Psychiatry & Psychotherapy Podcast | 20 October 2023 | 1h 57m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Christopher Browning about his 1992 book Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. Details how middle-aged German conscripts in Reserve Police Battalion 101 murdered thousands of Jews, notwithstanding that they were given the explicit choice to opt out. Utilises social psychology – specifically conformity, deference to authority, and role adaptation – to explain this moral degeneration. Warns against dehumanising rhetoric and emphasises the necessity of individual moral autonomy and robust democratic institutions to prevent the recurrence of such atrocities in modern society.