Banality of evil is a phrase coined by
Hannah ArendtHannah Arendt was an influential German-Jewish political theorist. She has often been described as a philosopher, although she refused that label on the grounds that philosophy is concerned with "man in the singular." She described herself instead as a political theorist because her work centers...
and incorporated in the title of her 1963 work
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. It describes the thesis that the great
evilEvil, in many cultures, is a broad term used to describe what are seen as subjectively harmful deeds that are labeled as such to steer moral support. Evil is usually contrasted with good, which describes acts that are subjectively beneficial to the observer. In some religions, evil is an active...
s in
historyHistory is the study of the human past, with special attention to the written record. Scholars who write about history are called historians. It is a field of research which uses a narrative to examine and analyse the sequence of events, and it often attempts to investigate objectively the patterns...
generally, and
the HolocaustThe Holocaust , also known as The Shoah is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a program of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany,...
in particular, were not executed by
fanaticThis article is about the MTV series FANatic. For the Canadian TV documentary series FANatical, see FANatical.FANatic was an American TV show that was shown on the MTV network in the late 1990s...
s or
sociopathsAntisocial personality disorder is defined by the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual as "...a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood." The individual...
but rather by ordinary people who accepted the premises of their state and therefore participated with the view that their actions were normal.
The concept of the banality of evil is criticized in an article under British Psychology journal
The Psychologist.
Banality of evil is a phrase coined by
Hannah ArendtHannah Arendt was an influential German-Jewish political theorist. She has often been described as a philosopher, although she refused that label on the grounds that philosophy is concerned with "man in the singular." She described herself instead as a political theorist because her work centers...
and incorporated in the title of her 1963 work
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. It describes the thesis that the great
evilEvil, in many cultures, is a broad term used to describe what are seen as subjectively harmful deeds that are labeled as such to steer moral support. Evil is usually contrasted with good, which describes acts that are subjectively beneficial to the observer. In some religions, evil is an active...
s in
historyHistory is the study of the human past, with special attention to the written record. Scholars who write about history are called historians. It is a field of research which uses a narrative to examine and analyse the sequence of events, and it often attempts to investigate objectively the patterns...
generally, and
the HolocaustThe Holocaust , also known as The Shoah is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a program of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany,...
in particular, were not executed by
fanaticThis article is about the MTV series FANatic. For the Canadian TV documentary series FANatical, see FANatical.FANatic was an American TV show that was shown on the MTV network in the late 1990s...
s or
sociopathsAntisocial personality disorder is defined by the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual as "...a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood." The individual...
but rather by ordinary people who accepted the premises of their state and therefore participated with the view that their actions were normal.
Criticism
The concept of the banality of evil is criticized in an article under British Psychology journal
The Psychologist.
S. Alexander HaslamS. Alexander Haslam is a Professor of Social Psychology in the School of Psychology at the University of Exeter. He was educated at Felsted....
and
Stephen D. ReicherStephen D Reicher is Professor of Social Psychology and former Head of the School of Psychology at the University of St Andrews....
argued that crimes on the scale of Eichmann's cannot be committed by "ordinary people". Those people who commit such crimes "actively identify with groups whose ideology justifies and condones the oppression and destruction of others". That is, they know that it is a crime, but simply find a way to justify it.
On the other hand, the
Milgram ExperimentThe Milgram experiment was a series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram, which measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience...
, conducted by Dr.
Stanley MilgramStanley Milgram was an American social psychologist most notable for his controversial study known as the Milgram Experiment. The study was conducted in the 1960s during Milgram's professorship at Yale...
, and the
Stanford Prison ExperimentThe Stanford prison experiment was a study of the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. The experiment was conducted in 1971 by a team of researchers led by Psychology Professor Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University...
, both appear to support Arendt's central thesis.
The Banality of the "Banality of Evil"
In the May 23, 2009 edition of the
New York PostThe New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
, various uses of the phrase over the last 10 years were collected, with writer Spencer Rosenstein arguing that the phrase has been overused to the point making it, essentially, a worsened word.
See also
- Eichmann in Jerusalem
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil is a book written by political theorist Hannah Arendt, originally published in 1963...
- Stanford prison experiment
The Stanford prison experiment was a study of the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. The experiment was conducted in 1971 by a team of researchers led by Psychology Professor Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University...
- Milgram Experiment
The Milgram experiment was a series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram, which measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience...
- Right Wing Authoritarianism
Right-wing authoritarianism is a personality and ideological variable studied in political, social, and personality psychology. It is defined by three attitudinal and behavioral clusters which correlate together:...
External links