|
the banality of Evil
The problem with Eichmann is that he appeared to be as congenial as your favorite uncle. A disarming affability; and, in a sense, a sincere display, very much of the order we've known from respected ones in our lives.
How could this be? – Eichmann, one of the great mass murderers of the Nazi regime, so unmonsterlike, resembling a kindly neighbor across the backyard fence. Hannah Arendt famously called this “the banality of Evil.”
Hannah Arendt, to Gershom Scholem regarding the Eichmann trial: "It is indeed my opinion now that evil is never ‘radical’ ... that it possesses neither depth nor any demonic dimension. It can overgrow and lay waste the whole world precisely because it spreads like a fungus on the surface… the banality of evil."
“Spreads like a fungus” - slowly, imperceptibly, by unmeasured increments – and then to “lay waste the whole world.”
death by a thousand cuts
This unheralded “death by a thousand cuts,” or maybe like the proverbial frog unprotestingly boiling in a saucepan, afflicts even those on the other side who are not in touch with their “authentic selves.”
sometimes Evil is radical
I must disagree with Hannah on one point. Sometimes Evil is not “banal” but “radical.” We talked about this on the “levels of consciousness” page. I used “the Joker” as an image of the lowest level of consciousness development, the level of “the shameless,” those of outrageous conduct, lost to common decency and propriety. These are ones who have so corrupted themselves, are so far gone, as now devoid of even a particle of good sense to know when or how to be ashamed. They will say anything, destroy anyone, commit any atrocity – if they feel they can get away with it, or even if they can’t - to get what they want. Think of those who run Supreme Court Nomination or Impeachment hearings, and you’ll be on the right track.
but most of us are like the kindly uncle, such a hapless guy
Most of us do not entertain this kind of “radical” Evil. The average person stumbles over and into “the banality of Evil.” We don’t set out to do wrong. But then we find ourselves led by base passions, we surrender to them, we compromise, we accept the poisoned candy, we allow the “Needy Little Me” to have its say. And the next thing you know, Evil, like a stealth cancer, invades our lives.
Evil is seductive. It often comes dressed up in a nice suit and with a big smile.
- Shakespeare: "One may smile, and smile, and be a villain! ... The devil is a gentleman."
Sometimes that smile, a big sloppy grin, is on the shameless face of a hardened, malicious criminal-politician, whose life is a con-job on every level.
swept into atrocity by inches
But too often it’s the smile of Eichmann, the kindly uncle who got swept into atrocity by inches. He didn’t start out to become, he never saw himself as, a mass murderer. But when the stars aligned, a confluence of circumstance, offering opportunity of seeming advancement by way of oppressing others, he just sort of fell into it. The “Needy Little Me” convinced him that it was his right. And then a little more, and then a little more.
In my writings, I often state that any unenlightened person, under sufficient provocation, given the right circumstances, is potentially guilty of any crime that's ever been committed in history. And "the banality of Evil" makes it happen.
Judgment At Nuremberg:
Ernst Janning: "Those people, those millions of people... I never knew it would come to that. You must believe it, you must believe it!”
Judge Dan Haywood: "Herr Janning, it 'came to that' the first time you sentenced a man to death you knew to be innocent."
This stepping over the line into Evil by "baby steps" afflicts even those on the other side. The malady will grow and grow until it consumes remaining sanity.
|
