Disconcerting Insights: Milgram’s Obedience Experiments, Elias’s Civilizing Process, and the Perpetration of the Holocaust

Social psychologist Milgram (1963, 1974) and sociologist Elias ([1939] 2000) are undisputed social science heavyweights whose scholarly contributions delve into the shared topic of violence. Despite this similarity, near nothing has been written on any insights one might offer other. With aim bucking trend, exploratory article illustrates how certain connections between both magna operas mutually beneficial: Elias’s thesis can shed new light otherwise mysterious obedient subject behavior Milgram’s experiments be used to bolster a central yet weak pillar in thesis. The strengthening is particular importance because it likely reinvigorates ability Civilizing Process unique counterintuitive German perpetrator during Holocaust. It through these Milgram-Elias linkages that author’s paradoxical concept civilized killers emerges.