “ordinary” men as put by Browning. According to Browning these people come from the general populace and normal people like you and me. Most of them do not have a strong desire to kill, rather they are provoked to kill by leaders, whom present the proper situations to induce mass murder. It was found in the Milgram study that 65 of the test participants shocked a patient with high voltages simply because they were told to do so. This study shows the horrifying fact that the average person could commit such atrocities. However these people should be reprimand in order for them to better recognize what is right or wrong. If we put all these people to death, then we would only have 35% of the populace left. Rather, corrective punishment must be used in order to correct people, to create a better society.
In my opinion I think that the people who participate in mass murder or genocide from the highest to the lowest cogs in the machine should be dealt with in the same way a murderer is, why justify the taking of another human life? Most would agree that the murderer in court pleading insanity is a pitiful attempt at a slighter sentence but with the men of RPB 101 with their highest defence being that they were following orders seems horrible. It is wrong because there were people who did not participate in the killing on a moral ground, for example the killing at Josefow, there were no consequences to not participating and if someone had really not wanted to participate they could have found a way. In the Abu Graib prison story one man talks about how he became completely desensitized as to what he was doing to the prisoners on a daily basis, he even seems to make the defense for himself that he was a victim because life in the prison for the guards sucked and his life was on the line everyday. In his mind, he had some how justified torturing prisoners with country music so that they can’t sleep, which is prevalent thinking in ordinary men with the man killing children only after their parents were killed, but this is a step beyond. Society should deal with the order givers and takers for unusual and unnecessary cruelty and for being sadistic killers without exception. I think that these people should be held fully accountable for these actions because if they were really against what they were doing they would have found a way around it if not by flat out refusing. With the electro therapy experiment of milgram and the jail experiment of zimbardo, I believe that the human behaviors discovered should be recognized and treated like bad behavior and not used to justify brutal and malicious killings and actions. I mean I have OCD and I recognize that it is a bad habit and try to fix it, I am held accountable for my actions and have to try and control it. In the case of the sadistic human behaviors discovered by milgram and zimbardo this should be even more so and the people who behave as such be held even more accountable. Let’s be honest, humans have morals and have the option of disobeying orders that contradict those morals, all that had to be done was to choose to say no.
Although genocides and mass murders are most often started by minority groups, they have a tendency to envelop an entire nation, the Holocaust being the most apparent example. During World War German citizens were either actively involved in rounding up Jews and killing them off or they passively sat and watched without speaking up. Both parties are guilty of a crime, but should they be punished? I believe that the degree to which they can be held accountable for their atrocities is minimal. Despite taking the lives of millions of innocent people, it is simply impractical to believe that every Nazi member of every German living during the Holocaust must be punished for their actions. This would involve bringing hundreds of thousands of people to justice, and as history has proved, societies have adapted to punishing those who make the nest scapegoats. In obvious cases like the Holocaust, Hitler is the number one target and the majority of the world believed that justice would involve his demise. However, in cases like the American military prison, Abu Grhaib, the person who must take the fall for the blame is often not the highest in command. The United States government blamed those in control of the prison at the time of the crimes committed there; the commanding officer and the servicemen and women pictured most with the prisoners. Those punished the most heavily insist that they were simply following orders that had been passed down the chain of command and to this day they cite the secretary of defense at the time, Donald Rumsfeld, as the man who truly must be held accountable. The dilemma that this suggestion (if it is true) presents undoubtedly prompted the course of action the US government pursued in doling out punishments for Abu Grhaib. Blaming an official so high up in command would shake the core of an entire administration and cast doubt over a war effort that was already contested; in a slightly different way than mentioned before, it was once again a matter of practicality that led to the deliverance of “justice”. Despite the moral implications of this system, it seems as though it might be the only stable line of action available.
All of this being said, I am not claiming that the men of RPB101 were innocent and that they should escape without blame. Many men of the battalion began to accept and embrace their roles as killers as the war went on and taking another human life is simply inexcusable, but as Browning, Milgram, and Zimbardo asserted, the majority of humans will react to a genocide or imprisonment situation in the same way as the ordinary men of Germany did. There were those that avoided their “duty” but unfortunately, this seems to be an exception to human nature. The experiments of Milgram and Zimbardo do mitigate responsibility, allowing society to follow the course of action that it has already determined for itself with slightly less guilt. Men like Captain Trapp and the students in Zimbardo’s prison became desensitized over time and adjusted to their new roles and as time progressed they became more ruthless. This is not necessarily their fault, and it would be nearly impossible to point a finger at every member involved in such large scale crimes, but if possible, some reflection in prison for an ordinary man turned killer might prove beneficial. Men like Trapp were executed during the Holocaust, and despite their many others, I feel this is an irrational choice. If these men truly are ordinary, they should have the chance to recuperate from their shattered mental states, and ordinary men will likely torture themselves for the rest of their lives over taking the life of another human.
This is a difficult question for me. I am strongly opposed to the death penalty, but however what happened during WWII, and other genocides such as the one in Rwanda, Cambodia, and etc. enrages me to the point of being okay putting everyone who contributed to the deaths of the millions of people to death. However, after reading Ordinary Men I have a somewhat different viewpoint. I feel that those who gave out orders for the killings should be punished severely. Most of the leaders had the ability to put an end to what they were doing, for instance if they had rejected Hitler’s orders then this would not have happened. For this reason they are more responsible for the genocide then those who carried out their orders. Goldhagen believed it was due to their situation and society, and yes this is in part true, but every person knows not to kill someone else. Also many of them were significantly more violent in their actions, and could become potential threats to society. I think that these leaders deserve a harsher punishment than those who carried out their orders, and in some instances death. But I vehemently reject giving the death sentence to all of them because then we would have to ask what makes us better than them?
People who did carry out the orders should definitely be punished, but a corrective punishment that is based on the severity of their crimes. Browning’s book pointed out these people really did not want to kill they were taught to kill by their leaders. At RPB 101’s first killing, it was apparent how strongly the gruesome deed affected them, many of them had to stop during it, and faced physiological and physical problems: which were treated by the leaders by providing them with alcohol. Some people were able to get out of the killing but most of the men continued to kill. Browning believes this is due to the desire to get further in their careers and to conform. Also, each soldier gradually became desensitized to it when repeatedly doing it, and the leaders also made it less personal so they did not have to think of the Jews as people. Some of the soldiers even attempted to justify what they were doing: one man expressed that he only killed the children because after their parents had already died he was “saving” them because they would suffer much more without them. These thoughts and actions may have been very similar in other genocides. Due to their somewhat “innocence” in the matter those who participated who should be faced with a corrective punishment, besides their intial responses indicate that they will forever have the burden of what they did.
I believe the electroshock and jail experiment preformed by Milgram and Zimbardo respectively delineate that all humans are capable of sadistic behavior, however I also feel that this cannot be used to completely justify the behavior of the leaders or their men. Because it is obvious that our bodies and minds reject killing just as much as it rejects poison. It is due to the respective situation and other influencing factors that allows us to be able to kill.
People who commit genocide and mass murder must be punished. Regardless of social experiments or their rank, their actions are wrong and the killing of innocents needs to be punished. However, one cannot completely ignore Milgram and Zimbardo’s experiments. Milgram’s experiment showed that almost anyone would blindly follow authority even if it meant hurting others. In Milgram’s experiment not one test subject got up to help the “student” without first asking permission. This experiment gives some validity to RPB 101’s excuse that they were just following orders. Even though, like Milgram’s test subjects, they could have refused to carry out the orders without serious ramifications, the ordinary men of RPB 101 still executed the murders. Both Milgram’s experiment and Ordinary Men show that those who follow out the orders hold less responsibility than those who delegate them. Both should be punished, however those who delegate the orders should be much more severely punished than those who follow them. Meanwhile I think Zimbardo’s experiment supports Browning’s theory that ordinary men can become ruthless killers if put in the right situation. Zimbardo’s students went from ordinary to cruel just as the men of RPB 101. By the end of Ordinary Men, some of the police battalion actually had a taste for killing. However, Zimbardo’s experiment showed that most of these men would revert to their ordinary selves when removed from the situation. Despite this, I don’t think the punishment should be severely lessened. Even if genocidal murderers are products of their society, they are still genocidal murderers. If punishments were lessened because Zimbardo’s experiment, then almost any criminal could play this card. The only way to keep society safe and enforce laws is to dole out punishment according to the crime. If anything I think Milgram’s experiment mitigates responsibility more than Zimbardo’s.
I find that the participants are only at fault if they made the decision to kill those people in an environment in which rational thinking and little or no pressure was on them to do it. This was not the case in many of the places that the genocides occurred most people who committed these acts were pressured into it by the group around them, social pressure, political pressure, previous racist beliefs and pressure from a higher power (such as a dictator or something like that). I found what Dr. Zimbardo said in his interview with John Stewart to be similar to what I am saying because in his point when talking about Rwanda he talked about how the people who killed were able to do so simply because they were told the people they were killing threatened their security and so they needed to be killed. This shows that people can be made to do anything by simply making it seem more beneficial for them to kill another person rather than do nothing making them able to kill something. This was also shown in Zimbardo’s prison experiment and the reaction of the guards to the inmates and how brutal they became simply because they were told to do it it’s not a matter of will sometimes but a matter of looking out for your best interests without knowing everything that you needed to know.
Genocide is one of the most profound evils in this world. To kill a whole race for non-legitimate reasons is unimaginable for most people. However, when a genocide occurs, most often another whole race is involved in carrying out the killings. So, the question arises of how to punish all these people. Killing all of them would just create another genocide, creating quite the dilema.The experiments of Milgram and Zimbardo do indeed help us seperate the true perpetrators from the mere followers. Milgram demonstrated human nature of authority. By putting people in the situation of harming others just because an authority figure said so, he showed how people are inclined to do whatever they are told. With an intimidating and persuasive authority figure of Hitler, many Germans were bound to be as submissive as they were, just like the test subjects in Milgram's experiment. Zimbardo also displayed the "power of situation" in his Stanford prison experiment where "nice boys" turned into brutal gaurds practically overnight. So if these are true, then its extremely hard to punish the people who carried out the Holocaust considering that everyone would do the same thing put in their situation. I believe the people that should ought to be punished to the highest degree would be Hitler (if he didn't kill himself) and the higher up officials that surrounded him because they were the ones that created the environment that caused the people's nature to turn to thier dark side. The people who carried out the orders were only acting upon human nature and on peer pressure, as Browning pointed out in Ordinary Men.
According to Brownings thesis, anyone of us could have been a part of the Holocaust and he puts forth convincing arguments for support. However, it is less likely that anyone of us could've ordered armies of men to kill innocent civilians. Therefore, the higher officials should be the ones more heavily punished rather than punishing everyone who participated when it easily could've been one of us.
This is a very difficult question to answer. I would say in theory, it depends on the situation at hand; but when looking at the differences between the Holocaust, Cambodia or Rwanda, I can’t find many. The success within the heart of genocide is the degree of power the leaders have upon their followers. It’s hard for me to believe that every killer amongst the “enemy” fully believe in what they’re doing. There are many individuals who believe in the cause, because they are ruthless blood-thirsty killers whom seek revenge upon innocent scapegoat victims. But all of the other men and women who blindly kill, I look at them in a different light after reading “Ordinary Men” written by Browning. As Browning’s thesis proclaims, any human being could become a killer if placed in the right situation. This means anyone and everyone, including me, could become a killer. An example of this is in “Ordinary Men,” a fairly small percentage of the soldiers ordered to kill the Jews sat out during executions. But as Goldhagen later presents, the soldiers who sat out did not do so out of morality, but because they could not stomach the scene. They later confessed to joining the executions days later. This shows the fact that the “ordinary” men who sat out were not different from those who killed morality wise; most all soldiers killed. In my mind, not everyone can be a cold-blooded killer. There has to be another reason why these men blindly killed with no remorse.
As of right now, it’s hard to comprehend me as a killer. But, according to Browning and experiments conducted by Milgram and Zimbardo, I could if placed under an authoritative figure. Authority has a connotation of great power strung along with it, even if one is not threatened, if told by a more powerful being, one is most likely going to execute the task at hand. This being said, I believe the blame is hard to calculate, for most men and women who kill are merely following orders given to them. Furthermore, the majority of these men and women whom kill are most likely trained in some form of military service; they are taught never to disobey an authoritative figure, because they must give them their respect. In my opinion, the blame must be put upon the actual blood-thirsty killers; the individuals whom initially proclaimed the scapegoat. One cannot say that all commanding officers are to blame because many of them are merely taking orders from their authorities. The people who truly are the sick-minded murders behind the entire genocides should be the ones to fall. The difficult aspect of this means of punishment is deciphering who these individuals are amongst the thousands of other blind killers.
I believe that Zimbardo’s and Milgram’s experiments do not mitigate responsibility, but merely shift responsibility to where punishment should be placed. By revealing that anyone could become a killer, the question arises, why should we punish these people if anyone could be in their shoes? The blame is then shifted to those who truly believe that killing is the answer; these are the people who should be punished, not the people carrying out orders.
Those who have been apart of genocide and have murdered countless people should not be allowed back into society after taking part in such terrible deeds. Even though most of the Nazis went on with their lives after the Holocaust, this should not have been the case. I feel that the individuals should not be dealt with as harshly as the ones who gave the orders, yet they should not be completely let off the hook. The higher-ranking officials who tell everyone what to do in the genocide are the ones who are responsible for what happens. They are the ones who actually order the killings to take place. In "Ordinary Men," the officers who give orders are the ones who tell what has to happen. Even though some may not want to (such as in the first massacre when the officer is crying before giving commands), they are still the ones most responsible for what happens. On the other hand, the soldiers or police officers who carry out the killings deserve some of the blame. They actually commit the murder, although it may be difficult not to take part in what is going on. According to Browning, anyone can turn into a killer based on the situation. It would be very tough to turn away from what is happening because of everything going on around someone. To further support Browning's logic, experiments by Milgram and more importantly Zimbardo prove that it is hard to get away from what the rest of the group is doing. When Zimbardo put regular students as prison guards, they turned into monsters only because of the situation. This can happen to anyone, which is one of the reasons I feel that the lower-ranking individuals should deserve less blame than the ones who gave the orders to kill.
The people who committed genocide, the most horrific act by a society should be dealt with based on their individual participation in the event. The average person should receive very little punishment. The average person in a genocide environment like the Holocaust for example the individuals in Ordinary Men do not believe in everything they are committing. There is very little rational thought in what these people are doing and they must be protected for adapting to survive in society. If the people in Germany were not party members they were persecuted and received far fewer rights from party members. They really had no other easy choice but to adapt to the party. I believe that the people held accountable for these disasters should be the leaders. These people knew exactly what they were doing and influenced other people to contribute to these atrocities. For example, Hitler’s empire that carried out these acts were largely made up of individuals who before the rising of the Nazi government would not have carried out these acts. They should not be held responsible. It is instead the people who ordered others to carry out these acts that should be punished. This is supported by Milgram’s prison experiment. The people who were actually guards were average society members but when brought into the experiment they acted totally differently. The average person has little control over how they react in these situations as is supported by his experiments. In Ordinary Men the killers were at first hesitant to kill but became more accustomed and willing to kill when put in the right situations. I think that the leaders should be the only ones punished because they were putting people in these situations which caused the people to become killers. History backs this up as only the leaders were formally punished at the war trials. It is a fact of life that people will adapt to survive no matter what the situation is.
I believe that those who gave the first order to permit mass murder of a people should be outright punished through death. It should not be tolerated of a person to give such a mandate to destroy the lives of so many people. And to kill that one person will completely remove them from the equation and we would no longer have to worry about him/her causing more pain and suffering. However, dealing judgment to those who carried out the killings is a harder subject. As it is programmed into any human being, life is valuable and to end the life of another without any justification is of the largest crime. And as shown by Christopher Browning’s Ordinary Men, many of those who performed the executions started out as simple, ordinary people like you and I. Yet they still committed these acts of violence and aggression and murder. Why? Well as proven by Zimbardo and Milgram, it is because of the situation a person is placed in that will determine what they will do. As shown by the Milgram experiments of shocking people, a majority of over two thirds would go to the extent of shocking someone with over 400 volts just because of being ordered. And from the accounts from Ordinary Men many of the men involved used the excuse of “I was ordered to,” to explain why they did what they had done. Then as shown from the experiment conducted by Zimbardo, people will act in a way to complete a role when placed under pressure. That anybody, no matter what, is capable of doing evil things depending on the situation they are placed in. and that if we were placed in the same position as those in the reserve police battalion 101 we too would do the same. So, when it comes to dealing punishment to those who executed the orders, should they receive a lighter punishment due to the studies which state that anyone, even you and me, could and would do the same? Or should they be dealt the same fate as they gave to their victims. It really does depend. If the person returning from their duties of violence, come back into society know what they did was wrong and do not continue acts of aggression on others then maybe they do not deserve such a harsh punishment. Yet if they do return but are strong believers of what they had done and act as a threat to society then they should be reprimanded and at least put in an effort to be rehabilitated. And if that doesn’t work then death may be the only option. Yet I remain undecided on what to do with such matters. But I would like to end my blog with a quote, “Many that lived deserved death, some that died deserve life, can you give it to them Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death and judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends. […] There are other forces at work in the world Frodo besides those of good and evil.” (and coincidentally, the word verification which i needed to type in for this blog is "tokin" pretty close to tolkien)
I believe that those who gave the first order to permit mass murder of a people should be outright punished through death. It should not be tolerated of a person to give such a mandate to destroy the lives of so many people. And to kill that one person will completely remove them from the equation and we would no longer have to worry about him/her causing more pain and suffering. However, dealing judgment to those who carried out the killings is a harder subject. As it is programmed into any human being, life is valuable and to end the life of another without any justification is of the largest crime. And as shown by Christopher Browning’s Ordinary Men, many of those who performed the executions started out as simple, ordinary people like you and I. Yet they still committed these acts of violence and aggression and murder. Why? Well as proven by Zimbardo and Milgram, it is because of the situation a person is placed in that will determine what they will do. As shown by the Milgram experiments of shocking people, a majority of over two thirds would go to the extent of shocking someone with over 400 volts just because of being ordered. And from the accounts from Ordinary Men many of the men involved used the excuse of “I was ordered to,” to explain why they did what they had done. Then as shown from the experiment conducted by Zimbardo, people will act in a way to complete a role when placed under pressure. That anybody, no matter what, is capable of doing evil things depending on the situation they are placed in. and that if we were placed in the same position as those in the reserve police battalion 101 we too would do the same. So, when it comes to dealing punishment to those who executed the orders, should they receive a lighter punishment due to the studies which state that anyone, even you and me, could and would do the same? Or should they be dealt the same fate as they gave to their victims. It really does depend. If the person returning from their duties of violence, come back into society know what they did was wrong and do not continue acts of aggression on others then maybe they do not deserve such a harsh punishment. Yet if they do return but are strong believers of what they had done and act as a threat to society then they should be reprimanded and at least put in an effort to be rehabilitated. And if that doesn’t work then death may be the only option. Yet I remain undecided on what to do with such matters. But I would like to end my blog with a quote, “Many that lived deserved death, some that died deserve life, can you give it to them Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death and judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends. […] There are other forces at work in the world Frodo besides those of good and evil.” (And coincidentally the word verification which I needed to type in for this blog was "tokin" pretty close to tolkien)
Anyone who participated in a genocide or mass murder should have to pay to the full extent for their actions. In my opinion the leaders of these movements must not be given the chance to ever gain a following again, so they must be rid from the world. This may seem harsh to some and raise the argument that killing a mass murderer is simply stooping to their level, but people like Hitler do not deserve a second chance at life. In the beginning he led a pretty small minority group, but he was able to transform that group into an entire nation. I think justice would be done if people like this never had another opportunity to do what they wanted to do. Those who carry out orders and those who give the orders should both be held responsible, but the ones who make the orders deserve more accountability. The ones who carry out the orders are doing so because they were told to do so. They still should be punished because they know what they are doing is wrong, but it is not as bad as those who tell them what to do; they deserve more fault. In Milgram’s experiment we see that a lot of people follow authority regardless of whether or not they morally agree. We see that obedience trumps the idea of right versus wrong. This concept is mirrored in Browning’s Ordinary Men, where he showed that average people could easily surrender to authoritative peer pressure. While most people in the same circumstances would buckle as well, this doesn’t exempt them responsibility.
I believe that people who have participated in genocide or mass murder should be punished but not as severely as the ones who order them. The individuals who have to carry out the orders know that what they are doing is wrong. If it is wrong and they have the courage, then they should tell the higher ranking officials that they are not willing to do it. It is hard to tell whether the individuals wanted to participate in the genocide or not because every individual can just say, “We were ordered to do this.” The higher-ranking officials should be severely punished. Some people might say that it is wrong to kill them but to be honest, if they are given a second chance at life they would be willing to do the same thing over again if they have the opportunity to do so. For example, Hitler. He is responsible for the death of six million. None of the family members of those six million would want to see this monster on the face of this earth ever again. Experiments such as Milgram and Zimbardo show that it really depends on the situation. When the students were assigned jobs as prison guards, they turned into monsters. It was their job and they had to do it. It is hard to not do what the rest of the group is doing and it is almost as if the individuals are pressured into carrying out the orders. In ‘Ordinary Men’ Major Willhelm Trapp was “pale and nervous, with choking voice and tears in his eyes, Trapp visibly fought to control himself as he spoke” (Browning 2). He told the battalion the task they had to perform. They had to round up all the male Jews and send them to a work camp while the women, children, and elders would have to killed. At the same time, he gave people the option to step out if they didn’t want to perform the task. 12 men stepped out. These men were courageous enough to stand up and basically say, “No, we can’t do this” while the rest were ready to carry out the orders. Major Trapp was crying which shows that he did not want to do what he was told to but he had to. He could have said no which would have resulted in his removal from the job or transfer to another place. This shows that depending on the situation everyone can be a killer. Those who participate in the genocide should be punished but not as severely as the ones who tell them to participate.
Genocide should not be blamed solely on those who commit the atrocities nor those who give the orders. Genocide should be blamed on all parties as something all participated in and all should be punished for. The only exception to this is the threat of death. Child soldiers for examples who commit atrocities should not be blamed for their actions because of the threat of death they faced if they did not commit them. Same is constant with adults faced with the decision of kill or be killed they should not be held accountable for their actions. The Milgram experiment is a perfect example. Though the people often obeyed the authority figure which is similar to obedience of soldiers to officers it does not mean they should not be held responsible.
"[People] have learned that when experts tell them something is all right, it probably is, even if it does not seem so. (In fact, it is worth noting that in this case the experimenter was indeed correct: it was all right to continue giving the 'shocks' — even though most of the subjects did not suspect the reason.)" In other words the people blindly obeyed. However in the end it comes to choice and even the people in the experiment had the choice of not obeying. In ordinary men the police were also given a choice, they were not threatened with death only degraded and therefore are responsible for their actions. “The shooting of the men was so repugnant to me that I missed the fourth man. It was simply no longer possible for me to aim accurately. I suddenly felt nauseous and ran away from the shooting site....I then ran into the woods, vomited and sat down against a tree...my nerves were totally finished.” The soldiers were faced with a decision and even those who did not want to commit to the murders still participated. How should someone with such a reaction be punished? In my opinion they should be punished just as thoroughly as those who commanded the murders. In conclusion all who participate weather organizing commanding or committing the murders should be permanently imprisoned. Any country currently committing these crimes should be ostracized from the rest of the world and dealt with swiftly and fatally.
As we have seen in class, often, those who commit even the most heinous and atrocious crimes are often committed by ordinary people who live ordinary lives. These people were not born killers, and they did not enjoy it, but they still did it. Why? As seen in Milgram's experiment, people will kill when a perceived higher authority orders them to. As seen in Zimbardo's experiment, as well as in the real life Abu Ghraib, people will resort to violence to keep order and when given orders by others. There is a plethora of information that shows how all people are susceptible to this and that anyone would do it. However, this does not in any significant way mitigate the punishment they deserve. Just because a crime is something that anyone would have done it that circumstance does not and should not exonerate it, no matter the circumstance. There is no empathy to be had in the eyes of the law. Having said that, while their guilt is no less, and they should still be held just as accountable, any sentencing they receive should be lighter in light of their situation. It seems unfair to punish someone who killed under orders just as much as a serial killer in society who simply enjoys killing. Additionally, if the ordinary man is held accountable, it is doubly true of the one giving orders. The one beneath them is simply following orders. The one above has a full conscience of what he is doing. He has time to contemplate the consequences carefully from the comfort of somewhere safe. There is are no excuses for one who holds the power. However, the ideas proposed previous are simply impractical for the real world. It is simply impossible to put on trial and convict every single perpetrator of genocide. In the real world, most of the ones committing genocide will likely get off with a few years top in jail, like the OPB 101. However, there is no reason that leaders should not be convicted for their crimes and sentenced to a lifetime in prison.
If the ones who committed Genocide are not sponsored by the state then it is a matter of the state to try them perpetrators for mass murder and punish them according to their laws. However, it is unfortunately common to have Genocide supported by the state. There for it is the obligation of the state that stopped the Genocide to carry out the following. They should determine the consequences of disobedience. For example if a soldier or their family was to be killed if they did not follow orders, as in some cases in Nazi Germany, then they should get a lenient sentence, no more than 10-15 years. However if they were only reassigned for not following orders they the sentence should be far harsher, but not the death penalty because, as Milgram’s experiment shows, humans are very susceptible to following the orders from an authoritative figure. If one was to show sadism while committing these acts then their mind is corrupted so toughly that I believe they deserve the death sentence. This I what I believe would be the best course of action for dealing with the perpetrators of Genocide. While I am hesitant to add to the death toll, I do not think that the world is safe as long as those who relish killing the innocent are alive.
Genocide is the most terrible and brutal kind of crime that specific groups of people have had to face and suffer throughout human history. It is a mass murder of innocent people and whoever participates in these actions must be held accountable for the taking of not just one life, as in the case of the Nazis, but for countless victims. Whether it be an authority figure that pressured and created killers, or the killers themselves who carried out the task, in my opinion, both should be severely punished. However, those who led such gruesome and inhumane violence are more at fault. In Ordinary Men, the men in the Reserve Police Battalion 101 had a choice to step out at Jozefow knowing it wouldn’t result in consequences, and regardless, most decided to go forth with the planned killings. This simple acceptance demonstrates that sadly, conformity was more of an issue for these men then being seen as murderers. Milgram’s experiment showed the same result on a much smaller scale. When in the presence of authority, subjects administered shocks even if they disagreed in doing so. In addition, Zimbardo’s experiment made a point in showing that “nice people” if put in certain situations, could turn into harsh guards in the small time frame of a day or two. When this experiment was over, however, the guards returned to the way they were before. Both of these psychological studies provided an insight on seeing the impact authority and conformity have on people and how anyone can become a follower, even if it is morally wrong. This is indeed in line with Browning’s thesis. Nonetheless, participation in a mass murder should be dealt with utmost severity, but those who led it should face the worst punishment because they caused and created monsters to carry out the inhumane crime of Genocide.
I think that all those who play a part in genocide should be punished in some way. However, I think that those who give the orders should receive the harsher punishment over those who carried out the orders. In his book Ordinary Men Browning makes an attempt to understand why the men of Battalion 101 took part in the horrible mass murder even when they were given a chance to step out. Through the book, Browning argues that, given the same situation, anyone would have done the same thing. Many of the men of Battalion 101 stated that they were simply following orders from a higher authority. This idea is also show in Milgram’s electric shock experiment. Men and women under direct orders harmed people when they answered a question incorrectly. Another example was with Zimbardo’s jail experiment. Both cases brought out the worst in people and, in both cases; those who committed horrible acts stated that they were following orders. Although everyone in these experiments and, in the case of the Holocaust, were “just following orders” that does not give them any right to harm other people. The men of Battalion 101 and the men and women of Abu Ghraib treated other human beings terribly because they were pressured by an authority figure and feared being marked as a coward. Those who are the higher authority should be more severely punished than those who performed the harmful acts because authority figures, such as Hitler, were the ones who wanted the mass murder to happen. Those who took the orders had a right to refuse, but were afraid and should also be dealt with accordingly. High authority figures who desire to see mass murder take place do not deserve to be giving such orders nor do they deserve such a life of power. They should be punished severely.
I think that society should deal with the people who have committed these offences against humanity. I especially think that the people in charge or in higher positions of authority should be punished the most, because they are the most at fault. These people are the ones that are making the decisions and the choices to do these horrific things. These people should be held for all of their actions and should be punished accordingly, if it was my choice they would be punished equally to what crimes that they did. The people lower in the food chain I feel should be punished too but not nearly as much as the higher up authorities. They should not be punished as horribly because they were not the ones that decided to make these decisions they were just carrying out orders made by a higher authority, and they listen to avoid punishment of themselves. Genocide is a horrible thing and no one should commit it but those who do should be punished accordingly.
Throughout world history discrimination and racism have led to genocide and mass murder of specific groups of people. The punishments for those who participate in these horrendous occurrences have been enforced by the law as well as society in different ways. After WWII was over, the people involved in the mass executions of the European Jewish population were dealt with differently. The high ranking officials were almost always executed, and those who claimed to be “just following orders” were either given short prison sentences or a mere slap on the palm. But in other massacres it was hard to punish people because no one could find who exactly started the whole and who was in charge.
Those who have participated in mass murder should be dealt with the same, no matter their involvement within the actual genocide. The high ranking officers who give the orders should be punished the same as those who actually commit the murders. The officers and the soldiers in Police Battalion 101 both had the choice not to listen to the orders and save the innocent Jewish people. They did not however because they were afraid of severe punishment if the orders were not followed. In Ordinary Men however, Browning said that the punishments for breaking orders were not severe and they should not have stopped people from doing the right thing. These people who have been involved with the genocides should be dealt with as any other person who has committed a murder, if it be life in prison or even the death penalty. No one who commits a regular murder gets off of the charges because they were told to do so, that would create an insane world.
The experiments by Milgram and Zimbardo do mitigate responsibility for those following the orders because they are only doing just that. The test subjects “shocking” the people in Milgram’s experiment shocked many of them up to the highest voltage because they were told to do so. People believe if they only follow orders they will not have to face the consequences of their actions, which is not true. Everyone is responsible for their actions because you can always say no to doing something you feel is unjust.
The question of who should take responsibility for genocide is multifaceted and impossible to perfectly answer. Scientific studies like Zimbardo and Milgram suggest that humans, by nature, will submit to hurting other humans if simply told to do so, because they are trusting in authority. The same philosophy was used to rationalize what happened at Abu Graihb, and in Ordinary Men. In all of these situations, there were certainly people who questioned the authority and chose not to participate, but for the most part people conceded because that’s what everyone else was doing. It seems that it makes it okay because everyone else is doing it, and especially if a respected leader is behind it. However, this in no way alleviates the blame from people for their behaviors. Just because humans may be psychologically susceptible to hurting others doesn’t make them unaccountable or not responsible for what they take part in. While the leaders and members high up in a genocide should bear most of the brunt for inciting the actions that took place, everyone involved must be held accountable. Of course, in situations like with the RPB 101 it would be nearly impossible and a waste of time to prosecute every single person involved. It is most important that those who commanded the group be brought to justice and recognize the severity of their actions. It is unfortunate that it would be unreasonable to punish every person involved in a genocide, or act of brutally harming another human. In Milgram’s experiment, people unquestioningly delivered nearly fatal shocks to what they thought were real people. It is simply not acceptable for people to think it’s okay to do something just because they are told to. Everyone of sound mind has a strong sense of what is right and wrong, and can identify if they should stop what they’re doing, or not act at all. Mass murderers may claim they are desensitized and had no choice, but the truth is that everyone has a choice and whichever one you make, the good or bad one, determines the type of person you are. People who make these detrimental decisions must pay the price.
I am a strong believer that people must be held responsible for their actions, and I don’t think it matters whether they were ordered to do something or not, in the end they still did it. If the someone hired another person to kill their wife not only is the husband either jailed or put to death, the murder is also either jailed or put to death even though he was just told to do it. Depending on the situation I believe that almost every person involved in committing mass murder should be condemned to the fullest extent allowed. When deciding the extent that someone should be held accountable it really depends on the situation. All of the people that gave orders to commit mass murder should be put to death but you cannot generalize for all of the people that carried out the orders because there are so many different reasons why the people carried out the orders. The people who were threatened with death if they didn’t carry out orders should not be punished with death but still should be punished. The people that just carried out the orders without ever questioning authority I believe though should be held accountable just as much as the people giving the orders. People who just carried out orders without trying to not do them or rebelling understood what they were doing and in a way did it because they want to do it. The men of RPB 101 had a choice to either kill or not to kill and unfortunately a predominate amount of men chose to kill which is a bad choice. The men of RPB 101 wouldn’t have been killed if they didn’t kill, they killed on their own choice, and so using the defense of being ordered to do it is ridiculous because they made the choice to do it. As said in Ordinary Men, 12 men did not and would not kill people, and these 12 men were not killed or put in jail they just made the right choice not to kill and were neither rewarded nor punished for that decision. Although the experiments conducted by Milgram and Zimbardo prove a significant thing about human nature, I believe they portray humans as robots that don’t think for themselves. Although all the people that were in Zimbardo’s prison experiment said that they just fit into the roll as a prison guard, these students knew what they were doing and still did it. Humans always have choices, they could be really hard choices but they are still choices. In Milgram’s electrocution experiment 65% people shocked the man to help him remember. These people had the choice to shock the man or not it was a fairly simple choice because the pressure put on them to shock the man was not extremely high but 65% of the people still did the wrong thing.
It is difficult to determine how those who have participated in genocide or mass murder should be punished. I believe that the degree to which everyday people can be held accountable for the crimes they have committed should be minimal, despite participating in bloodshed. It would be not only impossible, but also unjust to punish every "wrongdoer" of a genocide, and would evidently lead to another genocide, as was proven in Rwanda, where punishment turned into another form of genocide. It is sometimes very difficult to point the finger to blame for tremendous atrocities. During the Holocaust, though the clear "ring leader" was Hitler, many people, subordinates of Hitler, also participated in the bloodshed. As shown in Browning's Ordinary Men, it was sometimes difficult to determine whether or not soldiers should be executed for the crimes they committed during the war under the direction of Hitler. The line between following direction and criminal action is often a very slim line. In cases like the American military prison, Abu Graihb, the blame was not put on the highest in command, but those who patrolled the prison. Pictures taken in Abu Graihb proved to be evidence that caused the conviction of soldiers on patrol. Though many claim that Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense of the United States of the time, should have been held accountable for the crimes in Abu Graihb, his name was vindicated. Unlike Nazi Germany, the soldiers from the United States could refuse service if they believed such actions by the United States Army proved to be unjust. Because the soldiers on patrol continued their methods of torture, they were blamed. Again, the thin line between following orders and criminal action was exemplified. Though the soldiers who participated in the injustice of Abu Graihb had options, it was very unlikely that they would take the less praised option of leaving the prison. As Browning, Milgram, and Zimbardo have shown in their research, if the majority of humans were told to follow certain directions, they would certainly follow them over questioning the justice that the directions presented. It is not just to punish those who were just following what was popular, for it is proven to be human nature to follow the "norm" of society. If the norm was killing, torture, or anything else of the grotesque nature, humans would follow orders and continue to kill or torture. It is therefore nearly impossible to place blame for large-scale crimes, for these "ordinary men" facing extraordinary situations, if living in a different society, would surely not commit the crimes that they did. However, though it is impossible to determine who is to blame, it is easy to point out those rare people who would, despite the norm, continue to act humanely, and follow their morals at a time where no morals seem to be present.
Murder is a horrible crime, yet, as hard as it is to believe, it is not the worst. Genocide is a horrific act simply used as a tool of racism and hatred. Genocide is the mass killing of one group of people by another, usually ordered by the State or whatever leadership that the killer have. This is not a random act, like murder sometimes is. Genocide is planned and the act itself is usually forced upon the common people. I believe that the best way to deal with the participants of genocide is to conduct trials and tribunals that lay down punishment to the killers. This can only happen however, after a society as a whole has risen up to say that these atrocities must stop, and that leaders cannot continue to do what they are doing. The hardest part about dealing with the aftermath of genocide comes from trying to determine who has the most responsibility and deserves the most punishment. Without a doubt, the leadership of a genocide should have the most blame laid on them and should be dealt with accordingly as they are the ones who decided to call for the killings in the beginning, or did not put a stop to them. As the experiment of Milgram shows, it is the one who gives the orders that have the most effect, as 65% of ordinary people will always blindly follow the orders that they are given. In his experiment, these people knew that they were being ordered to deliver possibly deadly shocks to “victims” who have already been suffering and, towards the end, were not responsive. They were given orders to cause pain, and they cared them out. An experiment performed by Zimbardo displayed that it is human nature to revert to cruelty when there is no societal pressure or morals to keep people from performing atrocious acts. It is up to the leadership to control their people. This was seen in the Abu Ghraib Scandal. American soldiers were placed in an uncomfortable position as untrained prison guards, constantly under attack by enemy forces, in miserable conditions. With no support from their superiors, they reverted to committing horrible acts upon these defenseless prisoners. Even when the commander of the camp was ask, she laid the blame on the foot of the highest authority, Donald Rumsfeld, for giving them an unclear set of rules under which they had to operate, leading to atrocities. Browning’s whole book is about a group of Ordinary men who were given the orders to kill and kill, and how by simply following orders, became the most notorious group of killer the world has ever seen. This leads me to believe that is truly in the hands of leaders to keep the people under control and give them the support they need to prevent atrocities, and if they don’t, they are truly the ones responsible.
Everyone has their own viewpoints when it comes to punishments, especially capital punishment. I believe that it is necessary for everyone who ever participated and/or carried out the act of murdering people should be tried and held responsible for their crimes. Photos and texts like Christopher Browning’s Ordinary Men convince me that there is no other punishment for these men other than death. The police battalion 101 killed thousands of Jews and mass murders in other places like Cambodia and Rwanda prove that there is no other justice than death. It does not matter what the intentions of the men were, in the end they performed one of the gravest acts a person can do; taking a human life. Obviously it’s not realistic to sentence every single person who murdered someone else to death. I believe that we should punish those responsible to the fullest extent. It is the men who gave the orders and instructed soldiers to kill who should be punished because they are single handedly responsible for murdering people. If it was not for them, the world would be benefited with countless lives. We should not even try and empathize with these people. They had the power stop something very ill-conceived but chose not to. It does not matter what the situation was, there is no justifiable reason for the mass murder that was taken. Even if murder did not occur, capital punishment should still be issued. Take Abu Ghraib, for example, torture was carried out and only a few people were held responsible for their crimes. People, innocent or not, are still humans and deserve to be treated like humans. Stripping down someone and dehumanizing them is not going to give you what you want. History has shown us that persecuting someone has only made their beliefs grow stronger. While I do believe that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, killing the people who are responsible for mass murder does not leave the world blind. It just makes the world a safer place.
In my school life, whenever I was taught about genocide, it was always taught as a thing that only the worst of humans could possibly commit. The Nazis of Germany or Tutsis from Rwanda hardly register in my mind as humans. Thinking about the people who would take such an action against humanity makes me incredibly angry and disgusted. However, after reading ordinary men and looking at some of the experiments conducted by Lombardo and Milgram, my opinions have changed a bit. Now I think that the people who were acting out the genocides are less to blame, and the leaders who put them up to it are the real culprits. Social psychology experiments have proven that very few humans progress to a point where they are willing to challenge social norms or the government, and prefer to go with the flow. Experiments conducted by Lombardo and Milgram show the effect that commanding leaders and social pressure can have on people. In one experiment it was clearly shown how leading a class of boys in a different way can drastically affect their behaviors. Milgram’s experiment also shows this effect. The people participating in the experiment shocked people to a point far beyond what was predicted by psychologists of the time. It was assumed that only extreme sadists would do what they had done. Yet they did it, because there was a man, supposedly a respectable man from an educational institution, who was acting as their leader and commanding that they continue. Ordinary Men also supports this. The idea of the genocide was thought up by higher ups, and the ordinary police men felt the pressures of their leaders and of society, and were compelled to kill. Although I feel very sorry for Trapp, he is very much to blame for what happened, and probably deserved to die. He knew that what he was doing was wrong, and was openly distressed about it, but he did not cancel the commands. Probably, the same pressures were acting on him. The result was that most of his men were transformed into killers. Although it would have been the more difficult route, Trapp had a chance to stop the killing before it happened. He was a failure as a leader, as was Globocnik and Himmler and Hitler and any other leader whose action or inaction has led to genocide, and thus deserved his sentence. In conclusion, the actions of the people of a country can be directly linked to the quality of its leaders. Certainly the people who partake in an act of genocide must be held accountable for their actions, but we must realize that the real fault lies in the people who led them.
I feel like there’s no right answer to this questions. On one hand, they participated in mass murder, and should have to face the consequences of their actions. On the other hand, Browning, Milgram, and Zimbardo’s research tells us that in such situations, any individual would perform in the same way. But then, everybody could argue that individuals are not responsible for their actions, and everybody who was accused of some form of military brutality would claim that they were “just following orders.” This is a good starting point to work from, because it is impractical to every participant. If everyone affiliated with the Nazi party had been executed, there would have been very few Germans left. Thus, if everyone was simply “following orders” the next logical step is to work up the chain of command and determine who is ultimately responsible. This would require the most situational discretion, because punishing too many is impractical, and punishing too few would not have enough effect on the rest of the members. This approach is still extremely general, as the execution of Major Trapp in Ordinary Men shows us. Major Trapp clearly did not want to carry out his orders to kill the Jews, but did it anyway. In the end, he was still executed. This makes it extremely difficult to determine the “right way” to punish people. As Milgrim’s experiment showed, the vast majority of individuals will follow orders from an authority figure to a ridiculous degree. The fact that most people would send another individual a lethal voltage of electricity because a professor told them to provides evidence for the argument that the chain of command is responsible rather than the individual. In addition, Zimbardo’s experiment showed us that any individual can adapt to the role in which they are placed. The students in his prison guard experiment showed increased signs of brutality, and the prisoners became increasingly submissive. This also argues the point that individuals are not responsible for their actions, and that anyone would act similarly were they put into the same situation. I don’t think that these experiments and Brownings arguments in combination are enough evidence to say that the individual is not responsible for their actions, but with more evidence and examples (which almost undoubtedly exist) it may become a valid argument. The Abu Graib scenario creates a difficult situation, as it seemed from the video in class that some individuals hated their time at Abu Graib, while some seemed to rather enjoy it based on the pictures. In this case, it is difficult to say who is at fault: the individuals following orders, giving orders, or the sadistic individuals. For lack of a less bipartisan answer, the ones giving orders are indeed at the most fault, and blame decreases the farther down the chain of command you go.
In my personal opinion, most of the people involved in mass murder are not in fact the ones responsible; however, it should be their superiors who should be punished for murder. The people being given orders have to kill whoever they are ordered to kill or else they themselves will be executed or their family will have to suffer for their incapability. Their superiors are giving out the order to have the soldiers kill innocent people where most of the soldiers do not want to cooperate but have no choice to not. In the Milgram experiment he tested the obedience of a “teacher” and by giving electrical shocks to the student if an answer was incorrect. He found that only 3 out of 100 “teachers” would go to the maximum shock. This goes to show that most people would not want to kill because they felt that it was wrong that 3/100 people were the ones that would actually want to kill. So because most of the people did not want to go to the maximum shock it would mean that the soldiers being given the order to kill innocents do not want to kill but must or else they would die. To conclude I believe strongly that the officers who give the order to kill the innocents should be held responsible and not the actual soldiers who do the killing.
I believe that people that have participated in genocide should be dealt with in relation to their roles in it. For the people who orchestrated the mass murders, they should be dealt with as harshly as the justice system can. For those who actually carried out the killings and the crimes against humanity, they should be held responsible for what they have done in a court of law. They should only be given a more lenient punishment if there is hard proof of them trying to find ways out of the orders they have been given. Such as the man from Ordinary Men that ran into the woods. Also, if there is a situation where the people who are ordering the genocide will act out violently for people failing to do as they are told, the people under their jurisdiction should be held less accountable based on the situation they are put in. I believe that the experiments carried out by those men are responsible because they did not force any of the subjects into the experiments. In Zimbardo's prison experiment all the subjects were fully willing to be put into the high stress situation at hand. I believe that without this experiment there would have been no way to skillfully dissect what happened at the prison in Abu Ghraib. So with that said, it is obvious that these experiments play an integral part of society, and in my mind, should be allowed in today's society if there is proper consent among the participants.
In such extreme cases as genocides such as the Holocaust, the assignation of responsibility becomes important. While any who assist in the killing are guilty and must be punished as such, true guilt is harder to assign. In light of Browning’s thesis on Reserve Police Battalion 101 in his book Ordinary Men, as well as new understandings of human psychology from the Milgram and Zimbardo experiments, we can see that the need to conform and preference to blind obedience rather than resistance are aspects of the human characteristic. Browning concludes his work by asking who would be brave enough not to conform as most Nazis did, and this is not an easy question. Responsibility is undeniably present, but in light of evidence such as these experiments, can be mitigated somewhat. Men such as the members of the Reserve Police Battalion ultimately pulled the trigger to end a life, but did so feeling coerced by the orders of their superiors. It is this group, then, that should incur the lion’s share of the blame. Those who made the decisions to kill these target groups are the true murderers, and should be held responsible for it. Whenever the original command can be traced to the source and initial fabricators, it is this source that should receive the most judicious and extreme punishment. The nature of this punishment is a debate in itself, and it should be considered whether this punishment is vindictive, incapacitating, or warning. The body that decides upon this punishment is also highly situational; an internal jury could, obviously, be too lenient, but without its input a jury of those affected risks being excessive. In the end, it seems that there can be no general answer to this question. If the punishment is to truly fit the crime, then each shall be specific to its specific crime, and advanced profiling of cases could prove to be a dangerous generalization that either punishes human nature, in the underlings, or excuses sadistic perversion, in the leaders.
(Im not sure if the other one sent so here's take two) Genocide is pure evil there's no doubt of that. But just because thousands of men participated in the organized killing of men doesn't mean they should all be held accountable for the deaths. But they aren't held completely without blame either. I dissagree with Goldhagen's view that all men who pariticipated in genocides are at fault because in reality they aren't. Miligram's experiment explians and give a convincing argument that people fall into and fill in the roles they are put in. Like in the instances at Abu Grhaib, the indeminities that occured were not things the soldiers would have ever thought of doing had they not been in that situation. And also shown in Ordinary Men, being the one to step up and say no to orders is difficult. Even when given the option to step out most people are not willing to hurt their pride or appear weak to their generals and their peers and choose to find other ways out of the duty by hiding or intentially searching houses extra slowly so they would not have to paritipate in the slaughter. The theories proposed by Browning here, and Miligram prove that humans should not be held entirely accountable for heinious crimes they did because society plays a huge role in people's decisions. Instead the people who are singled out for the genocide should be limited to those who are truly found to be evil like the Fuhrer himself. Individuals should be taken out and counciled to ensure that what they had done did not leave any permanant damages to their minds, that they still retained a sense of morales and that their reason had not been mentally blockaded in performing those deeds. If anything the individual men should not take heat because they only take orders from their commanders, something that has been drilled into them from training, to never disobey. I think commanders such as Captain Wohlauf should be held more accountable because he seemed to be in full support of the Massacre at Jozefow whereas others like Trapp and Kammer were seen as more empathetic. So I guess with a lot of wavering back in forth, my response is that there is no perfect way to deal with those who participated in the killings during genocide. We cannot single-handedly pick out what someone's mind actually says. We cannot tell if someone performed the deeds in pure hatred of mankind or did it stoically under orders. If there was a way to see into the mind of these murderers then perhaps we could figure out how to deal with each person. Society should see those who are truly sorry as victims of war, crime, and hate. Others who were the ones giving out these orders should only be cruelly punished for instilling this hatred.
This question, if not the topic in general, is very delicate. Even if you are for the death penalty, it is a hard question to answer, because you put yourself in several pairs of shoes: the commanding officers, the soldiers themselves, then the victims. And only after that you have to decipher what you think would be best.
I think everyone should be held accountable, certainly some moreso than others. Obviously the highest power in the Holocaust would be Hitler, and the easiest way to answer this would be to say that he is solely responsible. That however, is not the case. Even though he was quite the nut job, he had power over so many people it was ridiculous. What is even more ridiculous (although not so surprising after finishing "Ordinary Men" where I found that normal people can become killers under the right circumstances) is that those below him actually listened. The truth be told, I think that those who participated in the act should be held mostly responsible, because as Browning pointed out, there would be no punishment of any kind if a soldier refused to take part in the murders. The bottom line is that if they didn't want to, they didn't have to. Those who gave the orders also have that same burden on them, because I believe the same was true for them; they would merely be transferred to another duty.
Milgram and Zimbardo's experiments further prove my point and do not mitigate responsibility. While partaking in the jail experiment, people were AWARE that it was just an experiment, yet they still behaved the way they did. They also knew that besides having a failed experiment, there would be no problem if they did not want to continue. In Milgram's experiment, the subjects did not know they were under surveillance, but were only told "Ma'am/Sir, you must continue with the experiment" if they stopped or hesitated for a moment. I would think in an environment like that it would be easier to say no, but I am wrong. All three groups of people have the same type of burden to carry on their shoulders, but those who participated in the killings of the Jews should be punished because theirs was real.
People who participate in mass murders are always somewhat guilty, no matter why or how they took part. Although they are all guilty, I believe that there are different situations create different punishments. A major part is the position of the culpable person and what role he/she took. For example, during WWII, Hitler obviously was at the top and should deserve the most blame. Those on the bottom, such as Battalion 101, are a different story. In Ordinary Men¸ regular German citizens take part in massacring innocent Jews. While it was clear that all were responsible, I feel that the men should not face an extremely harsh punishment. This is because they were almost completely pressured into doing so. As Browning states, the men who backed out were viewed as weak in an environment that people wanted to be closely-knit. The “weakness” that those who backed out portrayed also gave “strength” to those who stayed and continued with the killing. The men, however, were ordered to kill the Jews by a higher ranking officer; they most likely wouldn’t have killed the Jews if some random man on the street told them to. This leads to the Milgram experiment, where subjects were told to administer harmful electrical shocks to an innocent person. They continued on because the experimenter said that he would take all the blame and that it was “absolutely essential” to continue. This “obedience” can turn ordinary citizens into killers, as seen in WWII. In the recent Abu Ghraib prison incident, the prison guards were found guilty of torturing and abuse of the prisoners. Although their superiors allowed and motivated the actions, I think that their sentences are fair. All these men simply followed orders and did what they were supposed to do. Had they not followed orders, what would’ve happened? As one of the guards in Abu Ghraib said, it’s easy to say that someone is responsible, but can you really know what it feels like to be in that situation if you’ve never been there? The many different aspects that one needs to take into account are why serving blame for these actions is so hard.
Those that have led other to participate in mass genocide should be held fully responsible for all the deaths that occur. They have no excuse as to why they told others to kill thousands and millions of innocent civilians. The people that were given the order to kill should not be held to the same level of responsibility as the leaders. As shown in many experiments, people act differently when confronted with an authority and harming others, they will please the authority figure over not harming the other person. Because the results show that about 2/3 of people will act in this way, they cannot be held for their own actions. Someone that kills only children, such as in Ordinary Men, is clearly insane. Based on our legal system, he would not be held responsible for his actions. People also act differently when they are in a group. They want to fit in, so they act in ways that they would otherwise. Ordinary men became killers when confronted with fitting in or standing out. It is also not feasible to punish a large plurality of a nation. It would further harm the, probably, struggling economy of the state, causing even more problems. It is best to punish the leaders of the genocide, but let the normal participants get off relatively free. They should however, be monitored to make sure that genocide never happens again, and anyone suspected in trying to start or continue another genocide should be held to the highest punishment possible.
In cases of genocide, the greatest blame should be given to those highest up in the chain of command, who ordered the killings. However, some punishment should be given to the soldiers, for although their will was bent by authority, they did have some conscious knowledge of what they were doing. In Ordinary Men, it was found that the men were slowly shaped over time to become excellent killers. This became particularly potent when Lt. Gnade took charge of the battalion; he used a mixture of alcohol, forceful commanding, and hiding the option of not shooting to push his men into becoming better killers. Lt. Gnade demonstrates that the command, though not necessarily doling out severe punishment to evaders, could effectively shape the men into more effective killers. It was also seen in Ordinary Men that the force for the killing of Jews, the Einsatzgruppen, extended all the way to Himmler. Although the foot soldiers did the dirty work, it was under the orders of higher Nazi command, and, as evidenced by Alexander Groth’s article, a command that was incredibly intimidating to the people of Germany; even though the men were offered a choice, intimidation did play a role in their actions, an intimidation extending to the higher branches of the Nazi force. A similar example exists in Abu Ghraib, when soldiers were encouraged to maltreat prisoners, under the duress of higher command. The need to serve the country, and the discipline enforced by the military, encouraged an atmosphere of obeying higher command. The higher command was ultimately the most responsible for the actions of the soldiers; hence, they should receive the heaviest punishment, for they served to intimidate them into action. However, the soldiers should not be left completely off the hook. Although they were intimidated, many were still offered a clear choice to kill or not to kill. Zimbardo has sown that given a choice, most people will choose to become sadistic, as evidenced by the abuse his “guards” displayed to his “prisoners.” Although this is strongly evidenced as natural human nature, and although these soldiers were influenced, there still remains the fact that there is a division between right and wrong. It was also shown in Milgram’s experiment that most people do have a limit, and they will eventually exhibit mercy. Human nature is not completely evil, and most people do have the capacity to draw a line. Those who pass that point have fallen past the excuse of human nature, and do warrant a punishment.
The people who carry out the actions of genocide have usually been brainwashed or given a reason that attempts to morally justify the actions. Those who first gave the order of murder should be the ones that are punished the most; their ideas were the ones that influenced the men and soldiers under their commands to do the terrible deed. The higher commanding officers should be given the harshest punishment. The lower ranking officers and non-commissioned soldiers are generally the ones that do the actual killings, therefore the moral and emotional toil is hinged solely on those soldiers. As Browning discussed in his book “Ordinary Men,” the men try to repress and/or warp their memories after the war. The mental anguish that many of those men had to experience is already enough for a punishment. For the soldiers that were openly taking enjoyment in the killings, their punishment should a dishonorable discharge. However, these punishments should not be applied to all cases of genocide. The punishment that is decided should be based on the circumstances. For example, if the people who participated in the actual killings had the choice to refuse. The guards that were working at the Abu Ghraib prison should have been given some kind of training beforehand. There was also not a strong oversight by the military as Dr. Philip Zimbardo discussed in his interview with John Stewart. The guards were given free rein over the prisoners without fear of immediate reparations. The mock guards in the Zimbardo experiments were allowed complete control over the prisoners. The authority that the guards possessed changed their personalities. Many of the guards became aggressive and molded into their role as a prison guard.
In the Milgram and Zimbardo experiments, the results of the experiments should not be used as the sole deciding factor to a punishment. The natural human behavior that results from being put in a place of power should not be seen with an irresolute interest because it is seen as a subconscious reaction. The responsibilities of the experiments were done in the correct fashion because the goal of the experiments was to test the reactions of the subjects to authority.
In order to discourage future leaders to participate in genocide, the international community must impose clear and strict punishments. Unfortunately, the United Nations has not been doing their duty in preventing and interfering in the genocides that are currently occurring. It is a sensitive topic in the international community; not all the countries want to participate in a problem that is not their own. Especially on an issue that will most likely require financial and military aid to the group that is being acted on. All in all the acts of genocide should always be addressed immediately to prevent further deaths. The international community focuses too much time on where the blame lies and not on how to save the lives of those who are still trapped with the constant fear of extermination.
Everybody who participated in mass murders or genocide should be punished. However, each individual should be punished to different extents based upon their participation in the acts. The leaders of these acts should be given the greatest punishment. They are the ones who gave the orders to kill that others followed and should receive the punishment of death. Other officers should also receive very large punishments including death because they led men to killing the innocent population. However, I believe that many of the people of the lower ranked personnel who actually did most of the killing should receive much lower punishments than their superiors. They were ordered, and in many cases, forced to kill. As apparent in the experiments of Milgram and Zimbardo, and Browning’s thesis, many ordinary people could be turned into killers given the right situation. Browning’s thesis looks at how most ordinary people can be turned into killers simply if they are given the right situation which is what happened to many of the people in countries such as Germany, Rwanda, and the Congo. Many of these people were not true killers and were doing it simply because they were ordered to. However, those who gave the orders deserve the biggest punishment possible, which is death. These people had the power to end the killings because of their rank if they truly wanted but did not and need to be punished because of it. Those who give the orders deserve the largest possible while those who carry out the orders deserve much lesser punishments. Everybody involved needs to be punished, but the degree differs on each individual role.
It’s very difficult to indicate specific individuals who should be held accountable for Genocidal crimes. In many cases, it is the society at large that is truly at fault for the matter However, to not punish individuals is letting them off the hook for horrors that they perpetuated if not orchestrated, and they deserve some kind of punishment as well. Those who give out orders and those who follow them out are also in that grey category, because in order to follow the most basic rules of society, orders are to be given and to be followed. If nobody followed orders in a general sense of the idea, a society would result in complete anarchy. With only rules that the individual saw fit followed, society would have no set order to it, and there would be basic chaos abounding. While I’m not saying that horrible rules should be followed unquestioningly, it’s important to note that rules are important, and it’s easy to say not from out positions just to ignore them when in the actual scenario it would be much harder.
I feel like Milgrim’s experiment with the electric shocks don’t exactly lessen the responsibility. With Milgrim’s electric shocks, he proved that it was basically in man’s nature to submit to authority, no matter the consequences. Man would do nearly anything to hurt each other, if he was ordered to by a superior, but it didn’t mean that all of them did it. Some still had the courage to refuse to do it. Although the subjects showed remorse for their actions and would prefer not to do it if the option was given them, they still continued to intensify the electric shocks despite the rising reaction from the supposed victims on the other end of the experiments. I feel like because some could deny human nature, others should be held accountable. Many of the guards in Ordinary Men did not participate in shootings, mainly the twelve who stepped out of Jozefow before the shooting even began. They should be given no punishment for having done no crime. A medium sentence should be given to those following orders to the lowest degree, like Trapp who cried hysterically when told what he had to do, or the majority of the men who tried to stay out of the way and avoid performing such awful tasks. The worst punishment should be given to the sadistic who actually enjoyed or actively participated in such atrocities, because though it is supposedly in the nature of humans to be cruel, they took it above and beyond for their own selfish purposes and desires.
It’s difficult to say how those who have participated in genocide or mass murder should be “dealt” with. If by dealt it indicates some sort of reprimand for these participants, then that is also difficult to go about and if you believe in the mantra coined by Gandhi, “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,” it is also an ineffective way of handling the aftermaths of the genocide/mass murder. Those who have participated directly in the genocide/mass murders are usually many, for when the number killed is so larger the number of killers is also quite large. In this way it is almost impossible to contain or quarantine all of these murderers and isolate them from society. These people must remain among the rest of society and live with themselves and their past. Those who were the primary instigators or major leaders of the genocide/mass murder should be imprisoned for the duration of their lives. In this way they have time only to reflect upon what destruction they have inspired and supported, and upon this they would be living in a style of submission and repression like that of what they were previously championing. Individuals that were given orders can be held only minutely accountable for their actions in this genocide as well, as most of them may not have been aware of what they were getting themselves into. And once they were into it, there was no leaving, service had to be completed. However, many had options to opt out of the murder, but even then the fear of standing apart from the crowd was sometimes overwhelming. Such as in Ordinary Men when general Trapp told his battalion that they were allowed to step out and not participate in the shooting of Jews on a mission, only a few men stepped out when in reality many more had probably desired to as well. Dr. Zimbardo’s experiments with people and their inclination to conformity also support this claim that people fear dissenting from the majority. When he told people he was doing research and he needed the data of volunteers, people were required to answer questions and got shocked when they answered incorrectly. With each incorrect answer the voltage of the shock increased, and most people (70%) went all the way to 450 volts which is deadly. This is because people were afraid to stop the Dr. and speak out, and also differentiate themselves from those who had gone before them and also withstood the shocks until the very end of 450 volts. Those who did stop early also always asked the Dr. if they could stop, never did one person demand or tell the Dr. that they were done. This shows that people are inclined to conform and typically will not chose to set themselves apart from the crowd, therefore it lessens the responsibility of those individuals who participated in the genocide/mass murders- for they could have been victim to the same inclination. Milgram’s experiment with the prison also showed that people will conform to their roles and the mental toll that these roles have on them are very powerful. The students chosen to be prisoners began to go crazy and had to leave early, while the guards became cruel and abused their power. This experiment lessens the responsibility of the leaders of the mass murders because it showed that nice normal college students could become arbitrary and harsh when given roles of power, therefore the higher ranks given to certain men could have caused them to transform into a cold something that they truly are not. (However I still think they ought to be imprisoned because I think they should know better rather than let their titles get to their heads).
Genocide is completely wrong and, in all cases, unforgivable. Killing off a group of people based on race, beliefs, or ancestry is unethical and cruel. Although genocide is so cruel, it does exist, and someone or a group of people must be held responsible for their actions. However, there is not a clear way in which to handle those responsible. But first, those responsible must be defined. Are the people actually killing accountable for genocide, or those people giving them commands? In reality, everyone is responsible, even the person who merely doesn’t speak out against the movement in fear. So who should be blamed, and how should they be punished? In the experiment of Milgram, people showed that they would react to their situation. By putting people under the command of a higher power, people become reluctant to speak out, and essentially do what they are told. In this case, people who are against genocide can easily become involved. In World War II, Hitler acted as this higher power, and was able to persuade millions of innocent men to kill further innocent Jewish people. Zimbargo too proved the same point as Milgram. Zimbargo put nice college boys in a mock Stanford prison. The boys placed as guards utilized their newfound power in the situation. They became brutal, much like the many men following Hitler. As proven in Ordinary Men, the situation that one is placed in directly affects what they are willing to do. It is seen that ordinary men can be transformed into killers, and carry out the plan of another. Men so opposed to genocide, can easily contribute by following the commands of a leader of genocide. Therefore, it is important to recognize that the people giving orders, and the person in charge of the movement is held responsible for the actions of every man serving under him. Men can be portrayed as wrong when under certain pressures, and should not be punished for this, although they should be held responsible for their actions.
In my opinion, everyone who participates in evil should be held accountable. But, when the question of practicality is posed this is simply unrealistic. In cases such as the Holocaust, Cambodia, Rwanda and others, there are too many people to be punished to any degree. In such a case where so many people are guilty, the leaders should be held responsible to set a threatening example for the followers, the way the leaders of the Holocaust were. Individuals do deserve to be punished, but wide scale executions or imprisonment is expensive and impractical. Trials for every person involved would take forever. It is therefore more efficient to only hold the leaders and those who give orders to be punished instead of the thousands who take them. Perhaps it is unfair, but it is the easiest way.
Experiments conducted in which people take part in brutal behavior are also a difficult topic. Like those conducted by Milgram and Zimbardo, people had to receive therapy for the heinous acts they had committed. In one experiment, people were ordered to give life threatening shocks to other people. Most continued to do it because it was an experiment, even though they could hear screaming and pleads for them to stop. I think that experiments should be judged on a case by case basis. For example, the college kids in Zimbardo’s experiment were told they could leave and knew what they were signing up for, and the experiment was cut short. He should not be held responsible. But Milgram’s subjects were somewhat deceived, and he should be held responsible for what his subjects suffered. Where there is guilt, punishment should be given.
Genocide is never ending; the world will sadly never be without genocide to ravage a people. To think that we still cannot crush these prolonged, devastating murders is beyond me. As an international community we have encountered countless numbers of these brutal murderous events and to watch them happen is depressing.
Those that participated in genocide or mass murder should be dealt with by society without mercy. Yes, Millgram and Zimbardo show that people can “not help” but to follow authority, but it is unacceptable. Society must make and example of participants to somehow attempt to deter future genocide. Society should not sit, wait and watch for an open opportunity, they must step in as soon as they catch wind of it. I think individuals should be held accountable no matter what. Human nature is no excuse in my opinion; there is always an option to say no. To those that give the orders, as midlevel as it sounds I feel and eye for an eye. Yes, as Ghandi put it “ an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”, but I feel that has a limit. For Hitler to lead the mass murder of 6 million people deserves the death he met. He deserved to be forced into a nervous squalor and be forced to his death. Followers must also be published, no is always an option, no matter what.
In the electric shock experiment, the thing that stood out to me most was that only one person got up to help the receiver of the shocks without asking first. This is similar to the excuse that was in “Ordinary Men”, that they were only doing what they were told by an authority figure.
I believe that people who commit genocide should be dealt with immediately and harshly. A person with the capacity to order and lead out a genocide could never be trusted again and I therefore believe they should be killed for their crimes. As for their subordinates, ringleaders should also be killed. The rank and file would also be punished, life in prison in my opinion. As the Milgram experiment showed, many people do so only because they are told, which is why these soldiers shouldn't be killed. But they still did atrocities that can not be overlooked and must be punished. These men are just like the men from "Ordinary Men", which is very unfortunate. They gave in to conformity, as did their officers. This caused many unnecessary deaths and they must not go unpunished. So sadly all partakers in genocide deserve at least very long prison terms.
The question stated is one that has been of major importance to the worldly community over the last century. Unfortunately we, as a global community, need to come up with an answer to this question because of the amount of lives that have been lost in such terrible actions such mass murder. I completely believe that the only way to fix this issue is to stop genocide at the start. This is the only way because no matter what you think, there will always be people who say that “Oh I did this only because it was an order” and there will be those who say “I just oversaw it I never participated”. Obviously both people are guilty but in order to put every person to justice would be impossible because of the amount of time it would take and also there wouldn’t be nearly enough prison space to put everyone who contributed to the Holocaust.
Having said this, I believe that everyone should be punished because no matter how you look at it, killing is wrong. Unfortunately, the tests run by Stanley Milgram of Yale shed some light on the people who believe they are innocent because they were only taking orders. He proved that almost all people will hurt others to the point of near death when under orders of a higher authority. Although this doesn’t excuse the killing of human beings in my mind, it provides an excuse for the weak people who can’t stand up for themselves when they are put in the position to kill others such as the men in the 101 Battalion from Ordinary Men. The soldiers from Abu Ghraib including the highest authority in the camp also used this excuse to blame the upper level of authority. All these psychology experiments are interesting but I believe are just providing excuses for people who do wrong and can’t face the consequences.
It is my opinion that those who participate in mass murder or genocide should be punished. Milgram’s experiment showed that the majority of humans will obey an authority figure. Zimbardo’s experiment showed how quickly ordinary people can turn into ruthless guards. Their treatment of the ‘prisoners’ was so brutal that the experiment had to be ended in only six days. So do these experiments excuse the actions of those who participate in mass murder? No. Saying that they were obeying orders is an unacceptable excuse. It is in human nature to obey an authority figure; however that does not justify the murder of innocents. While the majority of people in Milgram’s experiment continued to deliver the shocks, not all did. That is because humans also have the capability of free will. Any person involved in the experiment could have made the choice to stop, but they didn’t. The men of OPB 101 were told they wouldn’t suffer any consequences for excusing themselves from the execution of the Jews, and yet the majority followed orders and participated in the murders. Then when they are tried for their crimes, they claim they were just following orders. This justification of their actions disgusts me because they had a choice. Milgram’s experiment shows that it is possible to defy an authority figure. Most people just choose not to. Every one of these men, from the lowest soldier to the highest ranking officer had a choice. The vast majority chose to participate in the mass murder of innocent civilians. For this they deserve to be punished. The other thing about this defense that bothers me is that it seems by saying they were following orders, it takes the blame off of them. These men seem to be refusing to acknowledge that they participated in any such action. That they won’t take responsibility for their actions angers me. They may have been following orders, but that does not mean they can just ignore what they did. Every human being is in control of his/her actions. They have the ability to choose whether or not to obey an authority figure. It may be easier to obey, but no one ever said making the right choice was easy. Whoever participates in genocide or mass murder must take responsibility for their actions and be punished.
Genocide is comparable to a machine. In order to operate, all of it's components need to be in working order, from the evil mastermind to the lowest participant in the mass murder. But in these situations, who is to blame? Which individuals are held accountable for these actions and punished? From childhood, we are taught that killing is wrong. In our society, murder brings with it the most serious of consequences. Despite this, the ones that should be punished for genocide are the leaders, the high ranking personnel behind the murder who typically are the most zealous for the cause. The lowest participants are merely pawns following orders. It is the leaders that are giving the orders and are therefore responsible because without them, there would be no genocide in the first place. Take for example the situation in Abu Graib. Soldiers tortured prisoners through various means such as stripping them down and making them wear their underwear on their heads, or blaring country music to deprive them of sleep. The soldiers at Abu Graib should not have been held responsible because these atrocities are the result of their superiors' orders for new "methods of interrogation." In some cases it was even encouraged. The soldier in charge if Abu Graib was particularly brutal to the prisoners, yet he received commendation from his superiors for the work that he did. Being humans, we enjoy praise. Therefore, he would not stop the atrocities, but rather he would continue or become more brutal since he believed that the praise and the orders from his superiors justified his actions. A similar situation occurred with Reserve Police Battalion 101, as presented in "Ordinary Men." These men were reserve police, among the lowest ranks of the German police force, and they were ordered to kill Jews. Again, these killings were ordered by their superiors, originating from Hitler and trickling down the chain of command. In addition, the leaders encouraged the killing by employing such methods as dehumanizing the Jews an providing an incentive (alcohol) to participate in the shootings.
In both scenarios, one may ask why the participants did not just simply refuse. It seems like a case if doing what's right vs. doing what's easy, but it is more than that. Although the participants would not have received any serious consequences for refusal, they would have faced the disappointment of their fellow soldiers. They would have let them down and showed weakness. That alone forced the soldiers to do what they did. It is a part of human nature. In a study done by Milgram, test subjects controlled a device that administered electric shocks, up to lethal amounts, to another person who was said to be taking a memory test. Though the devices did not actually deliver shocks, it was found that the majority of people were capable of inflicting lethal harm to people under interactions. So then really, it is the pressure of the orders and the environment in which the individual is in. Since the leaders give the orders and mold the environment that they live in, it is the leaders who ate truly responsible for genocide.
In my opinion, anyone that willingly participates in the act of genocide should be harshly punished, regardless of their role in the slaughter. One's proximity to the atrocities doesn't make a difference to their culpability; to acquiesce to systematically killing a group of people because of their supposed inferiority is disgusting, and must be punished as to set an example to the rest of the world as to why it is so wrong. Ordinary Men presents a perfect example for the genocidal chain of command, and how each is responsible in one way or another. At the top of the chain Adolf Hitler and his personal advisors, such as Heinrich Himmler; these people are the genesis of the action, and their power coerces and allows others to join in on their crusades. It is unquestionable that they should be punished for their involvement in genocide. Many, however, question whether individuals who are ordered to carry out the killings should be punished. Those who argue against it hinge their position on the statement, “I was just following orders,” and say that they were merely acting in interest of their own well-being. In the case of Nazi Germany, however, it is pointed out by Browning that there is no record of any German being reprimanded, severely or otherwise, for refusing to participate in the mass-killing of Jews. Why, then, did so many blindly follow the Nazi ideal of racial purification? When probed, a variety of reasons are seen at every turn, such as the initial OPB 101 massacre at Jozefow; some indeed are “natural-born killers,” sadistically exerting their power over another. Others, afraid of appearing weak in front of their police brethren, went along for the ride. Although many eventually backed out, the fact remains that they were faced with the moral decision of killing or not killing. Despite the fact that no repercussions would have been felt, these individuals chose to kill. Whatever their individual reason for it, they are responsible for the acts they committed against these innocent people.
Furthermore, the Milgram and Zimbardo experiments only reinforce the fact that humanity, on the whole, is like a flock of sheep; if two-thirds of a test population are willing to deliver a fatal shock to someone that they have never seen, just because a man in a lab coat who appears to be in authority tells them to, then we as a society need to recognize our susceptibility to persuasion, and create safeguards against it. One such protection must come in the punishment of those who instigate genocide, as well as those who blindly follow the leader into committing such atrocities. It is a moot point whether they were following orders, or whether they were the ones making the orders; each was faced with a depraved, atrocious act, and chose to take part in it. As human beings, every one of us must remember basic human ethics. If we commit genocide, it is no different from any other horrible act of murder, and we must accept the punishments which have long stood for such crimes.
Recently, our school had a speaker that was a survivor of the Rwanda genocide. Although I have heard of the conflict in Rwanda previously I never truly understood it. After listening to this amazing man’s story I was horrified and disgusted with what people could do to each other. I am against the death penalty and I truly believe, “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” However, I do believe people that take actions such as throwing up little babies in the air and trying to catch them on a knife deserve to be punished. Yet, after reading Ordinary Men my view point did change slightly. I still believe someone needs to be punished for the deaths of innocent people, however rather then every single Nazi be punished only those who gave orders should be. It would be irrational to punish every Nazi because they will always find a scapegoat. Most of the leaders had the ability to say “NO” and put an end to mass killings. Their lives were not in stake, thus if they just told Hitler no then it would not have happened to such an extent. This makes the leaders more responsible then those who actually carried out the orders. In the situation such as Abu Grhaib, the people to blame are the commanding officers there that enforced the commands of people higher up. They had the choice to ignore the commands to harass their prisoners and yet they did not. However, the servicemen should not be at blame as much as the commanding officers just like the Nazis and the commanding officers. Someone higher up was not blamed because the United States Government was fearful that it would shake up the whole administration system and the war effort.
Goldhagen believed that people did what they did because of their situation and society. This however is only partially true because every person has a conscience and knows that it is wrong to kill another human being. Therefore, the people that did carry out the killings should be punished just not as severely as the commanding officers. Milgram and Zimbardo attempted to justify their actions by exemplifying anyone can act sadistically through an electroshock and jail experiment. However, this is only true to an extent. This can not be used to justify the actions of the men and their leaders. We are not born with the thought that it is right to kill; the thought is placed in our brains. This can be seen with the RPB 101 because they really did not want to kill; rather they were taught to kill by their leaders. The first time they killed many of them were unable to finish and faced problems later on as a result. However, many continued to because they conformed and wanted to succeed in their careers, eventually it was easier for them to kill because they removed themselves. And saw the Jews not as people. With genocides people often see them as “saving” a race or ethnicity rather then killing off a group of people. These people need to be punished.
Those who have participated in genocide or mass murder because they were ordered to by their superior officers should be punished harshly but should not be given the death sentence or life in prison. Unlike perpetrators in murder cases who kill in cold blood, those who participated in genocide were following orders. In most cases, those who committed the mass murders were ordered to by their superior officers and they were promised that their superior officers would take responsibility for the acts. The soldiers, such as those in Reserve Police Batallion 101, knew that what they did was wrong but they saw it as another difficult task they accomplish. While the soldiers in Reserve Police Batallion 101 were given the choice to not partake in the killings, other soldiers were not commanded by officers as sympathetic as Major Wilhelm Trapp. Other soldiers were often given the choice to either kill or face severe consequences. Those in this situation should not be given the same punishment as a murderer who kills in cold blood because the former were under tremendous pressure to execute their officers' order and faced severe consequences if they refused to carry out those orders.
The soldiers who were ordered to participate in mass murders were actually sickened and traumatized by the murders. Most of the soldiers in Reserve Police Batallion 101 had to be relieved of their duty after only a few killings. This shows that these soldiers, unlike cold blooded murderers, would not have killed their victims if they had not been ordered to. The Milgram experiment shows that ordinary people will obey an authority even if the authority asks them to do things that are morally wrong. The Stanford prison experiment shows that people will adapt to their new roles very quickly. These famous experiments support idea that blame should be on the people who gave the orders instead of the people who were forced to carry them out.
People who gave the orders should be given the most severe punishment, such as the death sentence, while those who carried out the orders should be given lesser sentences, such as ten years in prison. The superior officers are accountable for all the acts committed by their subordinates. However, the soldiers who carried out the mass murders are also partially responsible. They are given a sentence that allows them to redeem themselves because they would not have committed the acts if they were not ordered to.
Recently, thousands, possibly millions of Americans, celebrated the death of Osama bin Laden. Even people against the death penalty reveled in bin Laden’s murder, for he caused so much death, destruction, and pain. They took relish in his death because they were directly affected by his actions; there was a personal feeling of indignation and cupidity for vengeance. However, to most Americans, the individuals who participate in genocide or mass murder in the Holocaust, Cambodia, Rwanda, and other places have had no direct affect on them. While some Americans will condemn the participants on moral, ethical, and humane grounds, others will either feel apathetic or even condemn the people trying to avenge their lost loved ones. Therefore, I think that those who have given orders for genocide/mass murder should be dealt with by the survivors and the spouses, parents, children, siblings, relatives, and friends, of the victims. They deserve to decide how to punish the leaders of genocide/mass murder. As for those who participated in genocide/mass murder, their punishments should depend on the severity of their crimes.
The people who participate in genocide/mass murder should only receive jail sentences depending on their actions. They should not face execution because the experiments of Milgram, Zimbardo, and other likeminded psychologists do mitigate their responsibilities. The Milgram experiment demonstrated people obey those who they perceive to be figures of authority, even if they are presented with evidence that their actions are causing harm to others. Thus, the participants were following human nature, and the experiment only further pins the blame on the leaders. In Ordinary Men, Major Trapp was averse to the job he was given. He was “pale and nervous, with choking voice and tears in his eyes” as he described their task at Jozefow, and stated that “the orders came from the highest authorities” (Browning 2). Major Trapp had also excused Lieutenant Buchmann multiple times from killing Jews and even altered his record to protect him. He tried to protect his men from the horrors of their actions. Trapp did not deserve to be executed any more than his men and certainly less than people who took relish in killing. He is similar to the former commander at Abu Graib who had to take the fall for what she claimed were orders from “the highest authority,” Donald Rumsfeld. Moreover, the Zimbardo experiment proved that people are dependent on their environments and situations. The soldiers in Abu Graib, who slept in the same kind of jail cells as the prisoners and were grossly outnumbered, underwent emotions and performed actions outsiders cannot understand. Likewise, the OPB 101 did things that drove the men to drinking and avoiding duty. Therefore, the participants in the genocides/mass murders are also victims of the leaders and deserve only jail sentences.
The jail sentences should vary based on the number killed and cruelty in killing. Did he enjoy humiliating the victims like the man from OPB 309, who urinated on a suppliant Jewish leader or bring his pregnant wife to watch gruesome murders? Or did he, like the soldier from Abu Graib who did not participate in any prisoner abuse, feel sympathy towards the powerless victims? It's probably a naive idea to base the number of years incarcerated on the person's brutality, but it would be the fairest way in punishing the perpetrators of the overwhelmingly unjust genocide/homicide.
The people who committed mas murder and participated in genocide should be dealt with in a way that takes into account their individual participation in the event. The average person or average soldier with no political investment in the genocide should receive very little punishment. The fact that they participated should not be overlooked, but the most severe modes of punishment should be withheld. For example, the average person involved in the Holocaust had no moral investment into what they were doing, they were doing it simply to survive. There was very little rational thought involved when they were performing the actions, and the people should not be punished for adapting to their rapidly changing environments. In Nazi Germany, full civil rights were only given to party members, and many non party members were persecuted. There was no easy choice, and many chose to adapt. The people who should be held responsible are those who ordered the killings. These people were well aware of the consequences of their orders, yet the ordered them anyway and in turn influenced many people to contribute to and perform horrible atrocities. The people who actually performed the acts should not be severely punished because under normal circumstances they would not have performed them. However, because of the situation created by their superiors, they had no choice but to. This is why the superiors should be punished. Milgram's prison experiment supports this. The prison guards in the experiment were normal people, yet under the circumstances of the experiment they acted totally differently. The average person has little control over the situation they are in, and as proven in Milgram and Zimbardo's experiments, they are often greatly influenced by it. The leaders are the ones who are creating the situations, and that is why they should be the ones most severely punished.
This question essentially asks what measures we believe a society should be allowed to take against another human who is guilty of instigating genocide. If it is to be looked at as a criminal act, it is most certainly far beyond even the most brutal murder, for it is the serial murder of thousands. The criminal must have acted in sound body and mind to organize such an event, and as such there can be no reasonable plea of insanity. Punishment for crime is administered to ensure that the individual and others will be less willing to commit the same crime in the future, for fear of facing the same fate. As such, the punishment for genocide ought to be the most fearsome the ruling government can devise without compromising their public image. Quite often, this is a quick and merciful death.
To this point my discussion has dealt with the supposed 'mastermind' of the genocide. The wording of the question would imply, however, that something must also be done with the underlings who assisted in the killing. Here is where it becomes more difficult. It has been engrained in our morals since the time we were born that killing people is bad, and we must not do it. Thus, when we judge someone who has killed, we have that weighted bias upon our mind. But as Ordinary Men pointed out, we ourselves would have acted in much the same way as those who committed the Holocaust. As I have already agreed with Browning's hypothesis, the question is not whether people will act in this manner- it is what should be done with them afterwards. On one hand, letting them go will be seen as too soft by the offended community. The world wishes to have its notions of justice satisfied. Per my earlier recommendation, however, killing them all would be highly illogical and inefficient. After a war, despite however severe the fighting was, you cannot simply exterminate the enemy. History has proven that, despite however sound our moral grounding is, you cannot kill everyone who disagrees with you and expect the world to stay in a healthy place. Zimbardo's psychological experiments likewise show that people under apparent official orders are following a cultural and moral stigma as strong as that to not kill- the natural response to obey authority. His work essentially mitigates responsibility back to the 'mastermind' at the top. Yet if we, with the benefit of hindsight, wish to prevent another genocide, we cannot give the underlings this sense of security, in that they may do their jobs and pass the buck if caught by justice. Again, if punishment's only purpose is to discourage others from acting in the same manner, the underlings must receive it. However, it should be less severe than that of the mastermind's, as it has been well proven that we as humans are unfortunately sway-able by the appearance of power.
In my opinion any person that participates in the act of genocide should be held responsible for every life that they take and the lives that they order to be taken; there is no justification for murder that can be made by any soldier, captain, or general. Society should bring down the hammer of military force to prevent genocide or mass murder and then take care the people responsible. I would like to note that I am not advocating the execution of all people who participate, because not all murderers are executed. People who can only be traced to the death of few should only get time in prision. The Milgram and Zimbardo experiments should also be responsible for their actions, if the people who participated in the experiment came away with any side effects and did not sign a waiver stating that they were aware of the possibility of psychological illness. If no such waiver existed then both experiments damaged the lives of many simply to prove a point, and never let the people that helped them know that a danger existed. The true shocker to me is that of the 101 PB only 2 people were punished at the end of the war, 2 people out of an entire battalion of murderers.
It is hard to say the degree in which every individual should be punished. So many people participated in the Holocaust alone. Convicting all of them would take an eternity. In my opinion, the individual should be treated in the same way as one who is being convicted of murder. There is no way to justify taking the life of another. This was a matter of millions of people's lives. Just because there were more, doesnt make the situation any different. In America, your looking at a life in prison or even the death penalty. Yet this is simply my opinion. However theres also alot more to it. Hitler was a powerful man, as you all know. He had the ability to basically brain wash an entire mass of people. His skill was incredible as well as dangerous. He can be held solely responsible for turning ordinary men into killers. Browning explores the idea of how ordinary men could turn into cold blooded killers. He discusses the idea of conformity. To what degree to we hold each responsible? The players including those who give the orders and those who carry them out. He ultimately concludes that “Human responsibility is ultimately an individual matter” (p188). Those who physically carried out those orders should be punished no different, if not worse, then those who gave the orders. As a human you have to right of choice. Now this may not have been so easy in most cases, because some didnt want to face the consequences. However in Ordinary Men it never discussed any serous/fatal consequences of not following through on an order to kill. But rather having the choice to step out. This is such a complex topic, and can be explained for hours. You could also argue the idea that the leaders should be punished worse, because they are the direct source of influence. However i believe everyone played a part. Everyone should be tried based on there individual contribution. This would again be a lengthy process to do. A fine example of this was Abu Grahib. A place with leaders who had very little order and werent exactly guided. Leaving alot of room for the leaders to abuse their powers. Now who do we punish more, the leaders who physically carried out the brutality, or the higher authority who told them to? Very difficult to explain. Experiments like Milgram and Zimbardo conducted show how any ordinary man can conform and become this evil power hungry man. The men who were given the role of guards at the jail, quickly got used to it. By the sixth day were really abusing the power and forgetting all reality. Putting an end to the experiment. Humans should be held directly accountable for all their actions. There is no way to justify bad behavior. At the end of the day, you are in your own body listening to your own mind. You have every right to decide and control your own actions. There are no excuses, and every individual should be responsible for what they do. Morals or no morals, respect or disrespect. It is all your choice. No excuses what so ever.
The responsibility for large scale mass murders can simply be based off of the chain of command involved in promoting it. By starting at the root of the problem, you will find the main culprit and biggest perpetrator of the event. In the case of the Holocaust, this person was obviously Hitler. I believe that those at the highest chain of command, the actual seed from which such a disaster stemmed from, should claim a great amount of responsibility and therefore should be punished most harshly. In other cases, such as the Abu Graihb situation, that person was Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense of the United States at the time. Mr. Rumsfeld knowingly signed off on documents allowing for, and even encouraging, the torturing of prisoners at Abu Graihb. Without his signature and encouragement, the torturing and killing would most likely not have taken place. Therefore, I believe he should have been most harshly punished and receive the most time in jail, regardless of his place in society. There are also people in the next chain of command, such as Captain Wilhelm Trapp from Ordinary Men and the woman in charge of the Abu Graihb troops. These people, I believe, should be given the next highest amount of responsibility because they willingly complied with their higher authority and took it a step further by dishing out destructive commands to their inferiors; commands to kill. Without these commands, there would have been no killing. Therefore, they should be punished just as harshly, and even more so, than those who did the actual killing. Finally, the last chain of command, the actual killers themselves, should receive a significant amount of responsibility, but not quite as much as their commanders. As proven by the Milgram experiments, Zimbardo’s studies, and Browning’s thesis in Ordinary Men, the majority of people will act in a manner in compliance to their authority figures and in attempt to conform. In the Milgram experiments, people delivered shocks to the point of killing other people simply because they were told to do so by an authority. In the Zimabrdo studies, perfectly sane teens were desensitized to the point where they performed harsh and unusual acts. In Ordinary Men, a group of, well, ordinary men were transformed into what seemed natural born killers. As proven by these three examples, it is human instinct to act in the way that these people acted. On the other hand, I am in no way saying that these acts should be at all excused. They were absolutely heinous acts that could have been prevented if attested to and should be punished severely. Regardless of instinct, it is indeed possible to hold oneself back from such a crime, as proven in Ordinary Men, when some of the RPB 101 men did not perform their duties at Josefow without consequence. Therefore, it is truly possible to resign from such pressure. Overall, I believe that those highest in command should be held most responsible but each and every person who participated should be somehow punished.
I believe that each person is an individual and should be treated as such, whether in determining rewards or punishments. Every grown person who functions in society knows the difference between right and wrong. Every person, no matter the situation, has the opportunity to do the right thing, to refuse to do wrong onto others, even if the costs are high, the opportunity is there. I can’t say for sure because I have never been in a situation involving genocide, and hopefully never will be, but I like to think that I would sacrifice my life, rather than desecrate it with the guilt and the evil of murder. I like to think that no matter if I was threatened with death, I would still maintain that I do not have to authority to value my life higher than somebody else’s, I do not have the right to save myself in spite of another. I define “good people”, people who do right by others, people who do not value the life of one person higher than that of another’s based on race, or religious belief, or gender, etc., people who wouldn’t think of doing harm to another person, let alone act on that thought, as “human beings”. On the other hand, I like to define “bad people”, people like Hitler, Stalin, Bin Laden, Castro, Hussein, Jeffrey Dahmer, etc., people who lack a conscious, people who are unable to feel any emotion of guilt or remorse whatsoever, as “people who lack human qualities”. Therefore, in my reasoning, there is a difference between a person, and a human being.
People who take part in events like the Holocaust, and other genocides, have a severe lack of human qualities. I think that these people need to be dealt with all in the same manner; that is to say that since every person has an initial choice of what is right, and what is wrong, and whether they want to participate in the wrongdoings or not, each person should be held individually accountable, and subject to the same punishment. A senior officer in the operation should get no worse punishment than a new recruit; both people made the decision to take part in the same act, with the intention of inflicting harm onto others, both people are just as guilty. However, it would not be realistic/suitable to put to death every person who took part in the operation, as the authorities in “Ordinary Men” must have realized, seeing as though only 2 of the men of that battalion were put to death, therefore, another method of punishment must be used. If it were Earthly/economically possible, all people involved deserve to spend the rest of their lives sitting in a cell and thinking about what they’ve done, or otherwise waiting for death to take them.
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When I think about the whole situation in terms of the Zimbardo and Milgram experiments however, my perspective changes. I have tried to envision how I might have acted if I were the subject in the Milgram experiment and a man whom I believed to be a doctor, a man of authority, a man who knew what he was doing, was telling me to help him perform a “medical experiment” that involved electrically shocking someone, I’m not sure I would have acted any differently than the actual subjects of the experiment did. This is because in a situation like that one, our perspectives of right and wrong are altered. If your friend was struggling to breath and a doctor instructed you to help them by cutting a hole in their chest-wall and inserting a chest-tube, you would see this as the “right” thing to do because you would be helping your friend; however, if your friend was not struggling to breath and a random person ordered you to cut a hole in their chest and insert a tube, you would probably see this as “wrong” because you know it would be unnecessary an it would hurt your friend. So if you really look at this in perspective, the subjects of the Milgram experiment thought they were being instructed by a qualified doctor to “help” a person in need by administering what they thought was a form of medical treatment. This cannot truly be compared on the same scale to people following a person like Hitler into genocide because the circumstances are totally different and what is right and wrong is much more clear-cut in then instance of genocide. Everyone human being knows that murder is wrong.
Personally, I believe that anyone involved in the process of genocide and mass murder must be punished. Despite whatever situation they were forced into, the facts are plain and simple: the people who held the weapons and pulled the trigger killed men, women, and children. For that, no one should be left unaccountable. This being said, I cannot completely undermine Milgram and Zimbardo’s experiments, because I do believe they present compelling and valid arguments in the way of the psychological pressure to kill. In these certain situations, I believe that that voice of authority, commanding the orders to kill, are the ones most responsible. Both psychologists’ experiments bolster this idea, and leave the question of how accountable, exactly, are those that have been “forced” into these situations. In Ordinary Men, Trapp offers the men of RPB 101 the option of opting out of the killing initially, and a handful do abstain. While these men were not punished, the rest continued to go on and kill as ordered. From this, one would believe that every man who decided to continue to carry out execution orders would be willing and accepting to murder however many people they needed to. However, repeatedly, men discuss how horrific and deplorable their actions were, yet most still did them. By the end of the book, some men had acquired a taste for killing, while others put their gun down for good, which leads to the conclusion that most men are susceptible to the initial orders, but after a while, they will realize the weight of their actions, and either stay on the same path, or choose to stop. While I do believe that every person who committed murder in these situations should be punished, those with more authority should be treated more punitively.
In society, there is nothing worse that the thought of genocide. We are all taught from birth that killing is wrong, and yet there are events where whole populations and cultures are decimated. These "killers" can sometimes be ordinary people in a population that are either forced to kill or find reasons to validate their actions. However, I believe that all of these people should still be punished and dealt with. Even if they are the Queen of Scotland or a petty farmer, none of these horrible actions should be justified and let go so easy. The killing of innocent people is just not an action that goes unpunished. In Milgram and Zimbardo's experiments, however, they make the case that any human being is capable of abusing power and fitting easily into a new role in society, such as a killer. In Milgram's experiment, he shows that the majority of the population will follow orders by their superiors, even if it means that other people will be hurt or even killed due to their actions. For example, not one student in Milgram's experiment would get up to help the other student that required assistance without first asking for permission. In Browning's book Ordinary Men, this point is also shown. The men of RPB 101 were forced to kill thousands of Jews, and yet they were "ordinary men." Both Milgram's experiments and Browning's thesis show that these men were just following orders. Both groups, however, were not forced to help the student or kill these Jews, and yet orders were followed. These men show that men who follow orders are not as responsible as the men who make the orders. Both should receive punishments, however, with a fair amount of blame going to both parties. In Zimbardo's experiment, it is shown that even ordinary students can change when thrust into a situation. The "prison guards" and "prisoners" went from regular students to their real-life counterparts. Both this experiment and Browning's book show that men can become ruthless and cruel if they are given certain types of power. Men can be cured, as the prison experiment showed. At the end, the students returned back to their ordinary lives, and they were not visibly changed. However this does not change the punishment. The killing of another man should not be justified by blaming someone else, and so I believe that anyone that helps in any way to carry out a genocide should be severely punished.
Murder is murder is murder. Regardless of what psychological explanations we make, we cannot change the fact that murderers are murderers. Anybody has the capability to say no to authority at any time. And although I have not been placed in such a position myself, I know it is not impossible because people have done it before. How does any revolution, rebellion, uprising or protest start? It starts when someone says no. As far as I know, the people who carried out the Holocaust did not try to stop the murders. They were willful executioners who killed people with their own free will. They did not have the personal strength to refuse killing innocent people. These people deserved punishment. The punishment does not have to be death, however. As suggested by others, there could be different punishments based on the severity of crimes. On the other hand, those who ordered the murders, relocations, and internment of Jews deserve to be executed because they had, without any external pressure, determined that the death of innocents was necessary. Individual soldiers had to fight an external pressure (their superiors) to prevent the death of others and if they did not have the personal strength to do so, they had no choice but to carry out orders.
Anyone who has participated in genocide should be punished in some way due to the atrocities of their actions. Individuals who have done wrong may not deserve terribly harsh punishment, depending on how involved they were in completing what was ordered. As in many of the cases chosen in Ordinary Men, the men who only acted due to pressure of failing the group and dropped out of the action early into their military campaign in Poland should not deserve as big of punishments as compared to, say, Hitler or someone of similar guilt because they feel more remorse and did not participate as fully. Those who give the orders, however, should be held to more serious judgment. Being on the higher ranks and directly involved in the killing of innocent people, those officers should be held accountable - especially if they create the orders themselves with knowledge of how others will be treated in the end. As shown in Zimbardo's experiment with the mock prison, the quards involved essentially became the evil and uncaring men who would torment and dehumanize their victims. It was not fair to those involved who were tortured as a result, and because of the intensity of how people were reacting in the experiment Zimbardo was forced to end it early. The reactions in this experiment showed how power and the ability to relay their own orders and wants on those of lesser strength would make men in officer positions more accountable for the wrongs of genocide over those of lesser power. Keeping such experiments in mind, responsibility should not lessen in any degree because they have the ability to say no to killing others and step down from power. This proves to be difficult for many, however, as seen in Milgram's electric shock experiment. Those who participated, young and old, almost always pushed through to the highest voltage due to an authority figure being present in the room and a fear of failure. They are responsible for not helping the "victim" of the experiment, or simply walking away - as the men and women who have participated willingly in mass murder have the choice to do. In most all cases, the social pressures placed on individuals who were/are involved in genocide should only influence the level of punishment they deserve based on their rank and willingness to go through with actions. It is a difficult matter to decide on a justifiable castigation with the variety of cases seen, but all deserve something.
Some really interesting responses. Good job!
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