Entry into evildoing is gradual self-adaptation rather than Milgram’s sudden agentic shift

Evidence

Lifton (personal communication, 1991), I think, has the most revealing construction of what I am trying to say about Milgram’s theory. Recall that Milgram’s subjects completed their task of administering what they regarded as high-level shocks within 1 experimental hour. The acuteness of this shift, or rather Milgram’s perceptions that this required an acutely abrupt shift, “made him think in terms of a sudden psychophysiological shift into an ‘agentic state.’” Lifton gently continued: “In contrast, what I observed was a more gradual process, though it had an acute or transition element—the anxiety Nazi doctors felt during their first weeks in Auschwitz until they made their adaptation, which in my view took the form of developing an Auschwitz self.” — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4042

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Lifton’s ‘Auschwitz self’ as a gradually developed identity — a compartmentalized self that forms rather than appears — is a rich, non-obvious way to think about identity internalization over time.
• XREF: The gradual formation of an ‘Auschwitz self’ parallels my strategic essentialism bind — identity adopted under coercion can become a genuine, lived self over time, the exact collapse risk I am tracing. — connects to: Ordinary people transform into autonomous, knowing evildoers through a conversion process — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3920; Pragmatic implicature explains obedience in Milgram’s experiments — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4045
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: does Lifton’s ‘doubling’/Auschwitz-self concept imply that a strategically adopted identity always becomes partially genuine, or can it be kept instrumental?

Broader Connections

• Ordinary people transform into autonomous, knowing evildoers through a conversion process #corroborates (0.85) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3920
• Pragmatic implicature explains obedience in Milgram’s experiments #contradicts (0.85) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4045