How did violence come about, ex nihilo? Introducing an empirical analysis of 140 experimental sessions, this presentation will reveal an unlikely candidate for the success with which the experimenter in Stanley Milgram’s infamous “obedience to authority experiments” kept his reluctant participants administering electric shocks against a victim’s will and painful cries. This finding will then be expanded towards a psychoanalytically oriented theory of implicit violence – a framework to potentially help us understand not only Milgram’s violence, but beyond.

Chaired by Niall Gildea; The paper will be followed by short comments and discussion from four other contributors: Louise Braddock (convener), Arthur Bradley (Lancaster), Louise Gyler (Aust.P.S.), and Sherrill Stroschein (UCL).