Perpetrators cease being ordinary once they commit themselves to sustained atrocity.

Evidence

Repeatedly in this study, I describe banal men performing demonic acts. In doing so—or in order to do so—the men themselves changed; and in carrying out their actions, they themselves were no longer banal. — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 650

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Distinguishes the ordinariness of actors from the ordinariness of acts and posits a transformative feedback loop between doing and being.
• DEFINE: Lifton’s precise wedge: banal men, demonic acts — the doer is changed by the deed.
• XREF: connects to: Gradual escalation binds perpetrators to destructive roles they would reject in one step — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 659; Ordinary healthy people become cruel perpetrators under conducive social roles. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 681; Ordinary people become destructive agents through duty, not hostility — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 606 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Gradual escalation binds perpetrators to destructive roles they would reject in one step #complicates (0.85) — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 659
• Ordinary healthy people become cruel perpetrators under conducive social roles. #complicates (0.85) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 681
• Ordinary considerate people can commit atrocities under dehumanizing conditions #complicates (0.85) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 599
• Ordinary people become destructive agents through duty, not hostility #complicates (0.80) — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 606