Hannah Arendt coined the phrase "the banality of evil," as a way of describing the shallow thinking of Adolf Eichmann, one of the architects of the Holocaust.
She pointed out that the man kept retreating to the same rhetoric — he was incapable of thinking outside those very narrow limits.
She also pointed out, although not in these same words, the lack of empathy necessary for a person to do evil things.
When you are aware of others, when you are aware that others have feelings, when you are aware that others can hurt — not just people, but animals as well — that is the source of empathy.
What Hanna Arendt accurately observed was the lack of empathy in Adolf Eichmann, which expressed itself as a very limited world view, a shallowness, a banality, an inability to actually consider the logic of his actions, an inability to consider anything outside the nazi bubble of delusion that he lived in.
The image that comes to my mind is that of a person walling themselves up, safely behind a carefully mortared wall of ideational bricks — brick by brick, layer by layer, a wall of rhetoric, delusion, and often sheer obstinate stupidity.
We see that same lack of ability to perceive, to racionate in the expressions of the most rabid followers of the man who lives in our White House. We see it in the deranged expressions of Louis Gohmert and Rick Santorum, we see it in the bizarre assertions of Kelly Conway and others who attempt to rationalize the behaviors of this corrupt criminal conspiracy that has hijacked our government — the same way that Adolph Hitler and his enablers hijacked the government of Germany in 1932.
But we are not Germany. Not yet.
We have a few things that the German people did not have — first, we have a diverse population, a patchwork quilt of identities and ethnicities and cultures. We have a social media that allows those of us whose brains are not permanently stuck in park to consider the evidence at length. And we still have the tools and the agencies to push back against the corruption.
Do we still have the rule of law? That's being tested — but I believe the rule of law will eventually bring down this wannabe tyrant.
The real challenge in front of us will be the creation of a new American integrity, based on something other than nationalism and jingoistic parroting of false dogma.
That will require some seriously uncomfortable soul searching. Who are we? Who do we want to be? How do we get there from here?
It will require something far more difficult than the easy retreat into the shallow thinking that produces an Adolf Eichmann.
Any questions? This is not sustainable by the way.
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