Author: Ashley Albritton, MLA
August 29, 2024
In 1961, philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt traveled to Jerusalem to witness the trial of former Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann. Known as a ‘desk murderer,’ Eichmann had been instrumental in the planning and logistics for the transportation of millions of people for deportation or relocation to ghettos or concentration camps during World War II. Although Arendt expected to see a fanatical antisemite mastermind, the man she was confronted with was much more disturbing. He was an ordinary man who participated in the largest genocide in history for no other reason than because he hoped to get a promotion.
Following Eichmann’s trial and execution, Arendt published a series of articles for The New Yorker in 1963 under the title ‘Eichmann in Jerusalem’ in which she asserts a theory called the Banality of Evil. This theory uses Eichmann’s example to understand why normal people participate in mass atrocities such as genocide. Rather than being inherently evil, she claims, ordinary people commit extraordinary evil due to thoughtlessness.
In the fragile decades following the Holocaust, Arendt’s theory ruffled a lot of feathers and put the study of this aspect of the human condition into the public and intellectual spotlight. Her theory has since instigated much research into human behavior regarding moral psychology and participation in mass atrocities.
Global rising authoritarian attitudes[1] combined with ongoing genocides[2] and increased political rhetoric and violence[3] make a nuanced investigation into her theory as pertinent today as it was in the aftermath of World War II. With an eye on its philosophical underpinnings, this three-part article series will cross-examine Arendt’s Banality of Evil theory with contemporary social psychology theory. This intellectual journey will lead us to an understanding of how these social and psychological mechanisms can be leveraged to mitigate the occurrence of mass atrocities.
Arendt’s Theory of Thoughtlessness
After attending the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hannah Arendt argues that some people, like Eichmann, participate in mass evil out of thoughtlessness. What exactly does she mean by this? Did Eichmann indeed act thoughtlessly and, if so, in what way? Although this claim has been criticized, what was often misunderstood about her assertion is that she argued for a very specific type of thoughtlessness. In particular, she says that Eichmann’s thoughtlessness was because he was unable to think from the perspective of someone else.[4] This profound lack of empathy, as it were, caused him to be unable to think through the moral implications of his actions.
Furthermore, his internal dialogue – that being, the voice inside his head through which he reflects upon his actions and is witness to his own moral decisions and their consequences – was disrupted, undermining his conscience. This process, however, was the result of his own decisions. As we will see, Eichmann chose to suppress his conscience through several deliberate acts of will. Let us break this down.
How does an individual know how to behave in society? How do we come to understand what is right and wrong? For most of us, this knowledge would come from the guiding force of the people around us – our family, peers, community, laws, etc. The behaviors and mindsets that are considered desirable are generally what would be considered virtues in any given society. If giving food to the hungry was considered a good thing to do, then donating to a food bank would make the doer virtuous by social standards. Likewise, if being obedient to the rule of law was considered a good thing to do, then being a law-abiding citizen would be virtuous. Going a step further, if protecting one’s community or liberties is considered good, then doing what is necessary to protect the community – even if that means harming others, such as in combat – would be considered virtuous.
When people display these behaviors, they are considered to be good or respectable members of the community. However, it should be emphasized that socially accepted standards of behavior are what guide these virtues instead of the individual’s internal moral compass. The behaviors become the moral code of a society rather than the philosophies they are based upon. Most people do not formulate their own moral code based on critical reflection. Instead, we simply behave in a way that is in line with what is normal or socially acceptable. Arendt argues that these socially accepted moral codes are often uncritically adopted and acted out automatically, much like customs and habits such as table manners.[5]
This was the case with Adolf Eichmann. Instead of formulating his own virtues through critical reflection, he looked to socially accepted moral codes to determine what he considered to be virtuous actions. In Germany before and during World War II, the predominant virtues were obedience and success. As Arendt points out, Eichmann fell in line with the virtues of respectable society.[6] Arendt takes issue with this social process, though. She says, “Matters of right and wrong, however, are not decided like table manners, as though nothing were at stake but acceptable conduct.”[7] Where does the process go wrong, then? Where did Eichmann go wrong? To understand this, let us take a closer look at the individual virtues of World War II Germany’s respectable society.
This notion of respectable society is important and will be addressed throughout these discussions. Its influence on moral decision-making is critical to understanding how a person like Eichmann, with no strongly held antisemite convictions, could work for years to send millions of Jewish men, women, and children to their deaths. What else could possibly have motivated him to participate in the mass, systematic murder of an entire people? The answer that Arendt gives is that he simply was not thinking. However, this answer is not completely satisfying. Eichmann was indeed aware of how his actions contributed to the Nazi goal and acted intentionally.[8] After all, no one can be moved to act without some motivation or decision to do so. What was Eichmann’s motivation?
Although it was clear from the trial that Eichmann was not a fanatical antisemite, that does not mean that he did not have strongly-felt motivations.[9] He stated during the trial that his motivation was to achieve professional success through the “approbation and preferment of superiors.”[10] This admittance reflected his adoption of the socially accepted virtue of success and can also be seen in his adoration for Adolf Hitler. Miller (1998) points out that even though Eichmann was not a fanatical antisemite as Arendt maintained, he was a different type of fanatic – a fanatical follower of Hitler.[11] He saw Hitler as the ultimate example of success and at the pinnacle of respectable society. Following Hitler’s example was all the motivation Eichmann needed to act. Arendt explains:
“Hitler, he said, ‘may have been wrong all down the line, but one thing is beyond dispute: the man was able to work his way up from lance corporal in the German Army to Führer of a people of almost eighty million … His success alone proved to me that I should subordinate myself to this man.’ His conscience was indeed set at rest when he saw the zeal and eagerness with which ‘good society’ everywhere reacted as he did. He did not need to ‘close his ears to the voice of conscience,’ as the judgement has it, not because he had none, but because his conscience spoke with a ‘respectable voice,’ with the voice of respectable society around him.”[12]
These statements demonstrate Eichmann’s willingness to adopt the virtue of success as a primary motivator for his actions; however, it also shows how obedience became his mode of achieving this success. Interestingly, this move included a deliberate rejection of his own critical moral reflection on matters if Eichmann could be given so much credit. Even though he knew – at least retrospectively – that Hitler’s plan was “wrong all down the line,” he still chose to disregard that knowledge for the prioritization of success. Furthermore, he made the deliberate choice to subordinate himself to the person who embodied the virtue of success. It was no coincidence that Hitler’s success also made him the ultimate authority figure, speaking figuratively, literally, and legally. In a certain way, this extreme adoration of Hitler made him into what Svilcic and Maldini (2014) refer to as a divinized leader.[13]
Interestingly, Eichmann is not alone in this choice to reject his own notions of right and wrong for the sake of following authority. A study conducted by social psychologists Hamilton and Sanders (1981) found that hierarchy of relationships was the most substantial indicator of how acts of wrongdoing are interpreted.[14] They used survey experiments in which volunteers were asked to assess responsibility in hypothetical situations with varying role relationships and other factors, such as the actors’ mental states, past pattern of behavior, and the influence of another person on the actor. All these factors make up the culture’s interpretive ideology of wrongdoing in normal situations. The study additionally revealed that hierarchy acts as a normative influence that minimizes the impact of other variables, and that this fundamentally alters responsibility judgements for wrongdoing and acts as a normative influence on behavior.[15]
This can be an active process of the will, though. In Eichmann’s case, he willfully aligned his interpretation of wrongdoing and, by extension, his behavior to the hierarchy of the Third Reich despite any personal doubts. The Roman poet Ovid describes this phenomenon as far back as the 1st century BC as an act of the will when he says, “I see what is better and approve of it; I follow what is worse.”[16]
Although Eichmann could never have expected to gain the type of success that Hitler achieved, he could align his actions with this ultimate success story. He did this through his willing obedience to Hitler and his cause. In practice, this obedience became what the 14th-century German theologian Meister Eckhart describes as the “virtue above all virtues” to Eichmann.[17]
There is nothing to suggest that Eichmann read Ovid or Eckhart; however, he did claim to have read Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason.[18] From this, however, he took the distorted understanding of Kant’s categorical imperative to “Act in such a way that the Führer, if he knew your actions, would approve it.”[19] Although a thorough investigation of Kantian philosophy is beyond the scope of this research, it will be sufficient to say that Eichmann’s misunderstanding of the theory led him to mistakenly believe that blind obedience to duty and the law – indeed, going beyond the call of duty – was the ultimate expression of virtue and morality.[20] Since the Führer was the ultimate source of the law, Eichmann rejected his personal notions of right and wrong in the interest of always doing his duty – i.e. obeying the law.[21]
This demonstrates a deliberate choice to subordinate his internal notions of right and wrong to the virtues of success and obedience. Although Eichmann felt that he had no choice due to extreme consequences for disobedience,[22] what actually occurred was a conscious suspending of the will’s autonomy. For any choice, the will is always free and one must choose a course of action regardless of necessity, coercion, or consequences.
Jacobitti (1988) emphasizes the importance of the individual’s experience of the self.[23] This is reinforced by its overlap with the will that decides how a person will show up in the world through their actions – called the “enduring I” – which in the long term creates the self’s character.[24] Jacobitti points out the interesting conundrum that the mental faculties of thinking, judging, and willing are “actively self-determined,” meaning “they are not caused or determined by anything external to them.”[25] Willing, specifically, is the faculty by which we “choose among projects” and “ways of conduct” and that this ability to choose means that the will is fundamentally free and, thus, morally accountable.[26]
In philosophical terms, this would be the choice between I-will and I-nill. This choice is inherently free and essential. An individual can choose to externalize this process by suspending its internal authority and deferring to external authority, a process called exteriorization. However, this is still a conscious choice and requires an acquiescence for each act. As Arendt explains, “I can will what I do not desire and I can nill, consciously stand against, what reason tells me is right, and in every act this I-will or I-will-not are the decisive factors.”[27] Either way, the will must make a choice and act on that choice even if the individual tells themselves they are merely acting out of obedience.
This notion of an individual soothing themselves – soothing their conscience through the internal dialogue – is important regarding how the individual actor justifies their actions. The virtue of obedience, for example, becomes a convenient excuse in the least cases and a symbolic martyr’s death in the worst cases (the latter will be discussed more thoroughly in Part Two of this article series). Arendt underscores this point when she says that obedience is actually an act of consent or support to an organization, authority, or law.[28] This was a major hinderance for Eichmann and other followers of the Nazi cause who believed that because they had “renounced voluntarily all personal qualities” and “had never done anything out of their own initiative, that they had no intentions whatsoever, good or bad, and that they only obeyed orders” that they were not responsible for their actions.[29] But this only shows a refusal to take responsibility for their support for the Third Reich’s authority and willful participation in carrying out the organization’s cause. Yet, the Nazi officers went to great lengths to avoid the mental discomfort of taking responsibility for their participation in mass murder. Arendt explains that although the Nazis saw Hitler’s word as ultimate law, they ideologically switched the burden of responsibility of their persecution to “those who had to execute orders” – meaning either the lowest military echelon who physically pulled the triggers or the unfortunate inmates forced to operate the gas chambers.[30]
This massive effort to avoid responsibility for the active participation in mass murder demonstrates the individuals’ fear of confronting the truth about themselves through critical self-reflection. Instead of using the internal dialogue that guides conscience and action through moral insight, Eichmann and other Nazi participants actively chose to “follow what is worse.”[31] This process required deliberate acts of will for not just the initial decision to venerate success as a virtue but also for every single act of obedience that was performed. This demonstrates a herculean act of self-interest on two levels. The first is the voluntary disregard for the moral consequences of their actions. It is not that Eichmann and other Nazis were thoughtless in a passive sense about how their action affected their victims. Instead, it was an active rejection of the mental capacity to think from the perspective of others. The second act of self-interest was self-deception to perpetuate the belief that they were indeed virtuous and respectable people. In other words, this was to maintain the belief in a self-concept that is unmarred by guilt for the deeds committed.
Part Two of this article series will explore the psychological phenomenon of the self-concept, why it is so important, and how it determines whether someone will participate in violence on a mass scale.
Glossary
Antisemitism: Hostility to or prejudice against Jewish people.
Authoritarian: Favoring or enforcing strict obedience to authority, especially that of the government, at the expense of personal freedom.
Concentration Camp: A place where large numbers of people, especially political prisoners or persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in relatively small areas with inadequate facilities, sometimes to provide forced labor or to await mass execution. Most strongly associated with camps established by the Nazis in Germany and other territories they occupied.
Genocide: The deliberate and systematic destruction of a group of people because of their ethnicity, nationality, religion, or race.
Ghetto: A place where a group of people are forcibly segregated from others. During WWII, the Nazis used ghettos in the territory they occupied to isolate and contain the Jewish population.
References
Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. London: Penguin Group, 2006.
Arendt, Hannah. Responsibility and Judgement. Edited by Jerome Kohn. New York: Schocken Books, 2003.
Arendt, Hannah. The Life of the Mind: One/Thinking, Two/Willing. Boston: Mariner Books Classics, 1981.
Bergengruen, Vera. “America’s Political Violence Crisis.” Time Magazine, July 18, 2024. Accessed August 7, 2024. https://time.com/6999810/political-violence-america-trump-rally/.
Carnevale, A., Smith, N., Drazanova, L., Gulish, A., Campbell, K. “The Role of Education in Taming Authoritarian Attitudes.” Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, 2020. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED609008.pdf
Genocide Watch. “Genocide Alerts.” n.d., Accessed May 7, 2024. https://www.genocidewatch.com/countries-at-risk.
Hamilton, V. Lee, and Joseph Sanders. “The Effect of Roles and Deeds on Responsibility Judgments: The Normative Structure of Wrongdoing.” Social Psychology Quarterly 44, no. 3 (1981): 237–54. Accessed September 28, 2023. https://doi.org/10.2307/3033836.
Jacobitti, Suzanne. “Hannah Arendt and the Will.” Political Theory 16, no. 1 (1988): 53-76. Accessed December 4, 2023. https://www.jstor.org/stable/191647.
Miller, Stephen. "A Note on the Banality of Evil." Wilson Quarterly 22 (1998): 54-59. Accessed September 21, 2023. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40260384.
Svilcic, N. and Maldini, P. “Political Myths and Totalitarianism: An Anthropological Analysis of Their Causal Interrelationship.” Collegium Antropologicum 38, no. 2 (2014): 725-738. Accessed August 7, 2024. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264988848_Political_myths_and_totalitarianism_An_anthropological_analysis_of_their_causal_interrelationship.
Footnotes
[1] Carnevale, et al. “The Role of Education in Taming Authoritarian Attitudes.” Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, 2020.
[2] Genocide Watch. “Genocide Alerts.” n.d., Accessed May 7, 2024.
[3] Bergengruen, Vera. “America’s Political Violence Crisis.” Time Magazine, July 18, 2024.
[4] Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. London: Penguin Group, 2006: 49.
[5] Arendt, Hannah. Responsibility and Judgement. Edited by Jerome Kohn. New York: Schocken Books, 2003: 178.
[6] Arendt, Eichmann, 126.
[7] Arendt, Responsibility, 143.
[8] Arendt, Eichmann, 24-25.
[9] Ibid., 25-26, 38-39.
[10] Arendt, Responsibility, 136.
[11] Miller, Stephen. "A Note on the Banality of Evil." Wilson Quarterly 22 (1998): 57; Arendt, Responsibility, 137.
[12] Arendt, Eichmann, 126.
[13] Svilcic, N. and Maldini, P. “Political Myths and Totalitarianism: An Anthropological Analysis of Their Causal Interrelationship.” Collegium Antropologicum 38, no. 2 (2014): 735.
[14] Hamilton, V. Lee, and Joseph Sanders. “The Effect of Roles and Deeds on Responsibility Judgments: The Normative Structure of Wrongdoing.” Social Psychology Quarterly 44, no. 3 (1981): 237.
[15] Ibid., 237.
[16] Arendt, Hannah. The Life of the Mind: Volume Two/Willing. Boston: Mariner Books Classics, 1981: 69.
[17] Ibid., 68.
[18] Arendt, Eichmann, 136.
[19] Ibid., 136.
[20] Ibid., 137.
[21] Ibid., 24.
[22] Ibid., 136.
[23] Jacobitti, Suzanne. “Hannah Arendt and the Will.” Political Theory 16, no. 1 (1988): 54.
[24] Ibid., 63, 67.
[25] Ibid., 57.
[26] Ibid., 59.
[27] Arendt, Responsibility, 114.
[28] Ibid., 46.
[29] Ibid., 111.
[30] Arendt, Eichmann, 27.
[31] Arendt, Life, 69.
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