October 3rd, 2024: “The Banality of Evil”
We congregated at 5:30pm and talked till the sun went down, dissecting the meaning and implications of Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil” thesis - which argues that people who do evil things are not necessarily evil individuals, but are merely caught in the throes of a system that forces them to facilitate or enact evil. The theory is built on Arendt’s study of Adolph Eichmann, a Nazi operative who arranged for millions of Jews and others to be sent to concentration camps and was tried for war crimes; the trial ended in Eichmann being sentenced to death.
For more info on Adolph Eichmann and Hannah Arendt discussed in the Circle, see the following links:
Adolph Eichmann: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/eichmann-trial
Hannah Arendt: https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2014/marchapril/feature/the-trial-hannah-arendt
Initial thoughts on the “banality of evil” thesis:
“I was struck by the manifest shallowness in the doer [ie Eichmann] which made it impossible to trace the uncontestable evil of his deeds to any deeper level of roots or motives. the deeds were monstrous, but the doer - at least the very effective one now on trial - was quite ordinary, commonplace, and neither demonic nor monstrous.”
A: What are our initial reactions to “banality of evil” - that someone can do evil without being evil?
B: It reminded me of some things I learned about in intro psych, like the Stanford prison experiment and the Milgram shock experiment. I agree with the idea of the banality of evil - that conformity is not the same as intentionally enacting evil and being an evil person.
A: Yes - maybe the argument that evil is a product of the environment rather than the true nature of the individual.
B: There was one case we learned about, a thought experiment. It was the case of Jo and JoJo (see heading ‘The Condition of Sanity’). Jo is a dictator who has a kid named JoJo, and from the day that JoJo is born, he is raised to be an evil dictator - this is ingrained through all his social interactions. The question is: when JoJo becomes a dictator, is he responsible for his actions? My view, intuitively, is no.
A: Yes. The idea of personal accountability comes in. When evil is all that you’re taught, it’s very difficult to conceptualize anything else. Think about those moments when you’re exposed to viewpoints that were so unfamiliar to you - how jarring that is.
C: I think there are two ways to discuss this argument. We can discuss it in a way that is purely philosophical and intuitive, or we can discuss it in a way that is functional and addresses the implications of the question to society. What is the societal function - the societal implication - of how we answer this question? Intuitively, I would agree that people can do evil things without being evil. But, in a functional sense, I think that viewpoint would be harmful. It would not minimize harm in society - it would make space for harm, normalize it, perhaps increase it. So, from a functional perspective, I would say that we have to conflate evil doers with evil beings, or else the space for evil in society will increase. In other words, if we accept that evil doers are not evil beings, then we’re ideologically making some evil acts “acceptable” in society.
B: Interesting.
A: And Eichmann organized the deportation of Jews to concentration camps, thefts of their belongings, there is a lot of active evil doing. For someone to make the argument that he’s not evil, it was just his job… I don’t know. He’s actively involved in increasing the death toll, he knows what’s going on. This idea that he was a regular man - it’s not true, he did know what he was doing.
C: Yes, that speaks to the historical inaccuracies that defeated Arendt’s use of this case study for the banality of evil thesis. There was also a portion in the article that talked about how Eichmann did ideologically ascribe to Nazism.
B: I like the idea of how the answer to this question affects whether we might minimize the amount of evil in society. If you’re born and raised in an environment, and that environment encourages evil, and if you’re ambitious and want to rise to the top of the hierarchy within that environment that emphasizes evil , that does become the “ideal”. It becomes what “success” means - for everyone. So where would the definition of evil come from?
A: And, on top of that, Eichmann would have faced consequences if he didn’t conform to his role in the third Reich… which also adds to his situation and judgments on whether he was evil. But Arendt passed away and didn’t get to address all the controversy she generated through her thesis. Arendt also had the experience of being detained in Germany as a Jewish person. She is speaking from a place of being one of the oppressed people - and we can’t ignore how she came to that point of empathy with her oppressors. There is a gray area between the extremes of being wholeheartedly evil and angelically good. We can’t see things in extremes. Though I think we are living through extremes right now.
B: Yes - the discussion of the thesis does have to be nuanced that way, with the perspective of her life experiences.
A: I think we’re lacking a lot of the nuance in the political discourse right now - about what’s going on with Israel in Canada and why sanctioning Israel isn’t happening. There still are people who are “nuancing” October 7th and denying the genocide that took place and is taking place. The settler colonialist context is so in our faces. Another thing is that Eichmann was charged in Israel - it wasn’t even a trial in the International Court.
C: I do wonder if, for Arendt who was Jewish and detained for it, there was an element of - not Stockholm syndrome exactly - but an urge to shield herself from the reality of there being so much evil around her and directed at her, the need to find some sense of universal humanity to cling to. And so the banality of evil thesis emerged, which distances oppressors from being evil beings.
A: Or, rather than something like Stockholm syndrome, it could be self-empowerment. It is a powerful act of resistance to see the humanity in people who dehumanize you.
C: I guess it is a spiritual way of keeping yourself safe. In that sense, it is a kind of resilience. It shows the humanity of those who are detained.
“[I]t seems to me that what you are saying is that Eichmann lacks an inherent human quality: the capacity for thought, consciousness - conscience. But then isn’t he a monster simply?”
C: My core argument is: If you’re brainwashed, you’re brainwashed - your nature cannot be anything else, including evil. One quote [above] from the article simply equates being brainwashed - lacking the capacity for thought - with being evil, which I think is interesting.
B: What do you consider an autonomous, non-brainwashed person?
A: In the Jo and JoJo scenario, the root of the cause is Jo, not JoJo. Jo is the problem. I don’t know what educational system Eichmann went through - there was Nazism and propaganda taught in the school system and that proliferated through society. Was JoJo evil, or brainwashed and ill-informed?
B: It does take some mental resilience to debunk what you’re taught.
A: Especially when most of society so passionately disagrees with you if you exhibit that mental resilience.
B: And when it goes further and an entire state - like Israel - is built out of that.
“The philosopher Alan Wolfe, in “Political Evil: What It Is and How to Combat It (2011), criticised Arendt for ‘psychologising’ – that is, avoiding – the issue of evil as evil by defining it in the limited context of Eichmann’s humdrum existence. Wolfe argued that Arendt concentrated too much on who Eichmann was, rather than what Eichmann did.”
A: And there is suddenly massive personal risk. Eichmann would likely have been detained and killed if he disagreed. He could have put others lives at risk too - those who worked under him, maybe - if he had that huge change of character and decided to revolt. I think Arendt is humanizing him as someone who was just trying to move up through job rankings when those jobs were the only options in society at the time. Though it does feel so negating of the violence to call those jobs “work”.
B: I also wonder if they saw it that way too - as just work. Are they dehumanizing this group that they’re oppressing so much that they legitimately see it as just work?
A: Eichmann was involved in getting people on trains - but getting people on trains wasn’t inherently evil, he wasn’t involved in being directly at the camps. A secretary working at the office, for example, would be was so far removed that she wasn’t actively killing, but there is that line of succession that leads to killing, that is part of the system of killing.
On justice, the implications of public trials, and staying true to morals when they imply great personal sacrifice:
C: Can self-preservation ever be evil? If any of us were put in a situation where if we didn’t do something evil, we would actually die, would it make us evil if we were to do the evil?
A: It’s a question of: how far do you go? Would you risk your life to stand by your morals? A lot of people don’t. We have families, we have life that we want to live.
B: I think intuitively that most people wouldn’t unelss they really had super strong moral characteristics.
A: I think most people want to live. Also, Eichmann testified from behind a glass booth in order to prevent him from being the target of potential assassinations. He said he didn’t take any decisions - that he was merely a cog in the machine. He was guilty of arranging the transport of millions of Jews to their deaths - but he didn’t feel guilt for the consequences. So there is still some lack of morality. Do we think this guy is a good guy? I think no. Does lack of remorse change your views? He kept saying he was just following orders.
C: Well, clinically, a lack of remorse is a symptom of psychopathy. The DSM-V lists lack of remorse as one of the traits of antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) - and it is the distinction between those who are diagnosed with ASPD or with psychopathy as a type of ASPD. People who are clinical “psychopaths” show a lack of remorse. People with ASPD don’t necessarily.
A: His case is the only time that Israel has put anyone under the death sentence. It was a huge thing in Israel to process the trauma of the Holocaust by seeing him sentenced to death and hearing him speak for his role in all of it. We’re seeing, right now, this war machine… I wonder what the value of seeing Netanyahu put through trial, having it broadcasted - that there would be a similar effect. In the States, broadcasted trials with serial killers are sensationalized. Is it giving them more of a stage than they’re due? Should these trials be closed or public?
B: When was Eichmann’s trial?
A: In 1961, in April.
B: In my head, there is a political agenda involved in broadcasting these trials. It can be used as a propaganda tool. A lot of the times, in the British empire, they would sensationalize trials of criminals to say “our regime is so great, we can prosecute all these bad people, our justice system is working, we should be proud of our country, our empire”. But whether the person is actually guilty or not isn’t that important to them. It’s more about the message they’re sending to the people - to unify them.
A: I think that’s exactly right. I think Eichmann’s trial needed to be publicized for that reason. It was Ben Gurion who was in charge at the time. Do we think that’s a good thing? Is that a good way to use politics and media - to publicly record high level trials like this and let the people see and consider it?
C: I think in the case of Netanyahu - if there were a trial where he could be sentenced to death - then I absolutely think it should be broadcasted because it gives a sense that justice is being served. People have suffered unspeakable violence because of him - and all of that violence has been publicized en masse. There need to be consequences; publicizing a potential trial is part of that, it’s part of people seeing justice with their own eyes as it unfolds.
B: In this situation, I would agree. But overarchingly, it is a propaganda tool to politicize high trial cases. Most of the time the outcomes of the cases are known before they are formally served. The people probably know that there are going to be convictions. So I think that the publicizing of the trials is a way to send a message if you’re someone in power. They use it as a tool to strengthen their own political power. In this case, would other oppressive regimes - like the Iranian government - use a potential trial to say ‘our government is good because we did this thing that helped the rebellion, so therefore we can’t be evil because we fight evil’?
A: And then, it can be used the other way, too - would the Biden administration be prosecuted too, and how far would they follow prosecution, and when would that banality of evil argument arise again for those who are deemed complicit enough to sentence? How far do you take it? Focusing on the leaders is the most common. But that’s not what they did in the Holocaust. It’s an interesting question - how would a publicized trial be wielded by people in power. Should it be used in the form of justice? How would people see it?
C: I think it needs to be the victims who decide whether it is justice or not to see a publicized trial. I also think that there is always a risk that any form of justice is perceived and used by some as a tool for propaganda. So, given that the premise is that propaganda will always enter the scene somehow, I think the question is: how close can we get to justice within the inevitability of it being wielded by some as propaganda? I think that if publicizing a trial gives a sense of true justice to some, then the propaganda argument shouldn’t be a reason to take it away because the propaganda will exist always.
B: So my question would be - for publicizing high-profile trials, is it truly for the victims, or for the victors who want to flaunt their power?
C: I would ask - what if the victims and victors are the same people? I also think that the threshold of the banality of evil should decrease with the level of violence. The more violence that occurs, the less that the banality of evil argument should be used to exonerate people from consequences.
On accountability, the futility of seeking moral high ground, and psychological revolt:
A: There is also the idea of skirting the individual trial to go for the higher level thing - like people calling for completely abolishing the State of Israel. But should Israel have been there in the first place - with its existence being a way of placing the West within the Middle East?
B: Israel also doesn’t act alone - the UAE, Jordan, the US, provide basic military support.
A: Are they also culpable? Most of the world is involved at some level. It’s very far-reaching. A trial would become so complicated by those relations. How quickly would people say ‘we were just maintaining international relations’ if they were faced with consequences? The ideologies underpinning international law are highly individualized - it would focus on Netanyahu and maybe Biden. But not the actual administration working for them. Those systems would continue even if the individuals were held accountable. After all, there are people today who are still Nazis.
B: I also think that if you unintentionally did evil, I don’t think you are evil.
A: In the JoJo case - would JoJo be deemed as being “unintentionally” evil because evil was all he ever knew? Or does the fact that he knew what he was doing make his actions intentful?
B: The argument for that is that, if JoJo was truly in this isolated bubble where all he knows is what was taught, then there is some level of distance from the evil he is doing - it’s hard for him to see the actual effects of his actions. But if he walks around the place he rules, sees what he’s doing - like if he intentionally causes poverty in certain areas- then he knows the implications. Then it’s harder to argue that he is not evil.
C: I think a good real life example of that are the Israeli youth in the military who are refusing to serve. Some of them say that they had no idea what harm they were causing, what systems of oppression they were upholding, when they completed mandatory enlistment in the army. And some of those who saw the system of oppression they were upholding immediately left it once they knew. I see that as a case of people who did evil but aren’t evil: when the awareness of the evil came, they stopped.
B: Also, if you’re someone who has less power - if you are really a cog, very expendable and replaceable, it’s easy to feel that your moral stance is irrelevant. Like in the example with young Israeli soldiers leaving the army: some might see the futility of taking the moral stance because if they leave, they will simply be replaced with someone else who will do the job.
C: So the question is - what is the function of waking away from evil if it doesn’t cause any net change?
A: You would just have your human conscience.
B: If they find someone to replace you, how much difference does it make? The system is controlling everything.
C: I would go the Kantian ethics route. Suppose everyone was a cog, and they all thought their actions were futile so they did nothing, then there would most definitely be zero change in society. But if not - if one cog thought “I’m just a cog and I’ll be replaced, but maybe if I walk away, there will be other cogs who also walk away, and we’ll start to be remembered”, then I think it would lead to change cumulatively. It would create a culture. The change may take place over years and years - but it would be more than nothing happening at all, which is what would happen if everyone chose to do nothing because they believe it’s futile.
B: I like that. It’s the same ideology for protests.
A: Yes, and I think that no one is just passively existing, everyone’s actions have output. But maybe thats untrue. I guess that’s what complicity is.
C: I do think that fighting the idea that your actions are futile is also fighting the output of the oppressive system. And fighting that psychologically in large numbers can cause cumulative change. This discussion on passiveness brings me back to that quote - that if one believes they are passive, they are not human, and so they become evil by default.
B: Do you think being passive is a choice?
C: Yes… psychologically it is a choice.
A: I think it is a habitual choice. People get used to being comfortable with being passive. Do you find it hard to call people out when they are being passive?
C: Nope!
B: Suppose that people have a belief that’s pre-existing, that has no ideological grounding, that they just believe because it makes them happy. Would passively following it be a crime? They are consciously choosing to be ignorant.
C: I think if it’s not causing harm to anyone that they believe it, then it’s fine. But I can’t think of a real life example where there is not harm caused by pre-existing beliefs… For example, there are pre-existing beliefs that Western norms should be allowed to enter non-Western spaces and be subsumed as part of those norms. This can look benign, like bacon being served at a table where muslims are seated. If muslims are to accept that in their space, then it becomes, by definition, subsumed into their norms. And that norm doesn’t become associated with muslim norms - it remains a Western norm that muslims have accepted. And slowly, in this way, the space for their own norms vanishes because of what they are forced to accept in their spaces. There is a power dynamic in bringing Western norms into spaces with people from other cultures, and expecting it to be accepted. It is backed by an entire history of oppression where the West intentionally, forcefully, violently imposed their norms onto others with the goal of erasing their culture and standardizing the West.
A: Yes… and this could happen passively, not intentionally.
C: And it would also have to be recognized as harm. There is an entire other dynamic of how the suffering of people of colour is not validated or believed. And would that form of colonialism-backed power be considered evil?
A: Evil is a really strong word. It’s definitely inconsiderate.
C: Even though it is directly linked to colonialism, and colonialism is evil?
A: Yes, colonialism is evil, full of evil acts. But that’s a good question - how far do we draw the line at evil, in terms of more direct versus indirect evil?
C: “Indirect” evil - indirect oppression - is becoming more recognized and addressed. Like microaggresions that are built in racism. Those are immediate manifestations of colonialism. White tears/ brown scars by Ruby Hamad, for example, is a very recent book that formalizes the harm that micro-aggressions cause.
On erasing and remembering histories, and "forced complicity”:
A: When I think of Zionists, I do get in that frame of “this is deluded and hysterical and crazy”. It is easier said than done to gauge when to dismiss or validate someone’s legitimate feelings - maybe Zionists do genuinely believe in what they’re feeling.
B: From that perspective - suppose you were born in Israel, and all you hear is “this group of violent people wants to destroy us so let’s destroy them”. If you are a conformer, it’s very easy to buy into that.
A: The JoJos!
B: The JoJos. Also, how long do you have to be somewhere to consider it your homeland? There are some people fighting in the IDF, who, for them, it’s been generations that they’ve been living there. So it’s not like they’ve ever seen or known something else - its all they’ve seen, that their parents have seen.. I think it would be very hard to fight that.
A: Historical ties to homelands are so important. At a keynote hosted by the NB Media Co-op, a Palestinian journalist traced the history of her grandparents home - traced her homeland and how she is grounded in it. It was really powerful. Settlers don’t share their histories often because they are clouded with guilt.
B: Same with feudal families - who conquer specific areas and make it their “homeland”, have servants and a luxurious lifestyle. That isn’t seen with the same immorality of colonialism - even if the atrocities - though on a smaller scale - are just as bad to the individuals they were done against.
A: I wonder what Eichmann’s descendants feel, knowing about this trial, and knowing that it is public.
B: There is manipulation in history - broadly - but also within families. If there is a bad guy in your family, you just erase them.
C: I was also thinking about how our quality of life, our privilege, is sustained by the exploitation of others, after reading a passage from Doppelgänger. Our phones are filled with cobalt that relies on the exploitation of workers. Our clothes, our laptops, our cars, are probably coming from the exploitation of workers. Suddenly, we realize that everything that sustains our quality of life is the result of the exploitation of others. We are living in the blood of others.
B: Do you think it’s good to leave your privilege for moral reasons? Like if you decided to never use a laptop again - and face all the professional consequences that come with that - because you don’t want to be connected with exploiting workers?
A: One individual leaving, boycotting, only makes so much positive change. There is an element of “forced complicity” because of the way professional structures are set up. Without partaking in some oppression, you would actually lose your house, your livelihood, everything that practically sustains your life. What choice do you have? But you can be engaged in forced complicity and make donations to those human rights causes. And be informed, and keep educating yourself. It has to start somewhere - you have to know enough to even ask the question. I don’t want to believe we’re all evil because of the structures we live in.
C: I think the question is - what do you do with your privilege? Can sustaining your privilege - at the expense of exploiting others - allow you to do more good in other ways than if you severed all ties with the ways in which you’re linked to exploitation? Could I make more of a difference using a laptop to study, learn, educate others about oppression, than if I decided to boycott laptops out of my life out of solidarity?
A: Collective action is really important.
B: Different people also have different risk tolerance. Right after October 7, I heard about a med student who made a pro-Palestine tweet and faced expulsion for it. Some of the student leaders at the encampments in the States were suspended, lost their degrees. They gave up a privileged, lucrative life that they had lined up for them. Was it worth it?
