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Bruno Bettelheim

Bruno Bettelheim. 1903-1990. The Man and a few of his books. Auschwitz and Dachau. Class on Bettelheim: "Individual and Mass Behavior in Extreme Situations" . I. Three theses: All rest on a notion of the centrality of symbolic acts A. uses of power to change human relations

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Bruno Bettelheim

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  1. Bruno Bettelheim 1903-1990

  2. The Man and a few of his books

  3. Auschwitz and Dachau

  4. Class on Bettelheim: "Individual and Mass Behavior in Extreme Situations" • I. Three theses: All rest on a notion of the centrality of symbolic acts • A. uses of power to change human relations • B. Nazis had a purpose • C. Lutheran thesis • II. The Moral Career of the Inmate • A. Structure of the Camps • B. Patterns of Disruption • 1. actor to acts • 2. actor to others • 3. actor to self (e.g. suicide) • C. Forced translation of all acts into the reference system of the camp • III. Patterns of Resistance • A. the least successful: non-political white middle class • B. Bettelheim's approach • IV. The Moral Career of the Staff • V. Application to Prisoner's Dilemma and reinterpretation

  5. IF Temptation to defect is > (preferable to)Reward for cooperation and that is  > Punishment for cooperation and that is  > Suckers payoff Then rationality leads to defection (R)

  6. PDrevisited • Four situations: • I. Infliction of injustice • II .Neither tells: JUSTICE - sense of justice; cooperate; trust; sanctions? • III. Both tell: Hobbes’ state of nature (classically) or initial stages of the camp -individual rationality:(situation STRUCTURES rationality) • IV. suffers injustice • III leads to obedience to authority (camp/ Milgram) • Question: what do we have to do to get to II • II is a particular form of human interaction; it requires • a/ some equality • b/ some sort of rationality but not purely individual • c/ adults (as it were): people who can trust) • d/ peer groups • It is clear that this is not what the world is made of overall; nor is it the only workable form of social organization (tradition; do what you are told; do what the rules say) but we do have it to some extent. • What is clear is that II behavior requires forms of behavior that are made impossible by the existence of absolute authority. • Institution that require absolute authority (jails, monasteries, armies, high schools?) must break people of the kinds of things that lead to II • What is important about the BB article is that the extreme situations are precisely NOT where there is no society but where a particular form of society exists.

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