I’ve been reading about Hannah Arendt. Initially her book Eichmann in Jerusalem was on sale at Amazon, but it’s at the library so I will eventually read it there but then later I was listening to someone tutoring and referred to the banality of evil to a student. I then wondered if reading Eichmann in Jerusalem is a common part of the US high school curriculum. It is not although I think it would be worthy for teenagers to think upon.
I wonder how many people know Arendt coined the term ‘the banality of evil’? I later read on the internet that there was nothing banal about the evil of Eichmann.
While the author of the article understands the point Arendt is making it seems they want to assert there is something like an objective evil, like those trite documentaries on murder crimes on TV as if it’s so easy to dismiss a murderer as something other, no longer worthy to be called human. And thus the only valid way to describe such a person as ‘evil’. In my opinion this is lazy thinking.
Evil, a concept straight from religion being the complete opposite of good, seems like it is never seen as subjective. However eastern religions are better at seeing the subjective nature of opposites. Yin has some yang in it and yang has some yin in it. Can we see black without white/light? Therefore it is necessary to walk the middle path, according to eastern religions because it would seem the more we avoid evil the more evil we invoke?
Subjectivity speaks to the banality of evil, but not just evil. All things have a subjective side to them, even that chair in the corner of the room. You may think it’s ugly, I might think it’s useless, someone else might think it’s priceless. While the description of the chair may be subjective, that it’s a chair and its current location is based on some kind of objective reality. Evil is a description so therefore is subjective.
I get it, I don’t want to see any similarity between me and the person who does something evil. But the reality is we won’t know if we could until we’ve walked that proverbial mile in another's shoes. Is it easy to see beyond the story we tell ourselves of who we are? Because we are all cogs in the machine. While some people say we have no free will, which might be another extremely lazy thought process that allows us to take no responsibility for our actions. But it can be very difficult to say no, I will not do this job. And we all may wish to be the one to say, no I will not, we
never know we will or won’t until we are actually in that position. Especially when we feel threatened which may be possible in a situation like Eichmann might have found himself. Did he see his neighbors shot in the street one morning? [I actually haven’t even read anything about Eichmann so I know nothing about his situation at the time.]
Especially if he believed the then Nazi rhetoric that the German army was unstoppable and would not stop until all of the world had fallen under their power. Also plausible. And the consequences of not doing the job seemed unlikely because this was the story of that German society was telling itself at the time. Besides how would the conversation go, no I am not going to send people to their death today? In Nazi Germany I doubt this would’ve been met with “sure, okay”. Could he have resigned? In our society it is possible but getting a good job in the US is difficult enough, besides your kid might need that medicine that is covered by the employers health insurance.
And who was responsible really? The train driver? The people who laid the tracks? Hitler? The guards? The people who didn’t run away, rather than get on the train willingly... (aka victim blaming. Gandhi said the Jews should’ve just suicided or turned themselves in) besides if Eichmann hadn’t done it, it is possible that someone else might have?
I rather wonder how at the trial they got a conviction but how could they not convict him? Either convict them all or none I suppose. But conviction is necessary because we must say, no, never again in spectacular style to underline the message that what they did was completely unacceptable.
But lessons are learned. Make sure you are never get caught, a lesson well learned by American moguls. In her book blood on their hands, the owners of corporations ride high on corporate income while the corporate businesses just
squeak by and employees are forced to live on minimum wages. While this is a book about newspapers, this corporation is hardly unique and has been a business model employed in any number of corporations.
One could see that as an evil too but the cogs aren’t seen as being particularly evil despite how many families or children are hurt in the process.
The evil of denying abortions to women who need them as emergency healthcare, how many (potential) families are destroyed in the process by ignorant politicians voting for stuff they don’t understand or really care to understand. This is an evil too but are they caught up as cogs in a machine?
I wonder how many people know Arendt coined the term ‘the banality of evil’? I later read on the internet that there was nothing banal about the evil of Eichmann.
While the author of the article understands the point Arendt is making it seems they want to assert there is something like an objective evil, like those trite documentaries on murder crimes on TV as if it’s so easy to dismiss a murderer as something other, no longer worthy to be called human. And thus the only valid way to describe such a person as ‘evil’. In my opinion this is lazy thinking.
Evil, a concept straight from religion being the complete opposite of good, seems like it is never seen as subjective. However eastern religions are better at seeing the subjective nature of opposites. Yin has some yang in it and yang has some yin in it. Can we see black without white/light? Therefore it is necessary to walk the middle path, according to eastern religions because it would seem the more we avoid evil the more evil we invoke?
Subjectivity speaks to the banality of evil, but not just evil. All things have a subjective side to them, even that chair in the corner of the room. You may think it’s ugly, I might think it’s useless, someone else might think it’s priceless. While the description of the chair may be subjective, that it’s a chair and its current location is based on some kind of objective reality. Evil is a description so therefore is subjective.
I get it, I don’t want to see any similarity between me and the person who does something evil. But the reality is we won’t know if we could until we’ve walked that proverbial mile in another's shoes. Is it easy to see beyond the story we tell ourselves of who we are? Because we are all cogs in the machine. While some people say we have no free will, which might be another extremely lazy thought process that allows us to take no responsibility for our actions. But it can be very difficult to say no, I will not do this job. And we all may wish to be the one to say, no I will not, we
never know we will or won’t until we are actually in that position. Especially when we feel threatened which may be possible in a situation like Eichmann might have found himself. Did he see his neighbors shot in the street one morning? [I actually haven’t even read anything about Eichmann so I know nothing about his situation at the time.]
Especially if he believed the then Nazi rhetoric that the German army was unstoppable and would not stop until all of the world had fallen under their power. Also plausible. And the consequences of not doing the job seemed unlikely because this was the story of that German society was telling itself at the time. Besides how would the conversation go, no I am not going to send people to their death today? In Nazi Germany I doubt this would’ve been met with “sure, okay”. Could he have resigned? In our society it is possible but getting a good job in the US is difficult enough, besides your kid might need that medicine that is covered by the employers health insurance.
And who was responsible really? The train driver? The people who laid the tracks? Hitler? The guards? The people who didn’t run away, rather than get on the train willingly... (aka victim blaming. Gandhi said the Jews should’ve just suicided or turned themselves in) besides if Eichmann hadn’t done it, it is possible that someone else might have?
I rather wonder how at the trial they got a conviction but how could they not convict him? Either convict them all or none I suppose. But conviction is necessary because we must say, no, never again in spectacular style to underline the message that what they did was completely unacceptable.
But lessons are learned. Make sure you are never get caught, a lesson well learned by American moguls. In her book blood on their hands, the owners of corporations ride high on corporate income while the corporate businesses just
squeak by and employees are forced to live on minimum wages. While this is a book about newspapers, this corporation is hardly unique and has been a business model employed in any number of corporations.
One could see that as an evil too but the cogs aren’t seen as being particularly evil despite how many families or children are hurt in the process.
The evil of denying abortions to women who need them as emergency healthcare, how many (potential) families are destroyed in the process by ignorant politicians voting for stuff they don’t understand or really care to understand. This is an evil too but are they caught up as cogs in a machine?
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