For anyone who doesn't know, the title of this article is a reference to Hannah Arendt, a political theorist who made her career covering the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. She coined the phrase 'The Banality of Evil.' This was in reference to the idea that people will follow the orders of authority figures even if they conflict with personal beliefs.
Interestingly in this interview between Assange, Cohen and Schmidt, which was linked elsewhere in the comments, Schmidt was actually the first one to say the phrase "the banality of evil". [1]
pg has written about some Milgram Experiment[1] on The Perils of Obedience[2] which actually seems to comfirm this idea that people will follow the orders of authority figures even if they conflict with personal beliefs.
I suspect if the authority figure says "Our motto is don't be evil, so do as I say and it's not evil since we do no evil", compliance would be even better.
