Posted on 10/30/2015 4:10:01 AM PDT by EBH
We’ve all heard the phrase “the banality of evil.†Some of us even know which political theorist to attribute it to, and among those, a few have even read it in context. Hannah Arendt most memorably employed it in both the subtitle and closing words of Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, her book on the trial of Nazi lieutenant-colonel Adolf Eichmann. To Arendt’s mind, Eichmann willingly did his part to organize the Holocaust — and an instrumental part it was — out of neither anti-semitism nor pure malice, but out of a non-ideological, entirely more prosaic combination of careerism and obedience. Readers have argued ever since its publication about this characterization, and those with a special interest in how Arendt arrived there can find in the New Yorker‘s online archives the original series of “Eichmann in Jerusalem†articles out of which the book grew: part one, part two, part three, part four, and part five.
(Excerpt) Read more at openculture.com ...
I am old enough that my education included the history of WWI and WWII, but this particular book was not part of my education. As a youth, these trials were a current event and one I was shielded from, so reading the first few chapters left me shaken and in tears.
America itself, has indeed forgotten and the danger while seemingly distant really isn't that far off. I often wondered how Germany felt just before WWII, why the Jews didn't fight back, but went to their deaths with great meekness?
Some of what I've read so far has made me consider John Boehner and John Roberts and the chronic capitulations of the GOP. How they, like the Jews, would negotiate with the Nazi and never consider that the Nazi is viewing them as the problem. Consider how often we now hear about the threat and problem of the conservative right in the GOP, the problem with Christians, Catholics, and even Patriots.
The link provided to Open Culture provides a brief description and links to the first of the articles Ardent wrote for the New Yorker.
I’m a great fan of Hannah Arendt, especially Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (which you cite), and The Origins of Totalitarianism.
I hinted as much
"America itself, has indeed forgotten and the danger while seemingly distant really isn't that far off. I often wondered how Germany felt just before WWII, why the Jews didn't fight back, but went to their deaths with great meekness?"
in my post that America has NOT kept up with history , probably by design
News, events and technology move with such speed, it is easy to get engulfed with our own momentum
Alexander Solzhenitsyn made many of these same observations in his classic “The Gulag Archipelago”
And when the white bitter clingers are rounded up or killed for not turning in their guns foolishly thinking "It can't happen here." right up until it does, and wonder why 99.999% of the police who phony motto "to protect and servr" they believed in for years could do such a thing without a qualm of conscience here is the answer.
Thank you.
We are often said to be exaggerating things, but as I read this musty old book, I am shaken by the ‘new version’ being presented ...no forced upon ...the American public.
Yesterday I was at the part where they were discussing the language rules. How only insiders understood what were common place words had very different meanings. I couldn’t help but consider the ever changing climate of political correctness and how using one word today is a crime the next.
Eichmann’s use of what she calls ‘cliches’ as he testifies in his trial and how he viscerally is elated to use these clichés. I can’t help but consider the liberal left and their slogans and memes...their clichés as well.
The history is out there...how do we get modern America to read it?
(I am sorry all the odd punctuation, but darn it I do not know how to fix it?)
I lost my library in a fire a year ago, but I cherished winter time reading ....
None Dare Call It Treason, f'rinstance
I even had 60's radical books (lefty) about what (they wanted) America to become I confess, I don't buy books anymore, nor do I sit down to read like I used to .... the internet is an evil drug ... but there are a ton of youtubes that we can pull up to give us insight about our not too distant past
Here ... Wm F Buckley Jr interviews pre-presidential Ronald Reagan
A vast percentage of the American public hasn't been equipped by their educators, or compelled by their parents to take the utmost advantage of their educational possibilities, to comprehend and digest books like this.
In 1968, when I was in the eighth grade, our history teacher showed us a film about WWII era Germany that still stays with me. I don’t think kids today are being taught that. I don’t think the powers that be want them to know.
“entirely more prosaic combination of careerism and obedience.”
Different time, different culture and different place. In our bloated egotistical culture, egoism will trump careerism and blind obedience. The preservation of “I” will rise above all else. The egoists are the ultimate self-preservationists and will not obey if it means the possible destruction and obliteration of “I.” The grossly overfed, fat ego will not allow it.
This is why I admire the Christian culture. The individuals that make up Christianity think of others before themselves and are willing to sacrifice. They are not simpleton egoists but reflect a transcendent body of spirituality that left wing egoists can never hope to achieve.
I was in 7th grade when we were show the film, The Diary of Ann Frank.
These trials were never read about or discussed. Occasionally I would hear on the news that the Mossad had captured some Nazi German and taken him for trial.
I recall a few of the last cases of the Nazi hunters and sadly, how the world finally said...enough.
The preservation of ‘I’ in a collective culture.
Interesting viewpoint and thinking about how many stand with their hand-out to preserve their ‘I’ and yet depend on the collective to provide for them.
It tells the story of Goldsmith's parents and their escape from Nazi Germany just before the war started. Both his parents were musicians. His mother was a violist who played with the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell. She and Martin's father were Jewish, and played in an orchestra in Germany during the 1930s in a federation called the Judische Kulterbund. The Kulterbund was set up by the Nazis to provide cultural entertainment by and for Jews. No one but Jews could perform in it, and no one but Jews could attend performances. It was basically a way of isolating the Jews from "pure" Germans and keeping them entertained until they could deport them all and kill them.
What is frightening about the book is how gradually the Nazi menace creeps up on everything. It starts with people being dismissive of Hitler, then come the Nuremburg Laws, and the the horror of Kristallnacht. As the reality of what was happening became apparent, some of the Jews in the organization start making plans to leave Europe. Some were in denial about what was happening even after Kristallnacht. Ther's a story of a guy chiding fellow Jews for leaving everything behind. He tells them "you'll be sorry. I'll still be here when you return!". Needless to say, he was never seen again.
Earlier this year I read the Manchester/Reid biography of Churchill. I was frankly stunned just how far Baldwin and Chamberlain went in their "peace at all costs" approach to appeasing Hitler. I think the appeasement of the 1930s is different from what we are seeing today. In the 30's no one wanted to repeat the stalemate of WWI. Today, I think the left and the Islamists are actually on the same side. their enemy is the Judeo/Christian culture . Too bad most of us won't be around to see what happens when they turn on each other after we're gone.
Page 57, Describes how Eichmann is not able to recall details of events, only moods, feelings, catch phrases. Amazing how we talk about the liberal left and they are the party of feelings. On the same page the discussion of meeting with the Palestinians!
Pelosi comes to mind from 10 years ago!
I was watching a documentary series recently called "The Nazis: A Warning From History". It was filmed in the 90's, and it's remarkable how many unrepentant Germans there are/were. Several are interviewed. One guy says "people talk about the bad side of Hitler. I remember the beautiful side. No one can take that away from me". One guy explains that the Jews were becoming too dominant, and that everybody agreed that something needed to be done about them. One lady was in a pageant of nude Amazons, and still waxed rhapsodic about the glory of those days in the mid-30s. You can see in their eyes that they are picturing those rallies with the Fuhrer speaking, and all the time they are thinking "good times, good times". The feelings are so strong they still over-ride in their minds the fact that were part of a regime of death.
One lady is confronted with the fact that she denounced a neighbor to the Gestapo for being "suspicious", and because the lady's friends "looked Jewish". When they show her that her signature is on the report, she laughs it off, and asks why people are bringing this stuff up after 50 years. I'm sure many of us will be carted off to some modern camp for being homophobic, Islamophobic, or some such thought crime as the lady in Germany was.
This is a good youtube. Long, but worth it to watch. Lays the whole process out and we are right on schedule.Yuri Bezmenov
Yes, that’s it. Sorry about the bad link.
NP ... will watch/listen later ... thanx
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