A system can be inhuman with no sadistic individuals running it

Evidence

See for instance the testimony of Mrs. Buber-Neumann (former wife of the German Communist Heinz Neumann), who survived Soviet and German concentration camps: “The Russians never …evinced the sadistic streak of the Nazis… Our Russian guards were decent men and not sadists, but they faithfully fulfilled the requirements of the inhuman system” (Under Two Dictators). — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2831

Categorization

• XREF: Directly anticipates Arendt’s banality-of-evil thesis and her distinction between the ‘objective enemy’ mechanics of totalitarian systems versus personal motives. — connects to: A comfortable, willing population can still be enslaved by its instrumentality — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 187; A rotting social system can still sustain humanity’s existence at a cost of suffering — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 473