6 ms·

This is Hannah Arendt's thesis behind "the banality of evil"[1]: > Arendt found Eichmann an ordinary, rather bland, bureaucrat, who in her words, was ‘neither

This is Hannah Arendt's thesis behind "the banality of evil"[1]: > Arendt found Eichmann an ordinary, rather bland, bureaucrat, who in her words, was ‘neither perverted nor sadistic’, but ‘terrifyingly normal’. He acted without any motive other than to diligently advance his career. Eichmann was not an amoral monster, she concluded in her study of the case. Instead, he performed evil deeds without evil intentions, a fact connected to his ‘thoughtlessness’, a disengagement from the reality of his evil acts. Eichmann ‘never realised what he was doing’ due to an ‘inability… to think from the standpoint of somebody else’. Lacking this particular cognitive ability, he ‘commit[ted] crimes under circumstances that made it well-nigh impossible for him to know or to feel that he [was] doing wrong’. > Arendt dubbed these collective characteristics of Eichmann ‘the banality of evil’: he was not inherently evil, but merely shallow and clueless, a ‘joiner’, in the words of one contemporary interpreter of Arendt’s thesis: he was a man who drifted, in search of purpose and direction, not out of deep ideological belief. [1] https://www.britannica.com/story/what-did-hannah-arendt-really-mean-by-the-banality-of-evil https://www.britannica.com/story/what-did-hannah-arendt-real...

skrbjc 5y ago
- anonymousDan 5y ago
  Boring comment
- TomSwirly 5y ago
  Empty comment.
bigDinosaur 5y ago
I think it's a compelling critique of Arendt that she basically just bought this characterisation wholesale - the Nazis had every reason to present their actions as 'banal' both in limiting the damages selfishly at an individual level and also limiting the damage to their ideology ('anyone could do it'). Eichmann was probably not the nazi-punchcard, mindlessly executing horrible plans, that she states.
- toyg 5y ago
  The counter to that theory is the sheer amount of Nazi members in Germany - or really rank & file members in any fascist-like regime. That amount of people don't just go insanely evil on a whim, in most cases they are simply dragged there by mechanisms like Arendt describes.
  - bigDinosaur 5y ago
    Arendt was very specific though, her book was called Eichmann in Jerusalem. It wasn't 'mid-level German bureaucrat in Jerusalem'. After all, the railway workers (well, the unforced ones, since the Nazis did not have any compunction about slavery) who kept the trains running were fairly banal participants in the Holocaust, but we don't focus on them as the architects of it for a reason. Eichmann had every reason to present himself as a boring- somewhat clueless - bureaucrat as opposed to an architect of horrors of which he understood the full and gruesome extent. The right person in the wrong place can make all the difference. I'd have to read her responses to the criticism she got again, I believe she did walk back the extent of her claims, but could be wrong (and in saying this, I'm sure someone will correct me if I am misremembering ;))
    - toyg 5y ago
      Of course, Arendt was a journalist so her work starts from an event. Not every Nazi member was trialled, Eichmann wad just one of the high-profile ones. The point is that from the particular situation we get a more generalised theory of the development of "evil" at the mass level, that works better than "people just like to abuse others, because the devil or something".
      - bigDinosaur 5y ago
        The problem really comes down to this: is Nazism something which we are all capable of quickly becoming, i.e. inherent to human nature, or do we only become this horrible when small groups of intelligent elites cynically exploit our psychology and concretely plan for us to become brainwashed slaves (the opposite of banality)? Perhaps a bit of both, but at some point someone definitely isn't a banal and clueless bureaucrat. You can probably see how option A is a propaganda win for Nazism (and fascism in general). 'See, you're not so different to us!'. Was it the German people who became Nazis overnight, or did the Nazi elites (such as Eichmann) instigate what amounted to major social engineering campaigns?
mekkkkkk 5y ago
Sometimes it feels like people are confused about the nature of themselves. We have this idealized version of ethics and rationality that maps poorly onto reality. Yet everybody (especially on social media) talks as if this idealized version is the obvious natural state of all humans. Our intellect as a species is a blessing and a curse. We are self aware, but only to a certain extent. The blanks are filled in by wishful thinking and hopelessly logical rationalizations. It's fine and serves its purpose well as something to strive for. But it significantly hampers our ability to understand and empathize toward those that for whatever reason goes against the ideal.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  > We have this idealized version of ethics and rationality that maps poorly onto reality. Yet everybody (especially on social media) talks as if this idealized version is the obvious natural state of all humans. So i'm not sure how much of it is "natural" or "cultural", but as others have pointed out the vast majority of people are happy to cooperate and help one another... it's not an abstract ideal. On the other hand, since we were kids starting at school, and across the media spectrum, we've been taught to crush others to move forward. That part is definitely not natural but cultural. If that's the "reality" you're talking about, we can do a great deal about it!
  - mekkkkkk 5y ago
    I'm more talking about opinions framed as "how could anyone do that" or arguments beginning with "I would never". A good example is malicious actions by companies. You could probably follow the entire decision tree in a lot of cases and not find a single individual that was acting differently than the average person would in those same circumstances. Systemic issues are becoming obfuscated because human nature is disregarded in favor of ideals. It's much easier to just nail someone to a cross than to empathize and find real solutions.
hoseja 5y ago
It's the meme that is evil. Human is merely the host and, depending on the sophistication of the meme and lack thereof of the human, perhaps very unwitting.

skrbjc 5y ago

anonymousDan 5y ago
Boring comment
TomSwirly 5y ago
Empty comment.

bigDinosaur 5y ago

I think it's a compelling critique of Arendt that she basically just bought this characterisation wholesale - the Nazis had every reason to present their actions as 'banal' both in limiting the damages selfishly at an individual level and also limiting the damage to their ideology ('anyone could do it'). Eichmann was probably not the nazi-punchcard, mindlessly executing horrible plans, that she states.

toyg 5y ago
The counter to that theory is the sheer amount of Nazi members in Germany - or really rank & file members in any fascist-like regime. That amount of people don't just go insanely evil on a whim, in most cases they are simply dragged there by mechanisms like Arendt describes.
- bigDinosaur 5y ago
  Arendt was very specific though, her book was called Eichmann in Jerusalem. It wasn't 'mid-level German bureaucrat in Jerusalem'. After all, the railway workers (well, the unforced ones, since the Nazis did not have any compunction about slavery) who kept the trains running were fairly banal participants in the Holocaust, but we don't focus on them as the architects of it for a reason. Eichmann had every reason to present himself as a boring- somewhat clueless - bureaucrat as opposed to an architect of horrors of which he understood the full and gruesome extent. The right person in the wrong place can make all the difference. I'd have to read her responses to the criticism she got again, I believe she did walk back the extent of her claims, but could be wrong (and in saying this, I'm sure someone will correct me if I am misremembering ;))
  - toyg 5y ago
    Of course, Arendt was a journalist so her work starts from an event. Not every Nazi member was trialled, Eichmann wad just one of the high-profile ones. The point is that from the particular situation we get a more generalised theory of the development of "evil" at the mass level, that works better than "people just like to abuse others, because the devil or something".
    - bigDinosaur 5y ago
      The problem really comes down to this: is Nazism something which we are all capable of quickly becoming, i.e. inherent to human nature, or do we only become this horrible when small groups of intelligent elites cynically exploit our psychology and concretely plan for us to become brainwashed slaves (the opposite of banality)? Perhaps a bit of both, but at some point someone definitely isn't a banal and clueless bureaucrat. You can probably see how option A is a propaganda win for Nazism (and fascism in general). 'See, you're not so different to us!'. Was it the German people who became Nazis overnight, or did the Nazi elites (such as Eichmann) instigate what amounted to major social engineering campaigns?

mekkkkkk 5y ago

Sometimes it feels like people are confused about the nature of themselves. We have this idealized version of ethics and rationality that maps poorly onto reality. Yet everybody (especially on social media) talks as if this idealized version is the obvious natural state of all humans. Our intellect as a species is a blessing and a curse. We are self aware, but only to a certain extent. The blanks are filled in by wishful thinking and hopelessly logical rationalizations. It's fine and serves its purpose well as something to strive for. But it significantly hampers our ability to understand and empathize toward those that for whatever reason goes against the ideal.

southerntofu 5y ago
> We have this idealized version of ethics and rationality that maps poorly onto reality. Yet everybody (especially on social media) talks as if this idealized version is the obvious natural state of all humans. So i'm not sure how much of it is "natural" or "cultural", but as others have pointed out the vast majority of people are happy to cooperate and help one another... it's not an abstract ideal. On the other hand, since we were kids starting at school, and across the media spectrum, we've been taught to crush others to move forward. That part is definitely not natural but cultural. If that's the "reality" you're talking about, we can do a great deal about it!
- mekkkkkk 5y ago
  I'm more talking about opinions framed as "how could anyone do that" or arguments beginning with "I would never". A good example is malicious actions by companies. You could probably follow the entire decision tree in a lot of cases and not find a single individual that was acting differently than the average person would in those same circumstances. Systemic issues are becoming obfuscated because human nature is disregarded in favor of ideals. It's much easier to just nail someone to a cross than to empathize and find real solutions.

hoseja 5y ago

It's the meme that is evil. Human is merely the host and, depending on the sophistication of the meme and lack thereof of the human, perhaps very unwitting.