Hannah Arendt · Politics

The Banality of Evil

Sent to report on a monster, Arendt found a clerk. Her most explosive idea: that the greatest evils of the modern age were committed not by sadists or fanatics but by ordinary, thoughtless men who simply did their jobs.

What you'll be able to recall

You learned that Arendt traced Eichmann’s evil to thoughtlessness rather than monstrous hatred. Explain in your own words why she found that more frightening than the idea of a demonic villain.

Leads to Immanuel Kant.

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