Stangneth seems like an important thinker, but wow that article hasn't aged well. Talking about the "profundity" of Hamas evil with nary a mention of Israeli genocide. You can say September 2024 was too soon to tell ... but it wasn't actually. Pure islamophobic propaganda.
You've misunderstood the point of historical absentee analysis and rhe banality of evil.
It is comforting to think that there is a group of "evil people" who are innately different, but most evil is done by people similar to people you know.
Just because your neighbor Joe or your aunt Bertha is a "great person" who coaches the local sports team doesn't mean they aren't evil if they also spend their days working to target minorities and get them thrown in jail or worse - or building the tools used for authoritarians and voting for them.
Not to be dismissive of your point, but this may be a thought-terminating cliché. That's not an argument that would hold up in court against pedophiles and murderers; I would argue that it shouldn't also hold for fascists.
The last one... well, we thought that decent people were the norm and that people would understand the nuance and spirit of laws; however, that hasn't been the case, so you see evil fascists skirting by because they're convinced that "the letter" of the law didn't specifically ban something, so it must be permissible.
> so perhaps painting specific groups of people as the incarnation of pure evil is not a good idea
Sorry to burst your bubble, but people consistently doing evil things that don't course-correct once exposed to new information are evil; those are the people we're referring to... (i.e. "a turd by any other name would smell as shit").
"We live in a society", we have a sort of social contract with each other (meaning, it's in our best interest to be nice to one another) and laws that we follow (in case someone isn't following the former).
I think most people would agree that 10 or 20 years ago, we'd be (mostly) lineally progressing towards peace and unity (glossing over some wars, as most people wanted to believe that "once that is over, we can proceed with 'progress'")...
Most people believed it so, that we didn't really give any attention to people that asked "what do we do if the fascists rise to power?"... Many laughed it off! "Fascists!? That's SO 1930's Europe! Besides, everyone knows that fascists are evil, and no one wants to be evil, right?".
So, you can imagine that almost nobody had "coordinated fascist international takeover" nor "brainwashed pedophile-apologist fascist takeover of the US" on their bingo cards. Interesting times...
Which means we need to blatantly and explicitly call out the ones who are choosing to use their evil side for outsized material gains at the expense of a huge majority?
Seems like Arendt got it wrong. She let herself be fooled by Eichmann. He wasn’t banal at all.
Bettina Stangneth, “Eichmann Before Jerusalem” (2014)
https://newcriterion.com/article/the-profundity-of-evil/
Stangneth seems like an important thinker, but wow that article hasn't aged well. Talking about the "profundity" of Hamas evil with nary a mention of Israeli genocide. You can say September 2024 was too soon to tell ... but it wasn't actually. Pure islamophobic propaganda.
it's almost like the people you call evil are just regular people
anyone can be evil, anyone can be good, anyone can be both even on the same day or be seen as one contemporarily and the other historically
so perhaps painting specific groups of people as the incarnation of pure evil is not a good idea
unless you're trying to sell a book or get ad revenue
You've misunderstood the point of historical absentee analysis and rhe banality of evil.
It is comforting to think that there is a group of "evil people" who are innately different, but most evil is done by people similar to people you know.
Just because your neighbor Joe or your aunt Bertha is a "great person" who coaches the local sports team doesn't mean they aren't evil if they also spend their days working to target minorities and get them thrown in jail or worse - or building the tools used for authoritarians and voting for them.
> anyone can be evil, anyone can be good,
Not to be dismissive of your point, but this may be a thought-terminating cliché. That's not an argument that would hold up in court against pedophiles and murderers; I would argue that it shouldn't also hold for fascists.
The last one... well, we thought that decent people were the norm and that people would understand the nuance and spirit of laws; however, that hasn't been the case, so you see evil fascists skirting by because they're convinced that "the letter" of the law didn't specifically ban something, so it must be permissible.
> so perhaps painting specific groups of people as the incarnation of pure evil is not a good idea
Sorry to burst your bubble, but people consistently doing evil things that don't course-correct once exposed to new information are evil; those are the people we're referring to... (i.e. "a turd by any other name would smell as shit").
"We live in a society", we have a sort of social contract with each other (meaning, it's in our best interest to be nice to one another) and laws that we follow (in case someone isn't following the former).
I think most people would agree that 10 or 20 years ago, we'd be (mostly) lineally progressing towards peace and unity (glossing over some wars, as most people wanted to believe that "once that is over, we can proceed with 'progress'")...
Most people believed it so, that we didn't really give any attention to people that asked "what do we do if the fascists rise to power?"... Many laughed it off! "Fascists!? That's SO 1930's Europe! Besides, everyone knows that fascists are evil, and no one wants to be evil, right?".
So, you can imagine that almost nobody had "coordinated fascist international takeover" nor "brainwashed pedophile-apologist fascist takeover of the US" on their bingo cards. Interesting times...
The line between good and evil runs through every human heart.
Which means we need to blatantly and explicitly call out the ones who are choosing to use their evil side for outsized material gains at the expense of a huge majority?
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