[mikkupikku]

What they teach undergrads about the experiment: People blindly follow orders. If the Nazis ordered you to commit atrocities, you probably would!

What the experiment actually showed: People follow orders when the orders are justified within a persuasive ideological context, e.g. you value science and the scientific researcher is telling you to proceed for the sake of science.

In the first, people who follow the orders of Nazis are not necessarily ideologically aligned with the Nazis, they might just be in a brainless order-following trance. But this isn't real, and in reality the people who were "just following orders" were in fact ideological committed to the cause and should be judged accordingly.

[05]

> were in fact ideological committed to the cause and should be judged accordingly.

With good enough propaganda machine, any percentage of people would end up 'ideologically committed to the cause' but I don't think they should necessarily 'be judged accordingly' regardless of the larger context..

[mikkupikku]

The experiment was done in the context of Adolf Eichmann arguing at his trial that he was not a Nazi, never was, and was merely following orders. This was of course not even remotely true. If the argument was instead "I only became a Nazi because of their propaganda", that might be plausible but falling for propaganda doesn't make you less culpable for atrocities which you committed willingly.

The version of the Milgram experiment taught to undergrads asks people to believe that you'll follow orders you would ordinarily consider abhorrent simply because you were commanded. But there's basically no evidence for that. People follow orders if those orders are justified in a way that seems persuasive. Nobody ever doubted that Nazis persuaded people to join them. That's not a surprising or even remotely novel finding.