Perpetrators of the Holocaust: Divided and Unitary Self Conceptions of Evildoing
In addressing the question of evildoing, few Holocaust scholars maintain the “demonization” approach that was common immediately after the war. Increasingly, contemporary scholars recognize that most sustained evildoing in the world is the product of potent social forces generated by situations and...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
1996
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| In: |
Holocaust and genocide studies
Year: 1996, Volume: 10, Issue: 1, Pages: 11-33 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | In addressing the question of evildoing, few Holocaust scholars maintain the “demonization” approach that was common immediately after the war. Increasingly, contemporary scholars recognize that most sustained evildoing in the world is the product of potent social forces generated by situations and organizations. Two disparate psychological approaches addressing the impact of social forces on the alteration process from ordinary person to perpetrator of extraordinary evil are reviewed and evaluated. The first is a divided-self conception that posits the creation of an altered, discontinuous, dissociated self for evildoing. The second is a unitary-self conception asserting that the primary, and only, self is fundamentally altered as a result of the power of the social forces in a given situation or organization. While a divided-self conception of evildoing may adequately describe the initial short-term adaptation to the perpetrators' own atrocities, it is not sufficient to explain sustained evildoing. It wil be argued that a unitary-self conception offers the clearest explanatory principle of how ordinary people become capable of committing extraordinary evil. |
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| ISSN: | 1476-7937 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Holocaust and genocide studies
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/hgs/10.1.11 |