Why Ordinary People Do Terrible Things

The Lucas Bean Show · Sep 8, 2026 · 2m

In April 1961, Adolf Eichmann sat in a glass booth in a Jerusalem courtroom and told the world he was just following orders. He had organized the deportation of millions of Jewish people to concentration camps. He had managed the logistics of industrialized murder. And his defense was that he was doing what he was told by legitimate authority.

Three months later, a young psychologist named Stanley Milgram sat in his office at Yale University and asked a question that would define his career: was Eichmann special, or would anyone do what he did?

Milgram believed the answer would be reassuring…