The extermination machinery aimed to eliminate personal sadism and reduce cruelty

Evidence

The ‘overcoming of animal pity’ could not be sought and attained through release of other, base animal instincts; the latter would be in all probability dysfunctional regarding the organizational capacity to act; a multitude of vengeful and murderous individuals would not match the effectiveness of a small, yet disciplined and strictly co-ordinated bureaucracy. And then it was not at all clear whether the killing instincts can be relied on to surface in all those thousands of ordinary clerks and professionals, who, because of the sheer scale of the enterprise, must have been involved at various stages of the operation. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 91 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Any force or event that is placed between the subject and the consequences of shocking the victim, will lead to a reduction of strain on the participant and thus lessen disobedience. In modern society others often stand between us and the final destructive act to which we contribute. … Indeed, mediating the action, splitting the action between stages delineated and set apart by the hierarchy of authority, and cutting the action across through functional specialization is one of the most salient and proudly advertised achievements of our rational society. The meaning of Milgram’s discovery is that, immanently and irretrievably, the process of rationalization facilitates behaviour that is inhuman and cruel in its consequences, if not in its intentions. The more rational is the organization of action, the easier it is to cause suffering - and remain at peace with oneself. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 441 (#expands, via linked claim)

In a nutshell, Milgram suggested and proved that inhumanity is a matter of social relationships. As the latter are rationalized and technically perfected, so is the capacity and the efficiency of the social production of inhumanity. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 436 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Rationalized social organization structurally enables cruelty by mediating responsibility — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 441; Technical remoteness from victims enables moral substitution — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 459; Individual sadism is functionally inferior to disciplined bureaucracy for mass killing — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 91 (+2 more)

Related

• Individual sadism is functionally inferior to disciplined bureaucracy for mass killing (similarity 0.89)
• Rationalized social organization structurally enables cruelty by mediating responsibility (similarity 0.87)
• Rationalized social relationships increase the efficiency of producing inhumanity (similarity 0.86)
• Rationality and order produce inhumanity, not merely contain it (similarity 0.84)
• Obscuring the causal link between action and suffering sharply raises obedience (similarity 0.83)
• Rational bureaucracy rendered murder morally neutral in perpetrators’ eyes. (similarity 0.83)
• Victims’ rational conduct was engineered to serve their own destruction (similarity 0.82)
• Long intermediary chains let people commit abhorrent acts without role awareness (similarity 0.81)
• Authorization, routinization, and dehumanization erode moral inhibitions against violence (similarity 0.81)
• Instrumental rationality cannot prevent mass atrocities and normalizes social engineering. (similarity 0.81)
• Engineered suffering can be presented as mercy, legitimizing escalation (similarity 0.81)
• Bureaucratic killing efficiency requires emotional neutrality, not enthusiasm (similarity 0.80)
• Mass murder is accomplished mostly by indifferent functionaries, not sadists (similarity 0.80)
• Specialized monopoly bureaucracy seals off victims and enlists their rational motives (similarity 0.80)
• Technical remoteness from victims enables moral substitution (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Individual sadism is functionally inferior to disciplined bureaucracy for mass killing #corroborates (0.95) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 91
• Rationalized social organization structurally enables cruelty by mediating responsibility #expands (0.92) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 441
• Rationalized social relationships increase the efficiency of producing inhumanity #expands (0.88) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 436
• Technical remoteness from victims enables moral substitution #corroborates (0.75) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 459
• Moral inhibition is neutralized by making victims remote and invisible #corroborates (0.72) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 550