Society's Influence On Morals

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but they had to perform the dirty work
of killing approximately 83,000 Jews. Christopher Browning states in his book,
Ordinary Men, that, �...the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101, like most of
the German society, was immersed in a deluge of racist and anti-Semitic
propaganda� (Browning 184). Unless placed in the Battalion men's situation, one
can not fathom how a population of people can so evilly turn against another.
People in every culture are susceptible to the ideas and beliefs brought
upon them by propaganda. Whenever an idea is accepted as the �norm', people
will find a way to justify it and follow it despite the evil implications it
might entail. Humans have faced these situations throughout the last two
centuries numerous times. For example, the American slave trading was totally
acceptable to the southerners because the blacks were perceived to be lesser
human beings. The slave owners did not mind controlling and abusing a slave
like it was an animal since in ...

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as a teacher, who dedicated his life
to the enhancement of a child's education and well-being, participated and
tolerated the killing of thousands of children. But it is true that the same
men, who the Jewish society trusted as workers and professionals, willfully
tried to kill them off.
The political environment which surrounded the Police Battalion made
their vicious job less difficult. But those men who did not wish to partake in
the killings could be given a different assignment. In fact, a minority did
walk a way from the slaughters, but the remaining 80% to 90% carried out their
orders. Reich, in his summary of Ordinary men, suggests that, �For many, the
pressure to conform ...

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