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