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Professional ethics must guide us precisely when we are told that the situation is exceptional (no “just following orders). In Nazi Germany if lawyers had followed the norm of no execution w/o trial, if doctors had refused to do surgery w/o consent, if bureaucrats had refused to handle paperwork involving murder, then it would have been much harder for the regime to carry out the atrocities it’s remembered for.

REMEMBER PROFESSIONAL ETHICS
When political leaders set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become more important. It is hard to subvert a rule-of-law state without lawyers or hold a show trial without judges (these professionals can provide a checking force). Authoritarians need obedient civil servants, and concentration camp directors seek businessmen interested in cheap labor.

In the politics of the everyday, our words & gestures (or absence) count. These minor choices are a kind of vote. A greengrocer that posts the communist “Workers of the World, unite!” sign in his window doesn’t actually endorse the content, he does it to avoid hassle from authorities. When everyone else follows the same logic, the public sphere is covered with signs of loyalty & resistance becomes unthinkable.