Milgram was interested in understanding what happens when obedience to authority overtakes personal conscience.

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Some of the conditions that turn people into killers are well known: extreme coercion, obedience to authority, dehumanisation of the enemy, social bonding, hatred, indoctrination, revenge, survival.

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"The emperor was a symbol of absolute and blind obedience to authority, and that still influences the way Japanese people think, " says Sakurai of the Expel Political Misfits group.

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Learn to distinguish between Just Authority, to whom respect and even obedience may be appropriate, and Unjust Authority (as in the Milgram study), to whom disrespect and disobedience are necessary to oppose and change that tyrant.

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