Only in action can you fully realize the forces operative in social behavior. That is why I am an experimentalist.

Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.

Perhaps the challenge is to invent the political structure that will give conscience a better chance against authority.

A substantial proportion of people do what they are told to do, irrespective of the content of the act, and without pangs of conscience, so long as they perceive that the command comes from a legitimate authority.

Even Eichmann was sickened when he toured the concentration camps.

But the culture has failed, almost entirely, in inculcating internal controls on actions that have their origin in authority. For this reason, the latter constitutes a far greater danger to human survival.

And perhaps our awareness is the first step to our liberation.