The Power of authority

A Brief Explaination About Adolf Eichmann And His Behaviour

On May 11th, 190, a group of agents from Israel arrested a man who worked for Benz. That man was Adolf Eichmann, one of the most infamous Nazi murderers and criminals in the world. However, on the trail held in Jerusalem, he did not believe that he was guiltier than the Nazi government itself was. On the contrary, he believed that whatever he had committed in the past was only an action of fulfilling his official duty, just like what he said below,

But these misdeeds did not happen according to my wishes. It was not my wish to slay people. The guilty for the mass murder is solely of the political leaders……..Once again I would stress that I a guilty of having been obedience, having subordinated myself to my official duties…….I did not persecute Jews with my avidity and passion. That is what the government did.()

Human are social animals, and obedience has a long history dating back Stone Age. Back then, Individuals worked together in order to survive. Then authority emerged so that individuals could coordinate better under the commands of the authority and the tasks, food and trophies could be allotted equally. Being submissive to authority had gradually become a virtue since then, just like what Stanley Milgram wrote in his paper, The Perils of Obedience, “The dilemma inherent in submission to authority is ancient, as old as the story of Abraham.”  ()However, as a matter of fact, obedience is a rapier. On the one hand, it did help human develop though history. On the other hand, obedience has cause many tragedies in human history due to the power of authority. There are two interesting aspects of the power of the authority.

First, the power of authority could be so nature that no one could feel it until years after. Human have learnt to adjust to the society its living. One important aspect of adjust to the society is to obey authority. Therefore, as human nature, people have learnt to follow the authority. If not, those people will be isolated from society. Furthermore, sometimes, people just obey the authority naturally. When they do something at certain time, they don’t think there is anything odd in their behaviours. Because everybody else does it, it is natural for civilians just to follow the mainstream of society, the authority, or in other words, whoever doesn’t do the same thing is considered as heretic. However, after certain period of time, when the same people look back what they have done, some of them seem confused about their actions. However of them could figure out why their actions are odd unless someone else points it out for them.

Just like the case recorded in Milgram’s study, Bruno Batta showed no mercy during the whole study. He still continued the test without any guilty  even after he heard the student scream and beg him to let the student go. He was aware that the student had heart condition might affect his health. Like what Milgram wrote , “ They are prod of doing a good job, obeying the experimenter under difficult circumstances.”()

During Chinese ten-year  Cultural Revolution, many people were like that. During the ten years, the slogan is that “Protect the Communist Party, and defeats its entire enemy.” My grandfather used to be a part of a group named “Chairman Mao’s Army”. What they did was to protect Chairman Mao and to defeat his enemy. However, ironically, they had never ever seen Chairman Mao in their own life. At the time, there was another group of people named “Chairman Mao’s Protector”, and what they did was also to protect the chairman and to defeat its army. However, these two groups saw each other as enemies of Chairman Mao. They believed that the other group just used name, and what the other group really wanted to do is to destroy the entire Communist Party. Therefore, they fought with each other. And in worst case, they even used guns, hand-made bombs and weapons to kill each other.

However, as a matter of fact, this is not only a single case. During the 10 years, many thing like that happened in China. They reason why my grandpa participated in this ridicules activities was because he felt proud to be a part of the Red, and so were others. This  is another example of the power of the authority. 

Second, the power of authority could be so strong that no one could resist it. Human have learnt to be submissive to the authority. Sometime, people would commit things that are wrong morally in their minds due to the power of authority. Like the case recorded in Milgram’s study. When they are in the middle of test, 50-year-old Fred Prozi could hear and see that his “student” is suffering from electric shocks and this might cause student’s death because of the student’s heart condition. During the study, he requested to terminate the test for several times. However, when authority told him to continue, he obeyed, even he didn’t feel comfortable to do so. ()

This could be a fine aspect of explanation of Eichmann’s behaviours. In his final trail, he  argued that he felt “uncomfortable” for him certain behaviours.() However, he still had to do it because it was his duty. 

In conclusion, it is difficult to determine who we should blame for the massive murderer during WWII. What happened to Eichmann is the mixture of tragedy. Could we blame him for all the crimes he had done? Or could we just simply forgive him because he was also one of the victims from the power of authority? Or could we just blame Nazi or Hitler even if we know all the cruel tortures and murders were committed by individuals? It is hard to say, but one thing for sure is that war is a  game with failing ending and  no one could won.

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