I believe that most people do not think about the rightness of their actions. If they think at all, they want to think about whether or not the action is permitted (in writing, or by wink and nod, or by inaction of authority). I’m convinced that especially amongst the vast majority of people who feel comfortable doing things “as long as it’s legal”, killing and abusing is as easy as shaving or drinking coffee. Once convinced that there are no punishments coming, they “get used to it”.

You will also notice that one American soldier did not get used to it, and turned the others in. In any society, these people are rare. And within the Nazi society, there was no outlet for people of conscience to voice their opposition to the mechanism of death. At least within the US military, there was some small avenue to say “No!”.

I don’t believe that any nation at this point in time has citizens who are all morally superior. The morally superior are rare in any land. What is needed are systems that allow the morally superior to stay the hands of those who would kill and abuse.

Regarding Arendt. He reflection upon how to view anothers actions in a moral realm most would agree is weirdly sinister evil is kind of strange in itself. It’s a lot of things, but banal doesn’t describe a bloodbath like that… that’s her reflection of it.

Jess… do you really intend to equate patent and copyright protection with the purposeful organization of so many murders of Jews in camps? Because it seems as if you’re suggesting A=B, and C=B, so therefore we should view “property protection for drug companies” as we would undertaking the killing of millions by Nazis? I think you should reconsider. The problem is not your flawed assumption about the responsibility of scientists to allow themselves to be blackmailed by the propaganda organs of third world rulers, but rather the fact that you have fallen for such propaganda without blinking. So now the people who’ve been working to actually help fight a disease are no better than the Nazi’s who were executed for war crimes after WWII?????? That’s a bit extreme, no?

Can I ask. Do you understand that if a Countries leader will not admit that a disease exists, nor allow distribution of medicine, that there is some moral responsibility therein due that leader? Or perhaps you’ll demonstrate what moral authority you possess in the matter of the failure to distribute medicine? Did you volunteer, go to Asia or Africa, and find yourself restrained by Novartis execs? Or are you merely pointing out the banality of another persons evil…

I never read the banality of evil as somehow excusing evil, but rather, see this, this is how it happens. If you ask most people about intellectual property protection for drug companies, they will give you reasoned arguements for why its normal, appropriate, while 35 million people are dying of a treatable disease. The entire industrial west is watering the flowers and going on vacations and appreciating sunsets dressed in clothes and shoes made by slaves. Half the world goes to bed hungry every night to pay interest which, directly and indirectly, makes possible the infrastructure which allows things like, oh, blogging. Its us, now, and perhaps the problem is not banality but unwillingness to recognize anything uncomfortable.

However, Kellie points out that it took decades to reach this point. Earlier in the process there were some few who objected. They emigrated, they were “shamed”, ostracized, refused work, etc.

Nevertheless, it is the responsibility of every individual to be vigilant. Stemming the tide of evil is surely easier in a democratic society in which the rights of minorities are enshrined as a Natural Right.

The energy and perspective necessary for this vigilance depends on certainty of one’s ethical position, and yes, historical perspective. It is very unhelpful to imagine how one might react in the extrimis of pathological societies.

I can “imagine” the biological imperitive of a parasite’s need to ensure survival by invading my body – but I will not permit it.

In the Nazi system killing was both industrialised and predictable (terror was predictable because it was targeted)its victims created by the nature of its ideology (as were its industrial methods of killing). Being a bystander meant aiding in killing identifiable individuals. Nazism made clear who would be removed, deported, and made to disappear. In communist societies being a bystander could be contrued as helping the system remain in place but it did not mean actively having helped it liquidate innocent people.(because the killing there was predictable only in the aggregate, not for individuals).In the Nazi case what confronts the individual is the question… would I have been an anti-fascist? For most the answer would be no. Happen again? as others have pointed out comparable events have occured. Perhaps it is the case that courage is limited, not that we all have the capacity for evil.

I agree with Anne C.’s comments from several days ago (with a bit of clarification)–the Holocaust itself was preceded by decades of “decivilizing” of all Germans by WWI, hyperinflation, depression, political chaos, the rise of fascism; the dehumanization of Jews actually came in only at the end of this process. This is not to excuse, only explain why the Holocause happened when and where it did.

I think it’s critical, in light of the insightful original post, to ask ourselves how Arendt is taught these days, and why the “banality of evil” has come to be (in my opinion) grossly misunderstood as an intellectual trope.

As a graduate student at one of the US’s top history programs, I took a course in German history from one of the world’s foremost authorities on Nazism (especially Nazi women). Here was her take on the “b of e”: there was nothing unique about the Germans who carried out the Holocaust, they were just like you and me. In other words, “it” could happen here, we must all be aware of human frailty and guard against it.

Now, to the extent that Nazis did not generally sprout horns and a pointy tail, I agree with her. These were ordinary human beings. So am I. So are you. It does not automatically follow that you or I are capable of participating in acts of immense, immediate evil. Sure, Noam Chomsky would say that we are, that we do every day commit unspeakable atrocities, simply by being American. I don’t buy it. Not for a second. Do I sign orders condemning millions to death, personally? Did I swear fealty to a murderous tyrant, and vow to uphold his reign of terror over myself and others? Think not.

What appalled me about this highly lauded professor’s stance was how ahistorical it in fact was. I understand WHY she took it–German historians are caught in a unique trap of some 50 years’ standing. Since the end of the War, every aspect of German history and civilization has been cast as a precursor to Nazi atrocities–EVERYTHING. Naturally, the reaction among many is to a)distance “their” subjects from the taint (easier to do from, say an early modern perspective than a 20th century one); and b) cast doubt on the “goodness” of everyone else (from the soldiers who fought to overthrow the Nazi regime to the prosecutors who executed its leaders).

I was able to question and refute her arguments because I was given the tools, as a scholar, to examine their roots and find them remarkably shallow. But undergraduates, however bright, tend to take away a nugget or two of “truth” from a class such as hers. In this case, that Nazi Germany was not uniquely evil, and that genocide can happen anytime, anywhere.

It’s hard to extrapolate from this instance to a larger society, grappling to make sense of ultimate evil. But I offer it for your consideration.

My father’s family are / were Ukrainian. 36 million Ukrainians died under Stalin before the Nazi camps were built.

36 million. Mostly they were deliberately starved to death, slowly.

The only branch of my father’s family that survived Stalin, apart from one great uncle who made it to 1952, were those who came to the US around the time of WWI, during the upheavals in Russia.

Once when we were talking about the Nazis, my father looked at me quietly and said, “Under the right circumstances, something like that could happen here too. And so could another Stalin.”

Most of the ethnic cleansing was presided by former schoolteachers, doctors, engineers, policemen – people who would, under normal circumstances, be viewed as pillars of the society. Many of them had university education, some spoke foreign languages, some lived in foreign countries, most had friends and relatives within ethnic groups that they would later target etc.

Communism, WW2 traumas or centuries of ethnic and religious hatred is far from being sufficient answer to the question “how did it happen in former Yugoslavia”. Part of the answer is, IMNSHO, brutally, disturbingly and universally simple.