we’re going to shut off commenting on this thread and ask that everyone migrate over to the comment thread for the second banality of evil show. We will go back and look at these comments for inclusion in the second show as well. Thanks so much!

and as for being high strung..read your last two entries..everbody loses it from time to time…

your handle is based on a classic rogue cartoon..you have a sense of humor…ever see the one about the baby dragon and the baby bird? saw both sketches in the same animation festival.

why lash out here anyway..this one has been winding down

Neurobiologists have noticed that when people group up the brain produces chemicals that reduce the thought patterns to a more primitive state.

Fred knew this by observation !

in reality it seems that it was probably more like incomplete thought. skips a few steps to acquire a desired result..a rationalized outcome.

this might include a long view of an outcome without a realistic calculation of what must happen along the way (right mr. wolfowitz?)…

or the more immediate desire for inclusiveness..a bond with a movement..success through productivity within this structure..less about the result in terms of affecting humanity..more about the result in terms of personal accomplishment, perverse as that may be.

As well (Lumiere) “thoughtlessness” for me is literal, not figurative and different in meaning from the words you would replace it with: thoughtless is not confused though maybe there was confusion and maybe the thinking was inadequate as well who knows but that is not what Arendt was saying. I think Arendt was saying there was NO thinking at all where there should have been.

But what I said is still true

that’s funny..did capote have a tax event with our uncle?

jamesdylangoldstein:

there’s a reason why our gov’t has never been very supportive of the world court… sins of the cold war….viet nam….kissinger…..chile….etc…

And, forgetting Bush, what about all of the instances when the U.S. has ordered soldiers to commit immoral actions — toppling democratic governments, executing leaders, taking the side of one fascist against another fascist, etc. Such actions are lawful according to the UCMJ, and immoral. The President often goes behind the back of congress to order such actions and yet the soldiers never seem to desert (UCMJ: desertion in a time of war is punishable by death).

‘Insubordination’ is codified i.e. there are times and procedures for disagreeing with an order

jdgoldstein.blogspot.com

the tax code will do that to you….

“the screwtape letters”

“in cold blood” (unexpected empathy before…)

when a collective consciousness is so manipulated rashness prevails. whopping rationalizations inevitably follow rashness.

btw i still do not think that old king george deserves such credit..he is far too banal a creature to be in full control..and far too busy with “figure head duties…cheyney is already running the show, imo.

///…by one or more beings capable of mentation.\\\

I take Arendt’s ‘thoughtlessness’ to be figurative phrase – confused and inadequate thinking is a better phrase, imo.

Impeachment folk: Chaney would be the next president. Again, by a casting Bush as evil, as he has done to others, you put yourself in a box you can’t get out of – just as he has done to our foreign policy.

This is where Pontius‘ analysis is flawed. Bush was elected twice – if he is evil, the evil is in the vox populi – just as it was in the German people.
Banality….obvious, or predictable; a commonplace.

If you think Bush is evil, then by manning’s definition, the election was a shocking event.

We seem to be going full circle, still attempting to place evil outside of the individual …… ultimately expressed in a collective consciousness.

i think 2a) should read:

“describes a shockingly bad event or connected series of events caused by one or more beings capable of mentation (human or otherwise)”

i suggest this edti to avoid bringing random events into the picture which are less likely to be evil if at all.

btw i think that we have left ourselves out of the eichmann description a little too much. i suspect that Ms. Arendt was shocked to find someone who could be a neigbor or an uncle where she expected to find a fire breathing monster. it must have been a shock. here she discovers the pitfalls of demonization…looking for the enemy she found us.

I was especially impressed at Bill Pontius mulling over the content of Arendt’s lectures that he heard in the 1960’s.

After some mulling of my own, here are a few conclusions, based on common language analysis:

1. Evil (noun) is a shockingly bad event or connected series of events caused by one or more beings capable of mentation (human or otherwise).

2. Evil (adjective) describes a) the shockingly bad event or series of events, b) one or more beings who/that knowingly cause or promote, or approve, the occurrence of evil; c) a thought, desire, plan, or other mental disposition favoring or enjoying the occurrence of evil; d) acts arising from c) that cause or promote evil, or attempt to cause or promote it. (I had previously narrowed c) to intention, but clearly one might have evil thoughts or wishes falling short of intention.)

3. “The banality of evil” is a figurative phrase, somewhat like “the face of evil” or an “evil cloud,” referring to the phenomenon exhibited by Eichmann of a person who has a normal social life among his/her family and peers, and who wouldn’t of his/her own initiative favor or promote evil, but who contributes to the occurrence of evil by the thoughtless performance of mundane activities in the employ or at the suggestion of an evil person or group.

By these criteria, the “banal” bureaucratic work of Eichmann, and Eichmann himself, were evil because he knew what resulted from his acts, even though by dint of thoughtlessness, he didn’t find it shocking.