The Evil of Banality

“The Banality of Evil” refers to the idea that people can do very bad things to others without having malice towards them or some deeply rooted ideological justification. People can be evil simply by doing mundane everyday tasks. This idea was popularized by Hannah Arendt in her book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. Adolf Eichmann was a high-ranking Nazi bureaucrat responsible for orchestrating much of the logistics of the Holocaust (he was executed for his crimes). Arendt found Eichmann a rather unremarkable person who was just following orders and advance his career.

The notion that an evil outcome can arise from individuals with benign intentions, or at any rate motives that are not malicious, seems obvious. I suspect that many an observer of the human condition has pointed this out. Yet, considering the extreme atrocities of the Third Reich, it must have been sobering to realize that much of this evil was carried out by bean counters like Eichmann — people who would have dutifully counted beans for any government. The defense of just following orders was used by many German soldiers and bureaucrats in the aftermath of WWII.

But maybe there is an evil to banality? Suppose the German population, after years of propaganda from thought leaders, simply found their leaders and their ideas to be normal?

I’ve been thinking about this lately as I see our society maybe, possibly sleepwalking towards fascism. I’m reflecting on things I’ve read or seen like the early 1970’s documentary from the BBC World at…