Hannah Arendt,evil,and political resistance

Radical evil

Arendt first uses the concept ‘radical evil’ (1976[1951]: 444) in her 1951 study The Origins of Totalitarianism (1976[1951]). It is premised on and developed from her notion of the conditions of political life and bodies. Arendt claims that the condition of political life is heterogeneity, insofar as we start with ‘mere existence…that is given to us by birth and which includes the shape of our bodies and the talents of our minds’ (ibid.: 301). She notes, however, that ‘since the [Greeks’]…highly developed political life breeds a deep-rooted suspicion of this private sphere, a deep resentment [forms] against the disturbing miracle contained in the fact that each of us is made as he is—single, unique, unchangeable’ (ibid.). As such, political life has long aimed to relegate this heterogeneity to the private sphere, which, in so doing, establishes a conflictual relation between the public and the private:

This whole sphere of the merely given, relegated to the private life in civilized society, is a permanent threat to the public sphere, because the public sphere is consistently based on the law of equality as the private sphere is based on the law of universal difference and differentiation. (ibid.)

The problem is that:

The dark background of mere givenness, the background formed by our unchangeable and unique nature, breaks into the political scene as the alien which in its all too obvious difference reminds us of the limitations of human activity—which are identical with the limitations of human equality. (Arendt, 1976[1951]: 301)

That political regimes have relied upon the notion of ethic homogeneity and removed political status from those considered heterogeneous to make them non-political ‘natural’ beings underpins Arendt’s analysis of totalitarian regimes, which have, on her telling, taken this to its most extreme form. In so doing, they have given rise to ‘the appearance of some radical evil, previously unknown to us’ (Arendt, 1976[1951]: 443), the aim of which is ‘not despotic rule over men, but toward a system in which men are superfluous’ (ibid.: 457).

Paul Formosa (2007) suggests that the claim that totalitarian regimes aim to make individuals superfluous is best understood in relation to Kant's ethical theory. Kant’s categorical imperative is based on the notion that ethical action requires the adoption of a moral maxim in which:

the human being and every rational being exists as an end in itself, not merely as a means to be used by this or that will at its discretion; instead, he must in all his actions, whether directed to himself or also to other rational beings, always be regarded at the same time as an end. (Kant, 1997: 4: 428)

For Arendt, a key way in which this was achieved was through juridical law. While totalitarian regimes appeared to follow legal principles and often stressed this aspect of their policy-making, the legal principle in question was, in fact, derived from the will of the Führer or emanated from supposed ‘laws’ of Nature or History that required certain actions. As noted, the mask of legality was directed against those social groups or classes deemed to either stand in the way of the realization of the Historical or Natural narrative depended upon or thought to be superfluous to its realization. Arendt uses the example of the Jews under Nazi rule to show that there is a developmental process to this: first, the aim was to ‘reduce the German Jews to a non-recognized minority in Germany, then to drive them as stateless people across the borders, and finally to gather them back from everywhere in order to ship them to extermination camps’ (Arendt, 1976[1951]: 290).

The concentration camps were crucial to the totalitarian regimes because they served ‘as the laboratories in which the fundamental belief of totalitarianism…[was] verified’ (Arendt, 1976[1951]: 437). While they might appear to be a mere, albeit cruel, appendage to the regime, one that needlessly eats up scarce economic resources that would appear to be better suited to helping the totalitarian regime in its war efforts, she claims that, in actuality, ‘they are more essential to the preservation of the regime’s power than any of its other institutions’ (Arendt, 1948: 760). Their purpose was to experiment with how to create a populace that was totally submissive. By stripping its inhabitants of their political status to treat them as ‘mere’ human beings and sealing them off from the political public world, the camps isolated those deemed undesirable from the possibility of political life and hence their salvation. Within the camps, ‘the human masses sealed off in them [we]re treated as if they no longer existed, as if what happened to them [was] no longer of any interest to anybody’ (Arendt, 1976[1951]: 445). These actions were complemented by incorporating all individuals into the administration of the camps. In so doing, ‘the consciously organized complicity of all men in the crimes of the totalitarian regimes [was] extended to the victims and thus made really total’ (ibid.: 452). The isolation, remorseless pressure to conform, punishment for not doing so, and general chipping away of individual conscience and individuality not only made it increasingly difficult for individuals to do good, but also progressively ‘destroy[ed] spontaneity, man’s power to begin something new out of his own resources, something that cannot be explained on the basis of reactions to environment and events’ (ibid.: 455). The aim was to create ‘ghastly marionettes with human faces, which all behave[d] like the dog in Pavlov’s experiments, which all react[ed] with perfect reliability even when going to their own death, and which d[id] nothing to react’ (ibid.).

This was achieved in different ways depending on the type of camp involved. Hades corresponds to ‘those relatively mild forms, once popular even in non-totalitarian regimes, for getting undesirable elements of all sorts—refugees, stateless persons, the asocial and the unemployed—out of the way’ (Arendt, 1976[1951]: 445). Purgatory denotes the labour camps employed in the Soviet Union ‘where neglect is combined with chaotic forced labour’ (ibid.). Hell ‘in the most literal sense was embodied by those types of camp perfected by the Nazis, in which the whole of life was thoroughly and systematically organized with a view to the greatest possible torment’ (ibid.) and in which murder was

as impersonal as the squashing of a gnat, a mere technique of management, as when a camp is over-crowded and is liquidated—or an accidental by-product, as when a prisoner succumbs to torture. Systematic torture and systematic starvation create[d] an atmosphere of permanent dying, in which death as well as life is effectively obstructed. (Arendt, 1948: 748)

While the concentration camps were the most potent expression of the radical evil inherent in totalitarian regimes, Arendt notes that it was not simply confined to the camps. The entire society of these regimes was structured and orientated to weeding out and making superfluous those considered undesirable. Whereas totalitarian regimes were focused on one omnipotent figure or norm or law, the existence of the regime was due to collective action. To function, the populace itself had to effect and perpetuate its structures, norms, and values, including the exclusions constitutive of it. This did not necessarily have to entail conscious intentional action on their part. The norms and values of the regime were inculcated in the populace in such a way that the populace was brought to spontaneously act for the regime. This was achieved through the isolation of individuals so that they could not trust anyone else, a strategy that was crucial to the survival and function of these regimes because ‘when people have lost contact with their fellow man as well as with the reality around them…men lose the capacity of both experience and thought’ (Arendt, 1976[1951]: 474). In turn this prevented individuals from acting politically; that is, from coming together collectively to discuss and think about the regime (ibid.). Crucially, Arendt notes that ‘what we call isolation in the political sphere is called loneliness in the sphere of social intercourse’ (ibid.) and ‘[l]oneliness, the common ground for terror, the essence of totalitarian government, and for ideology or logicality, the preparation of its executioners and victims, is closely connected with uprootedness and superfluousness’ (ibid.: 475), thereby returning the discussion to radical evil. This was combined with the use of ‘terror and propaganda’ (ibid.: 34) to silence dissent and ensure that each citizen conformed to the required norms. So successful was this combination that Arendt notes that ‘[t]he disturbing factor in the success of totalitarianism is…the true selflessness of its adherents [who] may even be willing to help in his own prosecution and frame his own death sentence if only his status as a member of the movement is not touched’ (ibid.: 307). Finally, the use of and focus on bureaucracy to intrude into every aspect of daily life produced a standardized homogeneity, manifested through rigid bureaucracies and ‘the rule of nobody’ (1998[1958]: 45), that ‘intruded upon the private individual and his inner life with equal brutality’ (1976[1951]: 245). In so doing, totalitarian bureaucracy shaped individuals’ hopes, fears, judgements, and, crucially, undermined individual spontaneity.

There appeared then to be no space from the regime from which individuals might formulate alternative perspectives, engage in critical thought, or autonomously evaluate their actions. The totalitarian nature of these regimes invaded every facet of individual life and bent it to the ‘will’ and ends of the regime. In so doing, they reduced ‘the human specimen…to the most elementary reactions…that can always be liquidated and replaced by other bundles of reactions that behave in exactly the same way’ (Arendt, 1976[1951]: 456). Rather than spontaneous thinking individuals, totalitarian regimes aimed to create interchangeable monadic automatons who merely copied and perpetuated that which was fed to them. This ‘is the model “citizen” of the totalitarian [S]tate’ (ibid.).

The miracle of birth

For Arendt, therefore, the radical evil of totalitarian regimes is tied to the notion of superfluousness, which is determined from and judged against a conception of ethnic homogeneity and, more specifically, the notion of a single correct form of existence. Radical evil is then implicitly grounded in a single founding norm, which is used to judge the populace to purify the regime of those who are deemed not to meet the relevant criteria. Through this, the regime works to cement the dominance of its norms and behaviours and, in so doing, create unthinking automatons.

This, however, appears to mean that totalitarian regimes aim to and indeed are able to dominate their citizens to achieve their ends. The state–populace relation is then based on a top-down logic of imposition wherein the former simply imposes itself on and absolutely determines the latter. As Arendt was aware, however, this downplays the role that individuals, as a collective, play in perpetuating the goals, norms, and values of every body politic. Individual action is fundamental to the adoption and survival of those norms and by extension the totalitarian regimes and, indeed, their radical evil. Whereas the logic of totalitarian regimes appears to be an anonymous one, it is, in fact, dependent upon the collective action of individuals choosing to adhere to that logic. While the regime imposes itself on individuals, it only survives because individuals act in the desired manner. Arendt points out, however, that while such action is shaped and conditioned, to varying degrees, by the regime through the processes outlined above, ‘it is almost impossible to know how many [of the populace]…will gladly conform to a system that, together with spontaneity, eliminates responsibility’ (Arendt, 1976[1951]: 437). Rather than being passive victims of the logic of the regime, the populace subjected to it is also responsible for its adoption. As a consequence, the influence of totalitarian regimes is never total: ‘under conditions of terror most people will comply but some people will not’ (Arendt, 2006b[1963]: 233).

As Arendt explains in a 1953 address to RIAS Radio University in Berlin, totalitarian regimes aim to extinguish individual spontaneity and may even succeed to a large and almost total degree, but they will not and cannot completely succeed because ‘life as such, and surely human life, is dependent upon it’ (Arendt, 1994d: 304). She most fully develops the reasons for this in the discussion of ‘action’ in The Human Condition, which aims to clarify that individual action is always possible but is also conditioned by the world it takes place within. A brief overview of her position on this issue will then help to (a) identify whether individuals can act against the norms of the political regimes they exist within, (b) clarify the embedded nature of such action, and (c) define the relationship between action and norms.

Action, for Arendt, is combined with work and labour to describe the fundamental features of the ‘vita activa’ (Arendt, 1998[1958]: 7) of the human condition. More specifically, it describes ‘the activity that goes on directly between men without the intermediary of things or matter’ (ibid.). It is therefore premised on the notion of ‘plurality’ (ibid.: 8), which describes a paradoxical combination of sameness and uniqueness: ‘we are all the same, that is, human, in such a way that nobody is ever the same as anyone else who ever lived, lives, or will live’ (ibid.). The plurality underpinning action means that individuals always act in relation to others. Because individuals exist within and through a ‘web of relationships’ (ibid.: 181), they act by communicating with one another. This discussion makes possible the ‘founding and preserving [of] political bodies’ (ibid.: 8–9). Given this, action is threatened when individuals are isolated (ibid.: 188), as in totalitarian regimes, because this separates them from others and, in so doing, undermines the conditions of action – namely, interaction through speech – that would challenge that regime.

Furthermore, because action is always embedded within a network of relations, it is always conditioned by that world: ‘Men are conditioned beings because everything they come in contact with turns immediately into a condition of their existence’ (Arendt, 1998[1958]: 9). Individuals define themselves through activities that produce a world, but, in turn, ‘the things that owe their existence exclusively to men nevertheless constantly condition their human makers’ (ibid.). The individual–world relation is a dialectical one: ‘human existence is conditioned existence [that] would be impossible without things, and things would be a heap of unrelated articles, a non-world, if they were not the conditioners of human existence’ (ibid.). As a consequence, the individual always acts within a world that conditions the possibilities of action. For this reason, Arendt explains that the individual ‘is never merely a “doer” but always and at the same time a sufferer’ (ibid.: 190).

This conforms to what we have seen in her analysis of totalitarian regimes, with the exception that those regimes presumably impose themselves on the individual to a far greater degree:

totalitarian terror does not curtail all liberties or abolish certain essential freedoms, nor does it, at least to our limited knowledge, succeed in eradicating the love of freedom from the hearts of men; it simply and mercilessly presses men, such as they are, against each other so that the very space of free action—and this is the reality of freedom—disappears. (Arendt, 1994e: 342–3)

On the one hand, this means that individual action will necessarily be distorted, but, on the other hand, it also ensures that the actions of others, including those of totalitarian regimes, will be altered from what was originally intended. Because these regimes have plurality as their condition, they are subject to competing pressures, wills, and intentions, which will always change the implementation of the intended or desired norm. While totalitarian regimes may intend to completely dominate individuals or make them superfluous, those intentions will necessarily be altered in some way – which is not to say that they completely fail – thereby opening up the possibility for further resistance to them. This does not arise from an ‘external force’, but is integral to the ‘internal’ dynamics of these regimes; the plurality that conditions them leads to conflicts, minute changes in emphasis, and alternative understandings, which continually alter its operations.

There are two complementary reasons for this: first, Arendt notes that action necessarily creates a reaction, thereby setting off ‘a chain reaction’ (1998[1958]: 190) in which ‘every reaction is the cause of new processes’ (ibid.). Crucially, this is not a linear process or one that operates within a restricted economy. Rather, ‘reaction, apart from being a response, is always a new action that strikes out on its own and affects others’ (ibid.). This does not have to entail a totalizing rejection or form of resistance. As she notes, ‘[a]ction…no matter what its specific content, always establishes relationships and therefore has an inherent tendency to force open all limitations and cut across all boundaries’ (ibid.). Even ‘the smallest act in the most limited circumstances bears the seed of the same boundlessness, because one deed, and sometimes one word, suffices to change every constellation’ (ibid.). New configurations, actions, and possibilities are constantly being created simply by virtue of the interaction constitutive of the human condition. Despite its intended domination, totalitarian regimes are necessarily fragile; the relationships upon which they depend spontaneously undermine their intended actions and give rise to alternatives.

Second, Arendt maintains that individuals are not simply the hapless recipients of the norms imposed on them by others and, by extension, totalitarian regimes. Rather, she maintains that there is an ‘impulse’ (1998[1958]: 177) inherent in the human condition that spontaneously brings them to affirm and perpetuate new configurations. Arendt ties this to the notion of ‘natality’ (ibid.: 9), which describes not an individual’s ‘original physical appearance’ (ibid.: 176–7) but ‘an insertion [that] is like a second birth’ (ibid.: 176) and which is tied to a ‘new beginning’ (ibid.: 9). This ‘sense of initiative, an element of action, and therefore of natality, is inherent in all human activities’ (ibid.). Indeed, she holds that ‘since action is the political activity par excellence, natality…may be the central category of political…thought’ (ibid.). This possibility cannot be explained, but appears ‘in the guise of a miracle’ (ibid.: 178) to permit alternative action and, in so doing, a new birth. As a consequence, the individual is always capable of remaking himself through the actions that he enacts. Such action reveals what he is, not in the sense of revealing a true essence (ibid.: 10) or an ‘invisible actor behind the scenes’ (ibid.: 185), but insofar as his action demonstrates what he values and takes himself to be or wants to be. Such expression is not based on a prior plan, but is spontaneous and unpredictable (ibid.: 191), with the consequence that it renders ‘helpless’ (ibid.) every attempt to control it.

Therefore, while totalitarian regimes intend to dominate and render human beings superfluous, their grounding in plurality means that those regimes spontaneously undermine the norms and actions they perpetuate. Rather than stable entities, political bodies are inherently fragile, not only because of the plurality upon which they depend, but also because of the ongoing battle between their desired and attempted actions and the reactions that necessarily result from their action. While this reveals the structural difficulties involved in imposing a norm on individuals – reactions to it will always arise to undermine the intent – the natality inherent in the human condition also always offers the possibility that individuals may spontaneously act to undermine or alter the dominant norm.

One consequence of this is that, if a totalitarian regime exists and is dominant, it is because individuals – who could do otherwise – have chosen, as a collective, to express themselves in ways that support (broadly speaking) its aims. The radical evil of totalitarian regimes is not simply based on a top-down model of imposition wherein the dominant norm of the regime is imposed on a hapless and passive populace; the regime, including the norm used to judge and make persons superfluous, is dependent on the collective action of the populace. Radical evil is then based on the complex entwinement between the actions of the regimes that pressurise the populace to adopt its founding norm and the collective actions of the populace itself voluntarily adopting the defining norm of the regime: the regime proposes and imposes those values and norms, but, at the same time, their perpetuation depends upon their ‘chosen’ adoption by the collective that experiences them. In turn, however, because it is integral to the human condition and can never be extinguished, the miracle of natality ensures that the populace can always resist the norms perpetuated by and necessary to that regime.

The move to banal evil

Up to now I have focused on Arendt’s comments on radical evil, identifying what is so radical about it, situating it in relation to the ‘new’ totalitarian regimes, showing how individual action contributes to its perpetuation, and, indeed, identifying the ways in which it can be overcome. The problem, however, is, as noted, that Arendt subsequently abandoned her notion of radical evil, writing, in a famous letter to Karl Jaspers, that ‘what radical evil is I don’t know’ (Arendt and Jaspers, 1992: 166) and explaining to Gershom Scholem that ‘I changed my mind and…no longer speak of “radical evil”’ (Arendt, 2007: 470–1). As noted, this has baffled commentators.

My contribution to the debate is two-fold: first, I agree (with Formosa, but pace Birmingham) that, with the movement from radical evil to banal evil, Arendt does make a conceptual alteration; the two concepts are different. And, second, I argue that the reason for the conceptual alteration arose not, as Phillips and Birmingham suggest, primarily from the need to develop strategies to resist political totalitarianism, but from Arendt’s growing dissatisfaction with the logical structure underpinning the notion of radical evil. The main problem she identified was that the Latin origin of ‘radical’ (radix) indicates a root or base point of emanation. On this logic, the norms of the totalitarian regime simply impose themselves onto the hapless populace. As she came to realize, however, political life is not structured like this. It is not rooted in simply one foundation; politics is always based in plurality. Rather than emanating from one source (namely, the attempt by political states to impose homogeneity on the heterogeneous plurality that originally defines the mass of pre-politicized individuals), evil arises because of certain concerted actions of this plurality, emanates from multiple directions at once, and is, therefore, insidious to (rather than foundational for) the socio-political body. As Arendt explains in the letter to Scholem,

evil is never ‘radical’…it is only extreme, and…it possesses neither depth nor any demonic dimension. It can overgrow and lay waste the whole world precisely because it spreads like fungus on the surface. It is ‘thought-defying’, as I said, because thought tries to reach some depth, to go to the roots, and the moment it concerns itself with evil, it is frustrated because there is nothing. That is its ‘banality’. Only the good has depth and can be radical. (Arendt, 2007: 470–1)

The banality of evil

On May 11 1960, Adolf Eichmann was kidnapped by Israeli Secret Agents in a suburb of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and transported to Jerusalem, Israel, to stand trial for 15 crimes, including ‘crimes against the Jewish people, crimes against humanity, and war crimes during the whole period of the Nazi regime and especially during the period of the Second World War’ (Arendt, 2006b[1963]: 21). As a correspondent for The New Yorker, Arendt travelled to Jerusalem to produce a report that would provide ‘a factual account of the trial’ (Arendt, 2003a: 17–18), but which would, in her words, cause a ‘furious controversy’ (ibid.: 18). Arendt found Eichmann’s presence in the dock to be fascinating: it simply contrasted so sharply with the monstrous figure – manifested most clearly in the figure of Satan – that the Christian West has historically associated with evil. It would have been far easier if Eichmann was a manifestation of the monster we tend to associate with evil. Then the evils of the concentration camps could simply be traced back to this singular point, with the consequence that overcoming it would require the relatively simple activity of annihilating that foundation.

The problem, however, was that ‘everybody could see that this man was not a “monster”’ (Arendt, 2006b[1963]: 54). He was, rather, a ‘man inside a glass booth built for his protection: medium-sized, slender, middle-aged, with receding hair, ill-fitting teeth, and nearsighted eyes’ (ibid.: 5). Eichmann’s insubstantial physical appearance was also matched by a lack of thoughtfulness, the trait that Arendt focuses on. The only thing that stood out about Eichmann was that he failed at almost everything he did: he did not finish high school; was fired from a sales position at the Vacuum Oil Company in Austria for his Nazi membership; and, much to his chagrin, was never promoted past the rank of lieutenant colonel (ibid.: 33). There was nothing about Eichmann himself that was exceptional or out of the ordinary. What was out of the ordinary, however, was the administrative role he fulfilled in the Nazi regime. While he did not have a high rank, he was responsible for the transportation of Jews to the concentration camps and so occupied a role that was absolutely central to the Nazi regime. It was within this role that Eichmann shone.

Between 1937 and 1941, he won four promotions for his ‘expert[ise] on “the Jewish question”, the intricacies of Jewish organizations and Zionist parties, [and] as an authority on emigration and evacuation, as the “master” who knew how to make people move’ (ibid.: 65). As Arendt explains it, Eichmann conducted his activities without malice or even any real sense of hating the Jews. For this reason, he ‘was perfectly sure that he was not what he called an innerer Schweinehund, a dirty bastard in the depth of his heart’ (ibid.: 25). His actions were directed by far more banal motives: career advancement. Indeed, Eichmann never actually directly killed anyone (ibid.: 22). He had visited the death camps, but

did not see much…He never actually attended a mass execution by shooting, he never actually watched the gassing process, or the selection of those fit for work—about twenty-five per cent of each shipment—that preceded it at Auschwitz. He saw just enough to be fully informed of how the destruction machinery worked. (Arendt, 2006b[1963]: 89–90)

The evil of thoughtlessness

Arendt rejects the notion that Eichmann and others like him committed atrocities because they were simply following orders. In an implicit nod back to her notions of plurality and natality – the former because it means that the actions of the regime itself undermined its intent; the latter because of the ever-present possibility that individuals can act spontaneously – she claims that this ignores the fact that there was always a choice to do otherwise (Arendt, 2003a: 31–2). She also rejects the notion of collective responsibility, noting that ‘where all, or almost all, are guilty, nobody is’ (ibid.). Nor was it because each individual, having found themselves in that position, was afraid to leave because of fear of punishment for doing so. It was ‘surprisingly easy…for members of the extermination squads to quit their jobs without serious consequences for themselves’ (Arendt, 2006b[1963]: 91). Arendt explains Eichmann’s commitment to the horrendous task at hand in two different, but complementary, ways: first, while it is often ignored, she notes that the most decisive ‘flaw in Eichmann’s character was his almost total inability to ever look at anything from the other fellow’s point of view’ (ibid.: 47–8). This inability not only meant that he was unable to empathize with those he was sending to their deaths, but also that he was not even confronted with the problem. Those he was sending to their deaths were not a problem to be countenanced. Everything he did could be subordinated to the task at hand. Emmanuel Levinas (1990: Preface, 69) argues that this lack of empathy for the situation of others was a defining feature of Nazi ideology, itself a manifestation of the long-held Western privileging of the same over the other. If we take Levinas’s suggestion seriously, Eichmann’s lack of empathy for others was not simply due to personal choice, but was an effect of the dominant social norms he existed in and through. This supports my argument that the banal evil associated with Eichmann was tied to his uncritical acceptance of dominant (moral and social) norms.

Second, and far more noted in the literature, is Arendt’s claim that while Eichmann was not stupid, he was defined by ‘a curious, quite authentic inability to think’ (Arendt, 2003c: 159). This thoughtlessness manifested itself in the wholesale use of stock phrases and clichés. As a consequence, he would continuously utter the most banal statements, most of which seemed designed to simply offer a response to the question asked and which were invariably those that he thought his interlocutor wanted to hear or which were appropriate for the moment. The result was, for Arendt, comical (2006b[1963]: 54). The resultant inconsistencies were not, however, troubling for Eichmann; they were merely ‘questions of changing moods’ (ibid.: 55) and as long as he could identify and employ a stock phrase or cliché he appeared to be quite happy. Eichmann’s inconsistencies continued into the moral realm so that he could easily change moods, tones, and requirements depending on the social setting. He ‘knew that what he had once considered his duty was now called a crime, and he accepted his new code of judgement as though it was nothing but another language rule’ (2003c: 159). This allowed him to blend in perfectly with whatever environment he found himself within. He was simply untroubled by the inconsistencies that this threw up. Dealing with those would have meant thinking about them, something that Arendt is adamant he did not do and, indeed, was not capable of doing. As such, ‘the longer one listened to him, the more obvious it became that his inability to speak was closely connected to an inability to think, namely, to think from the standpoint of someone else’ (Arendt, 2006b[1963]: 49). Rather than a monster, Arendt could not but help conclude that he was a ‘buffoon’ (1994a: 16).

That Eichmann would not or could not think and take responsibility for his actions challenged one of the central tenets of culpability inherent in all modern legal systems. Generally speaking, this is understood to require some intent on the part of individuals, which, in turn, entails an autonomous decision that the individual can be held to be responsible for. This, however, is what Eichmann and other Nazi defendants denied (Arendt, 2003b: 111). Moreover, Arendt notes that legal culpability requires ‘that human beings be capable of telling right from wrong even when all they have to guide them is their own judgement’ (2006b[1963]: 294–5). As Christoph Menke explains, ‘if it is a condition of justice for any act of legal judgment that the one judged is able in principle to pass this judgement himself, then he must be able to judge in order to be able to be judged’ (Menke, 2014: 599). In Arendt’s view, Eichmann did not meet this standard. He was simply incapable of thinking and so judging autonomously. Even when he invoked Kant’s categorical imperative to justify his blind obedience to the law, his obedience was not achieved through autonomous judgement, but by subordinating himself to the pronouncements and will of the Führer (Arendt, 2006b[1963]: 135–6).

However, given that her analysis depends upon the claim that Eichmann was incapable of thinking, it is not surprising that a number of commentators have questioned whether Eichmann really was incapable of this. For example, Coline Covington (2012: 1219–20) argues that Eichmann’s care for his family reveals that he was not the unthinking automaton Arendt portrays. He was, rather, able and willing to think in order to better his own position and, by extension, that of his family. Similarly, George Cotkin (2007: 484) points out that the Nazi bureaucracy was a highly decentralized, complex system with multiple players all in fierce competition with one another. Eichmann would not have been able to rise to the position he did if he was incapable of thinking. That he did meant that Arendt’s image and understanding of Eichmann was simply wrong: ‘he was both a brilliant player and a dedicated one’ (Arendt, 2007: 485). Even Arendt notes this with her claim that ‘Eichmann’s position was that of the most important conveyor belt in the whole operation’ (Arendt, 2006b[1963]: 153). It was his office that synchronized departures and arrivals to ensure that the victims arrived at camps that could absorb them, negotiated with railroad authorities and the Ministry of Transport to obtain enough trains, adhered to the multiple rules governing the different classes of Jews, and did all this across an international network with different national laws, rules, and directives. There is no doubt that all of this took substantial skill, energy, drive, and thought. Why, then, does Arendt come to the opposite conclusion?

Bettina Stangneth responds that it was a consequence of the methodology that Arendt employed. Because Holocaust research was in its infancy and ‘documentary evidence was scarce’ (2016: xxiii), Arendt ‘chose the method of understanding that she was familiar with: repeatedly reading Eichmann’s words and conducting a detailed analysis of the person speaking and writing, on the assumption that someone speaks and writes only when they want to be understood’ (ibid.: xxiii). The problem was, according to Stangneth, that, by doing so, Arendt ‘fell into [Eichmann’s] trap: Eichmann-in-Jerusalem was little more than a mask’ (ibid.: xxiii). Eichmann had gone to extraordinary lengths to devise means to disguise his capabilities and present himself in a way that would make it difficult to believe that he was capable of fulfilling the fundamental role within the Nazi machine that he did. Settling on the role of ‘the Cautious Bureaucrat’ (ibid.: 363), he reflectively and intentionally transformed himself from ‘The renowned specialist on “Jewish questions,” the interministerial coordinator of the extermination project, the man who celebrated its implementation with his superiors over a glass of cognac by the fire…into a helpless minute taker with no power of his own’ (ibid.: 364). Such deception required and depended upon significant intellectual capacities utilized over a long period of time. As a consequence, Arendt’s conclusion that Eichmann was an unthinking dolt is simply inaccurate.

Stangneth’s argument is based on extensive archival documentation and is compelling, insofar as it questions the historical accuracy of Arendt’s description of Eichmann. However, while judging its historical accuracy is, of course, a perfectly valid standard against which to evaluate Arendt’s report on Eichmann – she was, after all, sent by The New Yorker magazine to accurately record the trial for its readers and by extension posterity – it would be a mistake to dismiss her evaluation because it was subsequently found to contain historical inaccuracies or questionable conclusions. After all, Arendt also uses the Eichmann trial as a narrative tool through which to develop her response to a number of philosophical issues, including the ‘nature’ and structure of evil and the troubling issue of how an entire population could be complicit in perpetuating the horrors of the Nazi regime. To understand Arendt’s thinking on these topics, it is necessary to follow the development of her thinking from the parameters of her portrayal of Eichmann.

Once we do, we see that the disjunction that Arendt identifies between the high-level thinking required of Eichmann in his role in the Nazi state, and his apparent inability to undertake such thinking as evidenced by his performance at his trial, calls for – and indeed is resolved once we follow – the distinction that Arne Johan Veltesen (2001: 9) introduces between substantively orientated and instrumentally orientated thinking. The former deals with the questioning of ends, whereas the latter engages with a questioning or thinking about the means to achieve a predetermined end. Whereas substantive thinking engages with foundational moral questions about what ends an individual and society should be orientated towards, the latter takes over a predetermined end and determines how best to achieve it. Adopting this schema, and following Arendt’s description of Eichmann, we find that while he was incapable of substantive thinking, he was very capable of instrumental thinking, and it was this that allowed him to be such a good Nazi administrator. This confirms Arendt’s claim that Eichmann was incapable of (substantive) thinking, but explains that his ability to function very well within the predetermined schema of Nazi ideology was a consequence of his highly developed (instrumental) rationality. In turn, this means that Arendt’s claim that evil is linked to thoughtlessness needs to be refined so that we understand that it refers to substantive thoughtlessness; that is, an inability to think and make an autonomous judgement about moral ends. It does, however, lead to the question of whether substantive thinking was possible within the Nazi regime; that is, within a social-political structure that aimed at and was apparently so successful in manipulating individual action.

Lessons from Eichmann

What was crucial to Arendt was that Eichmann was not an isolated case. She realized that his substantive thoughtlessness was shared by many others. Indeed, ‘the trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal’ (Arendt, 2006b[1963]: 276). While many disagreed with the crimes of the Nazis, they went along with them anyway, and in so doing displayed ‘a remarkable tendency to [simply] fall in line with whoever happened to constitute their surroundings’ (Arendt, 2003d: 234). They were, therefore, ‘very few people in the Third Reich who wholeheartedly agreed with the late crimes of the regime and a great number who were perfectly willing to commit them nevertheless’ (Arendt, 2003a: 48). However, most troubling for Arendt were those who did not join the party, but nevertheless ‘“coordinated” themselves [with it] and did not act out of conviction’ (Arendt, 2003b: 54). By not resisting the regime, even though they did not necessarily share its ends, they provided support and legitimacy to it. How, then, can we understand these people? If they were not monsters, what were they? And, most importantly, in what ways were those who did not collaborate but who also did not openly rebel against the Nazis different to those who collaborated? (Arendt, 2003a: 43).

Arendt responds that it was the ability and desire to question that distinguished collaborators from non-collaborators. The latter were not only still able to question themselves, but actually did so. While they were often ‘called irresponsible by the majority’ (Arendt, 2003a: 44), they were the only ones who dared to judge themselves. This was possible because ‘they disposed of a better system of values or because the old standards of right and wrong were still firmly planted in their mind and conscience’ (ibid.). Their questioning did not require ‘a highly developed intelligence or sophistication in moral matter’ (ibid.), only the ‘disposition to live together explicitly with oneself, to have intercourse with oneself, that is, to be engaged in that silent dialogue between me and myself which, since Socrates and Plato, we usually call thinking’ (ibid.: 45). Arendt goes on to explain that this thinking is not technical, but entails what I previously called substantive thinking, and so involves a questioning of the ends of action. This repeats her point that, even within a totalitarian regime, individuals – or at least some of them – are capable of action to counteract its influence.

Importantly, the dividing line between those who wanted to think and judge and those who did not struck ‘across all social and cultural or educational differences’ (Arendt, 2003a: 45). There was no neat division between the two broad groups. If there had been, it would have been relatively easy to identify the general conditions that gave rise to their mentality. That it was spread throughout the various socio-economic groups meant that it was far harder to identify why some questioned the dominant social norm while others did not. Arendt does, however, note that those who chose to passively support the Nazi regime seemed to be those who clung most strongly to social and cultural norms. By clinging to a formal conception of norms, each could quite easily believe one norm one day and another the next. After all, ‘we now know that moral norms and standards can be changed overnight, and that all that then will be left is the mere habit of holding fast to something’ (ibid.). What was important was not the norm per se, but the sense of stability and order that the norm provided. By not thinking about the ends to be adopted, but simply following the dominant moral and social norms, whole swathes of the populace found themselves unproblematically acting in ways that they would previously have rejected.

Concluding remarks

It appears, then, that the best way to prevent totalitarian regimes and, indeed, banal evil from arising is to simply get people to accept that, no matter what happens, they will have to live with themselves. This, however, assumes that people within totalitarian regimes who are being remorselessly pressured and squeezed are capable of such action. To account for this, we have to return to Arendt’s claim that the influence of totalitarian regimes was, despite intentions, never total: ‘under conditions of terror most people will comply but some people will not’ (Arendt, 2006b[1963]: 233). This is, of course, dependent upon her notion of natality and the miraculous impulse of initiative it permits that always allows alternative forms of action. Even in the most dominating of societies, this provides the possibility that individuals can always resist the dominant norms imposed on them. To support this claim, Arendt appeals to the example of Anton Schmidt, a Nazi officer in charge of a patrol in Poland collecting stray German soldiers, who stumbled across Jews trying to escape. Rather than kill or arrest them, Schmidt ‘helped the Jewish partisans by supplying them with forged papers and military trucks’ (ibid.: 230) and, most importantly, ‘did not do it for money’ (ibid.). This went against everything that his repressive society told him to do.

This brings forth the question of the relationship between individual spontaneous action and social norms. As we saw, Arendt’s understanding of radical evil is premised on the notion that norms are located in a foundation – in the form of a particular norm that designates what is considered appropriate action within that regime – that must be affirmed or rejected by those existing within the regime, whereas her notion of banal evil is based on the idea that moral norms are non-foundational and insidious to, and diffusely spread throughout, society. As I have argued, Arendt’s transition from radical evil to banal evil was the result of her recognition that, because plurality is a condition of political regimes, the logical structure of the latter was better able to describe the ways in which norms structure and function within those regimes. With this, she rejected the notion that norms operate from a single foundational point of emanation to insist that they imbue all aspects of society. This, however, returns us to the effect that this diffuse structure has on those living ‘within’ it. After all, if norms are insidious to all aspects of society then it might be thought that there is no ‘space’ from which individuals could escape them. Such a conception would be in danger of reaffirming a simplistic analysis of the ways in which totalitarian regimes impact and shape all aspects of life.

To forestall this danger and account for how individual action to resist political regimes is possible, my argument is that we need to engage with the ways in which norms can impact on individual action to distinguish between the strong claim that individual actions are determined by norms and the weaker claim that they are conditioned by those norms. I have argued that, rather than defend the stronger claim that norms determine individual action, Arendt depends upon the weaker claim that they condition it. As such, norms spread like a fungus throughout society and tend to shape individual action, but do not determine it. Acts of resistance may be difficult but they are always possible because political bodies are grounded in plurality and individuals are conditioned by the inextinguishable miraculous impulse of natality. This demonstrates that Arendt’s conceptions of evil complement one another, highlights her understanding of the action–norms relation, offers a response to the issue of how individuals remain capable of ethical and political action despite being socially and politically conditioned, and identifies that there is built into Arendt’s conception(s) of evil a resource for resisting totalitarian domination.