Genocides are top-down state projects fusing ideology with obedient compliance.

Evidence

Commitment to a scapegoat ideology (G) mediates the negative consequences of scapegoating. Although already resented due to prior envious stereotypes, hostility toward scapegoated groups (H) increases in direct proportion to prejudiced perceivers’ endorsement of an ideology that blames them for current shared misfortunes. Such ideologies (and increased hostility) cohere around political movements that act against the scapegoated group (I). Genocides, for example, are not spontaneous events, but top-down affairs, organized and ordered by a state. The perpetrators may be a mixture of ideologically-motivated true-believers (Goldhagen, 1997) and those who merely follow orders (Milgram, 1974). These motivations, however, may typically act in concert to produce a willing obedience to authority in which perpetrators’ acceptance of a scapegoat ideology and commitment to a political movement motivates zealous compliance with orders (and, for some, spontaneous sadistic acts that exceed those orders). — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1606 (#expands, via linked claim)

The evidence suggested that many, if not most, instances of genocide and mass murder, are not committed by people with depraved, deranged, or pathological personalities, but rather by quite ordinary people placed in extraordinary, yet “banal” bureaucratic situations (Kelman & Hamilton, 1988; Staub, 1989). — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 150 (#complicates, via linked claim)

The Hebrew translation (Qehiliot madumaynot) came out under the auspices of the Open University of Israel, and was intended as a critical intervention against prevailing Zionist-Likudist orthodoxy. It included an introduction by Azmi Bishara, the foremost Palestinian Israeli politician, and a scholar of Marx and Hegel who completed his PhD at the University of Jena when the DDR state still existed. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 813 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Genocides are top-down state-organized affairs, not spontaneous outbreaks; Genocide is mostly committed by ordinary people in banal bureaucratic contexts — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology: Key Readings, 150; Ordinary decent people commit atrocities when ideologies authorize the harm — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 347 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Genocide is a top-down state-organized process, not a spontaneous outburst. #expands (0.93) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1606
• Genocide is mostly committed by ordinary people in banal bureaucratic contexts #complicates (0.78) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 150
• A translation can be deployed as an explicit intervention against state ideology #complicates (0.70) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 813