Customer Reviews

Crimes of Obedience: Toward a Social Psychology of Authority and Responsibility

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Although I studied Professor Kelman's books on International Psychology in graduate school and continue to hold him and his work in high regard, I was disappointed in the point of view taken in this book.

As advertised, the book deals with the consequences that often ensue when authorities give orders exceeding the bounds of morality or law. However, rather curiously, the focus of the book is NOT on the morality of the authorities that exceed the law or such moral bounds, or on the morality of the orders they give, or even on the morality of their decisions and policies, but on the legitimacy of the chain of command, and the morality of those subordinates who carry out the orders.

This narrowing of focus down to subordinates, turns the moral context around on its axis 180 degrees, and makes the morality of authorities, their decisions and policies, a marginal concern. Yet, in the minds of those subordinates who are subject to criminal charges for being obedient and carrying out morally flawed policies and decisions, through a legitimate chain of command, this is anything but a marginal or trivial problem. It would seem rather obvious that the pivotal consideration in obeying an order is whether or not the order in question is "morally legitimate," not whether the "chain of command is legitimate." Sadly, this book sidesteps the former of these two issues altogether.

The built-in assumption that orders, decisions, and policies that lead to crimes and atrocities are above moral scrutiny and thus beyond the purview of this analysis, leaves one with only one conclusion: that they are always at the very least passively moral. In the present environment of Abu Ghraib, questions surrounding our entry into the war in Iraq, the legal issues surrounding whether to torture in the interests of national security, this becomes a dangerous assumption and an omission that would tend to, at the very least, raise questions about any analysis based on such an assumption.

Given the history of most familiar atrocities, including the ones covered in this book, the issue of primary concern is seldom a "chain of command issue." Invariably the issue of paramount concern is whether or not the decisions and policies are morally flawed, and whether the duly elected authorities are immoral, corrupt and criminal.

To narrow the scope of the study so much that this important issue is omitted altogether, or is at most a side issue, is a grievous and unforgivable omission. After all, the questions that had to be resolved by subordinates on the battle field during the My Lai massacre, as well as in the other examples analyzed in the book, were NOT questions of "the legitimacy of the chain of command," but whether, in the My Lai example, the policies dictating the orders to "raze" that village were morally legitimate.

By turning the morality issue on its head, the authorities (the real culprits) get a pass, and the author's investigation turns into the self-fulfilling prophesy of the minutiae of whether there are circumstances where a subordinate "ought to disobey legitimately delegated orders." This of course reduces the analysis to the trivia of how many dumb subordinates you can get to dance on the head of a pin.

No one need ask the question: Was Hitler a legitimate representative of the German people, duly constituted to give the orders to gas Jews? The question asked at Nuremberg was whether such orders (no matter who delegated them) were morally legitimate and should have been obeyed -- whether or not the authorities were duly elected. As it turns out Hitler was indeed the legitimate sovereign of Germany; but the whole ruling clique were a bunch of criminals, morally illegitimate even though duly elected. This seems to be the rule rather than the exception, thus rendering these analyses an elaborate quantitative analytical side issue.

Two stars

I always welcome a book on the general subject of authoritarianism, or what the sociologist Erich Fromm's book entitled THE ANATOMY OF HUMAN DESTRUCTIVENESS even more expansively conceptualizes as "malignant aggression" - which Erich Fromm describes as being a uniquely "human" trait.

"Crimes of Obedience" is an extremely catchy title which captures the essence of what I have studied as "authoritarianism" and "malignant aggression."

The psycho-pathology of authoritarianism is a subject that preoccupied me for the first half of my life - ergo, for a good thirty years. These concepts are now ingrained in my psyche.

My intellectual understanding of authoritarianism and "malignant aggression" is based on books by Erich Fromm, e.g., ESCAPE FROM FREEDOM, MAN FOR HIMSELF, and THE ANATOMY OF HUMAN DESTRUCTIVENESS. I read and re-read these books obsessively. Erich Fromm was educated as a sociologist.

The bibliography of CRIMES OF OBEDIENCE cites Erich Fromm's ESCAPE FROM FREEDOM, but not Erich Fromm's THE ANATOMY OF HUMAN DESTRUCTIVENESS, or MAN FOR HIMSELF, both of which had been published at least 15 years prior to CRIMES OF OBEDIENCE. MAN FOR HIMSELF addresses the "psychology of ethics" from a humanistic perspective, and is thus an essential counterpoint to the psycho-pathological problem addressed by CRIMES OF OBEDIENCE.

Eric Fromm's books are extremely lucid, whereas I found CRIMES OF OBEDIENCE to be extremely turgid.

I only gave CRIME OF OBEDIENCE two stars, because of its turgidity - however, I would give this book five stars for its selection of the subject matter it chose to address.

Notwithstanding its turgidity, CRIMES OF OBEDIENCE offers additional thoughts and perspectives, which are always welcome. However, my initial analytical reference point, on these disturbing subjects of authoritarianism and "malignant aggression," continues to be the cited works by Erich Fromm.

CRIMES OF OBEDIENCE is a heartfelt book, about an extremely disturbing and prevalent sociological problem, authored by two professors of sociology at two prominent U.S. universities. It is gratifying that these two U.S. academics not only academically recognize this major sociological problem, but also recognize that this sociological problem exists in the United States, by addressing prominent examples of "crimes of obedience" in recent U.S. history.