Revisiting the Banality of Evil: Contemporary Political Violence and the Milgram Experiments

Stanley Milgram's remarkable obedience experiments have been one of the most influential and controversial studies in social psychology. They are highly original, theoretically significant and closely related to the major political and social-historical experiences and preoccupations of the 20th century. The latter include the ideologically inspired mass murders, the limited moral choices available to individuals in repressive and regimented societies, as well as the venerable issues of free will vs. social and situational determination. Despite their importance and impact, there is room for a reconsideration of these experiments and their relevance to understanding the varieties and nature of political violence in the 20th and 21st centuries. Milgram's findings were often linked to the influential and similarly controversial ideas of Hannah Arendt, notably her concept of the Banality of evil. The obedience experiments seemed to provide empirical support for her highly speculative propositions inspired by the case of Adolf Eichman and especially his trial. The famous psychologist, Gordon Allport called these experiments the Eichman experiment. Milgram himself wrote that Bafter witnessing hundreds of ordinary people submit to the authority in our experiments, I must conclude that Arendt's conception of the banality of evil comes closer to the truth than one might dare imagine.