Expertise supplies psychological distance where physical distance is unavailable

Evidence

The task-splitting and the resulting separation of moral mini-communities from the ultimate effects of the operation achieves the distance between the perpetrators and the victims of cruelty which reduces, or eliminates, the counter-pressure of moral inhibitions. The right physical and functional distance cannot be attained, however, all along the bureaucratic chain of command. Some among the perpetrators must meet the victims face-to-face, or at least must be so close to them as to be unable to avoid, or even to suppress, visualizing the effects their actions have upon time. Another method is needed to assure the right psychological distance even in the absence of the physical or the functional ones. Such a method is provided by a specifically modern form of authority – expertise. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 559

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces expertise as a ‘specifically modern form of authority’ that manufactures psychological distance.
• XREF: connects to: Self-knowledge of one’s limits requires a vantage point outside them — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 787

Broader Connections

• Self-knowledge of one’s limits requires a vantage point outside them #expands (0.80) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 787