Eichmann trial (1961)

★★★★ · Arendt's Detractors · danielmartinx · 2009-12-30

The "banality of evil" line was a small line, taken out of context and used in a campaign against Arendt's book before it was published. She was referring to the fact that Eichmann was a thoughtless, ordinary, unspectacular bourgeois middle-management type, able to engage in the worst atrocities because he literally could not see beyond his immediate surroundings to any moral or human issues. To object to Arendt's phrase, you would have to prove that Eichmann was a dynamic, thoughtful, awe-inspiringly intelligent man, a mover and a shaker, who single-handedly molded anti-Semitism and the…

★★★ · The Misuse and Abuse of Hannah Arendt's Words · Anthony C · 2006-07-03

It is unfortunate that important historical references, such as this brief Eichmnn newsreel, is seldom accompanied by a considered interpretation of its most famous commentator, Hannah Arendt. The notion that Arendt described either Eichmann's trial, Eichmann's crimes, or the phenomenon of Nazism as "banal" is reflective of little more than the ignorance of her detractors. There is a vital distinction between the nature and extent of Eichmann's involvement in the German genocide and the nature of the dictatorship that he slavishly served. The assumption that Eichmann the individual was a…