What is 'The Banality of Evil'? [Illustrated]

Many of you may have heard of the term ‘The Banality of Evil’ - in passing, or perhaps mentioned in a book somewhere. Quite possibly, some of you may never have heard of it at all. Either way, you’ve come to the right place. This video explores what Hannah Arendt means, in her seminal text 'Eichmann in Jerusalem', when she refers to the 'Banality of Evil'. I hope you enjoy this video essay explaining it!
Here are the links to the texts used in the video:
Eichmann in Jerusalem - www.amazon.co.uk/Eichmann-Jer...
Collected Poems of WH Auden - www.amazon.co.uk/Collected-Po...
Stalin: A Biography - www.amazon.co.uk/Stalin-Biogr...
Pensees - www.amazon.co.uk/Pensees-Peng...
Paradise Lost - www.amazon.co.uk/Paradise-Los...
Othello - www.amazon.co.uk/Othello-Word...
Religion within the Bounds of Reason Alone- www.amazon.co.uk/Religion-wit...
The Plague - www.amazon.co.uk/Plague-Pengu...
- Miles
[Music - Mattia Cupelli - • Background Dark Music ... ]

[@42BETWO]

“The line between good and evil runs through ever human heart.” -A. Solzhenitsyn

[@advancedomega]

And Solzhenitsyn continue with an excellent follow-up question: "And who want to cut his own heart?"

[@RayRobinson0311]

Good video but a little surprised it didn't touch on the actual text where the phrase was used and elaborated on originally: Hannah Arendt's "Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil," Everyone should read it, tt'll COMPLETELY reframe WW2, Holocaust and the Nazi Regime for you. To paraphrase Arendt: "The most horrifying thing about Eichmann was that - even after over 40 hours of psychological testing and discussion with him - there was nothing horrifying about him, until the day of his execution he was nothing but a painfully normal person: evil was banal."

[@luked4043]

This was an outstanding video man. Thank you.

[@farzeenshahzad2269]

I’ve studied this at university and your video helped me a lot in my essay

[@wonderwoman5528]

What subject are you studying? :)

[@Tinyflydeposit]

I wish this could be put into very simple language and taught in primary schools. A life lived with a profound understanding of how pain and misery arise, free of dogma and therefore manipulation, might open us to compassion.

[@Rnankn]

That is the purpose of school and public education. To produce moral and critical citizens who exercise justice and judgement in their decisions.

[@mattsmith2247]

I wanred to say thank you for these videos. I love your presentation and im glad i found a channel that explores phillosophy in such depth

[@nivlevi5599]

this is a great video. Cant believe it only has 8k views, this should be viewed by many more

[@Rnankn]

The flaw I see in Arendt’s excellent formulation is her assumption of rational humans. Psychology has recently revealed to me how a traumatized human mind can in its efforts at self-protection become highly maladaptive and malignant. In this formulation, it is self-protection and survival to literally harm, demean and dismantle others. An individual with a dark triad personality (sociopathy, narcissism and machiavellianism) I would consider as evil, but not banal and not human. While humans can lean into some of these defences for self-preservation and so can partly understand their logic, these is a threshold boundary that that divides between the capability or inability of moral judgement. Once one adopts the traits of malignancy in their totality, and to the exclusion of all else the person becomes truly evil. This is more frequent than most would realize, and it is not something that can be cured.

[@blockman3508]

This was a great way to explain the content, very well done. It seemed a bit fast at first but I got it by the end

[@aumperialism]

Great content. Looking forward to more from your channel.

[@ErickMcNerney]

Why does only one explanation have to be correct? Due to the very complexity of human nature and existence, could it not be possible that it's a mixture of both? Sometimes, two things can be true at the same time.

[@mingthan7028]

I always wonder... Why can't philosophy be scientific?🤔🤔🤔

[@silverback7348]

Well done. It’s not so easy to repeatedly isolate and hit the target as done here. Outstanding.

[@KarnodAldhorn]

The banality of evil is unsettling, bcs it destroys the soothing idea that good and evil are inherently separate. However, once you recover from this shock, you realise a reassuring truth: Evil can be reasoned with. And it is always a means, not an end.

[@z.a.7846]

A very well made work. My chapeau off to you 👌

[@Kay-gc4gg]

This background music got me feeling devious for sure

[@sisyphushappy5941]

Arendt raised profoundly important questions. Great content.

[@LEVIATHAN698]

yes i would like to hear about Eichmann!!

[@Tinyflydeposit]

The audio book is available on KZbin and is fascinating.

[@MrUndersolo]

New sub, and thank you for this analysis. I was on the fence about her argument about evil, but if I think about it honestly and consider when I encountered it in my life, she was right (it is always in us).

[@birdseye_2020]

Insightful. Subscribed!

[@TheCarlScharnberg]

Very well done.

[@Stratman389]

very interesting and well presented.

[@savvs6648]

awesome video. the creepy music was little too creepy for my taste tho

[@LNVACVAC]

Evil is either metaphysical and real, or a pure construct of normative nature. The banality of evil is very in line with neoplatonic thinking, affirming evil is contingent on ignorance about your own nature and ignorance.

[@ineednochannelyoutube5384]

Evil is either dependent on consensus, or a universal morality you say? I would disagree. The specifics of what constitutes evil need not metter. It can be defined semantically in relation to any set of moral standards.

[@LNVACVAC]

@@ineednochannelyoutube5384 If evil is a matter of standards it is not evil at all, just displeasure.

[@ineednochannelyoutube5384]

@@LNVACVAC everything is a matter of standards. I guess galilleo did get burned at the stake for this, so human inability to accept our own lack of import in nothing new.

[@gdl-nik]

Superb video. Thank you

[@craigsmith9436]

Excellent explanation thankyou

[@santoshjanakiraman8907]

Aaron, the moor, is probably the only Shakespearean character that would fall under the ambit of evil for the sake of evil alone.

[@curtisking3094]

Amazing video.

[@nowhereman6019]

I like how the banners are colored like the Israeli flag, since the trial was done in Israel.

[@micow9951]

Great video, thnx

[@androidemulator6952]

Given what we've been subjected to over the last three years, this rings true with even more resonance...

[@osmankaandemirbas1109]

this helped me a lot thanks.

[@austejawiyus9301]

¡ i fixed aлл coding on this pлanet !

[@nicolasdelaforge7420]

"evil" then is just "my good" - Milton may have explained the notion of "evil".

[@rachitaurora]

Thank you!

[@q.barclay8562]

Amazing 👍.

[@ThinkTwice2222]

Humans are generally good by instinct [hence why we survived]...evil needs a source to conform to

[@JJ-xt2dq]

8:35 dude i thought my headphones were broken... why did u put in those background noises lol

[@dylansitlhou6918]

Please make an explanation video of The book

[@isaacolivecrona6114]

Evil most often occurs when good men simply go along with bad men.

[@pendejo6466]

And when they assume evil is always in the other, it justifies their own evil actions.

[@ineednochannelyoutube5384]

You didnt seem to understand. There are no "bad men". There are men, and some of them will in pursuit of what they consider virtue commit horrible atrocity.

[@ineednochannelyoutube5384]

@Mike Kane Nothing is more deadly than a devout idealist.

[@user-yu3ge4iv8r]

Oh, OTT, Twittr is a cult- look up cult symptoms, you're in for a shock. -people can't oppose the post-2016 left because the have conflated believing all the party lines with their sense of being a good person. In advance, not a conse'ative. I actually think this is why they've started saying "gasighting" rather than "arguing in bad faith" or "that statement was so dumb I feel like I lost brain cells"- you disproved them so hard they're now wondering if they're a bad person, that'd make me doubt reality. -there is a superstition among my people that naming calls, and if you use the wrong word saying something important then youtube will 'mysteriously' forget to share your post -the movement for... women born in men's bodies is completely false. The condition is actually brought about by extremely bad self esteem. They are simply human Otherkin. People go along with it because it sounds like it could be a real medical condition, and they don't like the consequences of not going along with it. -oh, and they're hypersensitive to being misjendered because it is a delusion. They don't like being called 'dude' because the thought associations remind them for a moment it's all a lie. -you, reading this, right now, believe in a lot of stupid shit. This is because nahzis are so goddamn stupid they are functionally strawmen, and they are the only people opposing what is functionally Tumbler spilling out into the real world. -because you are trying to argue against someone's identity you will never, ever win -you beat these people by talking past them

[@user-yu3ge4iv8r]

@@ineednochannelyoutube5384 For as much as I don't like Twittr, not true in the slightest. Altright are subhuman.

[@mortallious1234]

That's my Reebok Classics in the bin.

[@weltan22]

Excellent analysis

[@maxkloss1720]

4:56 "death solves all problems, no man, no problem" Stalin never said that .

[@ThePolymathsParadise]

The quote, from what I’ve found, is as old as Khrushchev’s Destalinisation Campaign but was popularised by Rybakov’s ‘Children of the Arbat’ ; Rybakov of course would later admit that he had no personal evidence for the citation, but again - to my understanding - the phrase predates the publication of that text. You’re quite right though in that it is unclear whether or not Stalin said that comment. I did say “alleged” in the video, but perhaps it would be best in the future to err on the side of caution.

[@austejawiyus9301]

¡ i am a goddess of bees, 'p.s.s. percent great' during the day, or in the evenings i am 'p.s.s. percent ęvēл !

[@Tinyflydeposit]

All hail the queen of bees.

[@mingthan7028]

Morgoth's Ring

[@alextreeman7964]

Billions broth me here!

[@willxcore]

found this after the arendt/banality of evil episode of philosophize this: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qamUmX-wZt5_bq8 appreciate the info presented here - keep it up!

[@larry1824]

I'm not sure i agree

[@suzettespencer]

Yeah strokes do not cause paranoia. It causes weakness, paralysis, slurred speech, face droop, etc. Neurology vs psychiatry. Of course there is some overlap but not here.

[@lostintime519]

You should read 120 days of Sodom

[@HenryCasillas]

🧭

[@TomatoFettuccini]

If we're going to talk about ethics, evil, and sources of both, can we leave out fictional characters and focus on real people? Othello, Iago, and Lucifer are all storybook characters and while the study of them is interesting, it doesn't provide any insight into actual humans. Other than that, great video!

[@calinbolea9927]

Well, there were also references to Vlad the Impaler, Stalin and Hitler. True, Iago does not provide insight into actual humans (exception here maybe Shakespeare), but it does provide an abstraction for the concept of a malevolent agent, the fact that it's not an actual human may actually help people better understand that evil is not something reserved for a select few, but it's a character trait that we all share given certain conditions.

[@charlesthehandsomeandbrave2956]

well if you want actual human let's just look at the source where Hannah Arendt got her term, search adolf eichmenn and watch his trial

[@kirstydepaor547]

I think for many people it is easier to identify absolute evil in fictional characters, as that is how they are portrayed to us in absolution. He did list some historical characters, but often there are more complexities to them that can muddy the water of the example in those cases.

[@Tinyflydeposit]

Fiction, well some anyway, is how humanity records and expresses it's collective wisdom. Shakespeare is famous for his clever beautiful language, but mostly for how he captures human characteristics that give us a deeper understanding of how we work.

[@davidmoller7987]

They may be fictional, but billions of people believe in Lucifer, for example. For them, he is real.

[@dwaynesbadchemicals]

This reminds me of the ending of Sufjan Stevens - John Wayne Gacy Jr.

[@raffaellasapalidis3394]

the background music is blocking me from subscribing

[@Vampyrdanceclub]

pls sigh*

[@yeah_i_said_it.]

everyone agrees with this concept until you start talking about covid restrictions. then they lose their minds

[@tzufbb]

These traits are quite apparent in Israel today

[@leravishaynes1845]

"Evil" in the context defined by this video , doesn't seem to exist except in fiction. I personally can't think of an example . Banality alone doesn't seem to qualify as abso evil , in my opinion. Noone , in my experience , acts out of purely bad intentions . Quite the contrary. In my estimation and in short , the concept of banality as pure evil is B.S. !!

[@ineednochannelyoutube5384]

You very clearly dont understand english very well. The banality argument goes as such: -Metaphysical evil is motivated purely by malice. -Nothing is motivated purely by malice. -Metaphysical evil doesnt exist. -therefore the evil that exists must be banal. Normal, human, understandable, regular, not inherent.

[@RayRobinson0311]

You need to read Hannah Arendt's original text on the concept, "Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil"