(March 1, 2015 at 4:20 pm)abaris Wrote: Since the Milgram experiment it should be abundantly clear that human uglyness can happen everywhere given the right framework.
Of course. But the sad fact is that unless an American has had a college-level psychology class, they probably won't learn of that experiment. And American exceptionalism, be it explicit or unstated -- perhaps even unconscious -- promotes this idea that somehow our system of governance, coupled with our individualism and idealism, would act to prevent such horrors as genocide or religious war from occurring here (never mind that the first was a building plan for the nation and the second was only barely avoided).
