Authorization, routinization, and dehumanization erode moral inhibitions against violence

Evidence

In the opinion of Herbert C. Kelman, moral inhibitions against violent atrocities tend to be eroded once three conditions are met, singly or together; the violence is authorized (by official orders coming from the legally entitled quarters), actions are routinized (by rule-governed practices and exact specification of roles), and the victims of the violence are dehumanized (by ideological definitions and indoctrinations). With the third condition we shall deal separately. The first two, however, sound remarkably familiar. They have been spelled out repeatedly in those principles of rational action that have been given universal application by the most representative institutions of modern society. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 93

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the canonical authorization-routinization-dehumanization triad — a transferable three-part mechanism for moral disinhibition.
• XREF: This is a core extractable mechanism for the Islamophobia toolkit: how bureaucratic norms, not sadism, permit mass exclusion and violence. — connects to: Civilization makes violence aversion irrelevant through bureaucratic complicity — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 694; Legal constructs operate by bypassing the subject’s moral emotions — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 705; Moral inhibition is neutralized by making victims remote and invisible — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 550 (+8 more)

Related

• Moral inhibitions do not act at a distance and depend on proximity (similarity 0.84)
• Moral suspension, not mobilization, enables ordinary people’s participation (similarity 0.83)
• Civilization makes violence aversion irrelevant through bureaucratic complicity (similarity 0.83)
• The civilizing process makes violence invisible rather than eliminating it (similarity 0.82)
• Long intermediary chains let people commit abhorrent acts without role awareness (similarity 0.81)
• The extermination machinery aimed to eliminate personal sadism and reduce cruelty (similarity 0.81)
• Victims’ rational conduct was engineered to serve their own destruction (similarity 0.80)
• Moral inhibition is neutralized by making victims remote and invisible (similarity 0.80)
• Rationality and order produce inhumanity, not merely contain it (similarity 0.80)
• Rational self-interest alone suffices for evil to operate unchallenged. (similarity 0.79)
• Extreme evil can stem from meticulous order rather than its breakdown (similarity 0.79)
• Genocide’s moral invisibility recruits far more participants than conscience-stifling does (similarity 0.79)
• Rational bureaucracy rendered murder morally neutral in perpetrators’ eyes. (similarity 0.79)
• Victims’ rational survival choices can become tools of their own destruction (similarity 0.79)
• Exploiting victim rationality was cheaper than controlling them through fear (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Moral inhibition is neutralized by making victims remote and invisible #expands (0.90) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 550
• Social organization neutralizes morality by making action adiaphoric, neither good nor evil #expands (0.80) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 613
• Technical remoteness from victims enables moral substitution #expands (0.80) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 459
• Moral inhibitions do not act at a distance and depend on proximity #complicates (0.75) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 546