Image by Bernd Schwabe, via Wikimedia Commons
when Eichmann in Jerusalem—Hannah Arendt’s book about the trial of Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann, published in 1963, brought into discourse one of the most famous ideas of the postwar period: the banality of evil. And the concept initially caused a critical uproar. “A great controversy arose around what Arendt wrote about the conduct of the trial, her portrayal of Eichmann, and her discussion of the role of the Jewish Council,” they wrote. michael ezra be against magazine“She insisted that Eichmann was not a ‘monster.’ On the contrary, she suspected that Eichmann was a ‘clown.'”
Arendt blamed the victims of their coercion, the critics charged, and made the Nazi officers appear ordinary and unremarkable, reducing the extreme moral weight of their responsibility. She responded to these accusations by saying,Personal responsibility under dictatorshipHere she aims to clarify the question in the title by arguing that if Eichmann was allowed to represent a monstrous and inhumane system rather than a shockingly normal human being, his conviction would make him a scapegoat and relieve others of responsibility. Instead, she believes that everyone who worked for the regime, whatever their motives, was complicit and morally culpable.
However, although most committed serious moral crimes, those who cooperated were not actually criminals. On the contrary, they chose to play by the rules in an obviously criminal regime. It is a nuance that is extremely morally challenging. Arendt points out that everyone who served the regime would have consented to some degree of violence, even if it was deadly, given other options. Quoting Mary McCarthy, she writes: seductive You, that’s all. ”
Although this situation may provide a “legal excuse” for murder, Arendt seeks to define a “moral problem.” This was the Socratic principle that everyone believed, that “it is better to suffer than to do wrong,” even when wrong is the law, and she “took it for granted.” People like Eichmann, Arendt argued, were not criminals or psychopaths, but rule-followers protected by social privilege. “That’s exactly what it is. splendid “They were the first to succumb, unaffected by the intellectual and moral upheaval of the early Nazi era,” she writes. They simply exchanged one value system for another, without reflecting the morality of the new system as a whole.
Those who refused, on the other hand, even “chose to die” rather than kill, and did not have “highly developed intelligence or sophistication in moral matters.” But they were critical thinkers who practiced what Socrates called “the silent dialogue between me and me,” refusing to face the future in which they would have to live with themselves after committing or enabling atrocities. Arendt must remember that “no matter what else happens, as long as we live, we must live with ourselves.”
Such refusals may seem small, personal, and at first glance ineffective, but in sufficient numbers they become important. “All governments,” Arendt writes, quoting James Madison, “are consentWithout the buy-in of government and corporate employees, “leaders…would be powerless.” Arendt acknowledges that active opposition to one-party states is unlikely to be effective. But when people feel most powerless or under the most intense pressure, she writes, honestly “admitting one’s powerlessness” can give one the “final strength” to refuse.
It is only for a moment that we imagine what would happen to any of these forms of government if enough people acted “irresponsibly” and refused support, even without active resistance or rebellion, to see how effective a weapon this could be. In fact, it is one of many variations of nonviolent action and resistance, such as the potential force of civil disobedience.
There are no shortage of examples of this type of refusal to participate in, or further the aims of, a murderous system. Arendt recognized that such actions could come at great cost. The alternative, she argues, could be worse.
Note: An earlier version of this post appeared on the site in 2017.
Related content:
Hannah Arendt explains how propaganda uses lies to erode all truth and morality: Insights from the origins of totalitarianism
Original article on Hannah Arendt’s “The Banality of Evil” published in the New Yorker archives
Henry David Thoreau, “When Civil Disobedience and Resistance Are Justified” (1849)
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Source: Open Culture – www.openculture.com
