It’s funny where Wikipedia articles can lead you. From reading about Superman, I ended up accessing an article on the Milgram Experiment. Here’s the final summary:

“…I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects’ [participants’] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others…authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.”

Even if I’ve read the histories of the Nazi regime and other totalitarian governments, it was still an eye-opener. This was such a very simple illustration of the power of authority for me, broken down into its most basic components.