In the second paragraph the author refers to Arendt, almost off-handedly, as an "apologist for Nazism". This strikes me as deeply offensive and wrong-headed. I'

In the second paragraph the author refers to Arendt, almost off-handedly, as an "apologist for Nazism". This strikes me as deeply offensive and wrong-headed. I'm no intellectual but I've read plenty of Arendt, including the referred-to "Banality of Evil" and in no way was it an apology for or defense of Nazism. Arendt famously described Eichmann as "neither perverted nor sadistic... terrifyingly normal." Now, my understanding is that modern scholarship has repudiated this view. Eichmann, they now believe, was indeed a malicious and violent anti-semite, and Arendt was bamboozled by a cunning liar at his trial. This very well may be true, but it certainly does not make Arendt a Nazi apologist. The quoted passage was condemnatory in the extreme. It was written (as an article for the New Yorker) in Arendt's detached and ironic style, but certainly it was not an excuse or apology for Nazi functionaries.