The Ordinary Quality of Resistance

From Milgram's Laboratory to the Village of Le Chambon

Dados Bibliográficos

ID10219796
AutoresFrançois Rochat (University of Michigan, autor correspondente), Andre Modigliani (University of Michigan)
Ano1995
Volume51
Fascículo3
Páginas195-210
Data de publicação1995-10-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Social Issues (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0022-4537 • E-ISSN: 1540-4560
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1540-4560.1995.tb01341.x
OpenAlexW2163055787
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas13
Referências citadas15

According to Hannah Arendt's banality of evil thesis, endorsed by Milgram, it is possible for ordinary people to perform horrendous deeds when these are rendered routine and morally neutral through a framework of legitimate authority. But such a view of human capacities does nothing to explain the actions of equally ordinary people who defied authorities to rescue potential victims during the Holocaust. This article formulates a contrasting but noncontradictory conception—the ordinariness of goodness—and illustrates it by examining closely how the people of the French village of Le Chambon managed, during World War II, to resist the efforts of Vichy authorities to induce them to participate in the persecution of minority peoples, thereby enabling them to save thousands of refugees. Notable features of their resistance are then compared to the ordinary behavior of some of Milgram's disobedient subjects

Epistemology · Milgram experiment · Nothing · Obedience · Persecution · Political science · Politics · Quality (philosophy · Refugee · Resistance (ecology · Sociology · The Holocaust · Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy · Law · Philosophy · Psychology of Social Influence · Torture, Ethics, and Law