Each step of a destruction process contains the seed of the next

Evidence

Referring to the incremental feature of his experimental procedure, Milgram (1974) said: “The laboratory hour is an unfolding process in which each action influences the next. The obedient act is perseverative” (p. 149). One can hear echoes of this view in Hilberg’s (1985) assertion that “a measure in a destruction process [whose sequential nature he had just outlined] never stands alone… . It always has consequences. Each step of the destruction process contains the seed of the next step” (p. 54). — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 661

Categorization

• XREF: This is the same self-reinforcing causal logic the reader will meet in Glick’s scapegoating mechanisms — early moves manufacture the conditions for later ones. — connects to: Reactive sequences chain modular events so each outcome becomes the cause of the next. — Jörg Sydow, Georg Schreyögg, and Jochen Koch, Organizational Path Dependence: Opening…, 67; A chain of innocent-seeming steps can jointly produce evil — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4045

Broader Connections

• Reactive sequences chain modular events so each outcome becomes the cause of the next. #expands (0.85) — Jörg Sydow, Georg Schreyögg, and Jochen Koch, Organizational Path Dependence, 67
• A chain of innocent-seeming steps can jointly produce evil #expands (0.80) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4045