A Word for Recognizing Evil
The Banality of Evil • phrase
Definition: The act of making evil appear normal
Origin: English
The Banality of Evil
In 1961, German-born Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt traveled to Jerusalem as a reporter for The New Yorker to observe the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi who evaded capture and fled to Argentina after the war. In Argentina, he changed his name to Ricardo Clement and hoped to live a quiet life where people had no idea of the atrocities he committed. Eventually, Israel’s military tracked him down, kidnapped him, and brought him to Jerusalem to stand trial. In 1963, Arendt’s articles for The New Yorker were compiled into a book titled Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. What captivated people most about the book were Arendt’s descriptions of how Eichmann attempted to make his evil actions (and himself) appear banal in order to evade punishment.
When attending the trial of a Nazi, one expects to encounter the embodiment of evil. A Nazi should exude terror and proclaim from the rooftops their hatred of Jewish people and anyone not belonging to the Aryan race. Their words should be demonic vitriol and consist of shouting and fist-pounding. This is the expectation, but this was not how Eichmann appeared. Eichmann was a meek, boring, dim-witted bureaucrat. He seemed more like a quiet neighbor than a Nazi who sent thousands of people to concentration camps.
Furthermore, Eichmann never professed a hatred for Jewish people during the trial. His defense primarily consisted of stating that the more powerful members of the Nazi party should be held responsible instead of him. He argued that he was only a bureaucratic functionary doing his job and that he was not responsible for any deaths because he did not directly kill any Jews. He merely sent them to the concentration camps, so someone at the camps should be held responsible. Eichmann did not want to take responsibility for his actions because he viewed his part to be one small piece in a gigantic puzzle.
The court disagreed with his argument and in their judgment stated that the fact that Eichmann was so far removed from the top, he had an obligation to see through the propaganda, recognize the evil of his actions, and act for the betterment of humanity instead of the destruction of a people. Eichmann was sentenced to death and hanged on June 1, 1962.
The Banality of American Evil
I think a lot about the banality of evil in relation to America, and especially Trump’s presidency.
In May of this year, I wrote a column for The Daily Beast titled “Ahmaud Arbery’s Killing Exposes the Banality of American Evil,” about how Arbery’s killers and law enforcement worked to make Arbery’s murder appear banal and normal. Two racist white men -- a father and his son -- jumped in their pickup truck, chased down an unarmed Black man, and killed him in cold blood, and they nearly evaded punishment. The murderers never publicly expressed racist views and they also claimed self-defense. They hoped to live a quiet life, avoiding punishment in rural Georgia similar to Eichmann in Argentina.
They wanted to make evil appear normal so that society could convince itself that their actions were understandable and not utterly horrifying. The terror that these men inflicted is a continuation of the terror that has been inflicted upon Black Americans and other people of color in the Americas for centuries. America still struggles to recognize this terror as an unquestionable evil because it has always been our normal.
Another recent representation of the banality of American evil was Trump’s dangerous return to the White House after being diagnosed with COVID-19. Trump has a contagious, deadly disease and he does not think about isolating himself from others for their well-being. He endangers the Secret Service members whose job is to defend him from external threats, yet he poses a very lethal threat to them and their families. He creates propaganda videos proclaiming that he is healthy and that people should not let it “dominate” their lives. As he endangers his life and the lives of others, he pulls out of negotiations to give Americans economic assistance and he still wants to destroy the Affordable Care Act. His actions show no concern for human life, so they are undeniably evil, but our society struggles to universally agree that his actions are evil because this iteration of irresponsible wrongdoing has tragically been normalized.
At the moment you think the banality of American evil could not get more stark than Trump taking off his mask for a propaganda video at the White House and Mike Pence calmly lying his way through the vice presidential debate, we learn that an armed militia group called “Wolverine Watchmen” planned on kidnapping Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer and overthrow the government because they disagreed with her response to the coronavirus pandemic. Trump has not condemned these men and a local sheriff in Michigan even defended their actions by saying that citizens have the right to arrest people, even government officials, in Michigan.
The banality of American evil is a lot like ethnocide. Once you know it exists, you see it everywhere. You see it in the Confederate statues and monuments littered across our country. You see it in our unwillingness to create adequate gun reform and instead believe it makes more sense to send children to schools and try to teach them how to protect themselves from an inevitable attack. Despite America having millions of people who desire to make the world a better place, we live in a society that encourages us to ensure that evil actions and ideas have a place. America makes our systemic evils appear banal, but the hope at SCL is that we have the language to name and recognize this evil in order to call it out in our societal structures, laws, and politicians. Evil is determined by how little one values human life, and may not always embody the stereotypes of people outwardly screaming their hate. By taking the space and time to understand this and the banality of American evil, we will be more capable of combating it in the future.
