I had a conversation about the general theme of this video a few days ago, in which I posited that the fact we see so many "gray" characters in entertainment today suggests that people are rewriting the Western cultural narrative so that there is no longer a clear good and evil. In terms of Nazis, though, any person is likely to say they would never have supported it because saying otherwise is taboo. Probably most of us are supporting some "evil" thing in one way or another. One day in retrospect everyone who opposed gay rights will be seen as grossly inhuman or vice versa; that sort of thing. It's hard to tell when we're in the moment.
Yeah, I realised while writing this that "Western mythology" has kind of changed to incorporate "moral greyness", but that's not necessarily what Hannah Arendt was talking about. Moral grayness in literary terms seems to incorporate either giving antagonists a relatible, understandable reason behind immoral actions; or having protagonists doing immoral things for an otherwise seemingly justified goal. But, if only because these dynamics are presented in fiction, they're still easily-digestible spectacles. Arendt's argument is that some evils become so engrained in the zeitgeist that nobody bothers to question them because, as they become generally accepted truths, to question them would seem more ludicrous than not to question them. The Final Solution of the Nazi Party is an extreme example, of course, but then again you don't have to look far to see clearly subjective things that people accept as undeniable truths these days.
It's always been my personal belief that true evil comes from a lack of conviction. All choices are potently wrong, it's how we right our path in that wrong that defines us.
As a world war 2 enthusiast and volunteer at thecNational WWII Museum, i love how you did this video. Theres so many small, yet infinitly important details about that period in history that most people just dont take notice of.
Preemptive FAQ: 1. No, this isn't a patreon-supported video. Only major, animated, book reviews are monetized. 2. Lazy Reviews are named as such because they feature no visual aids and are generally shorter than my analytical reviews, not necessarily because I put little effort into the review itself. 3. These aren't replacing my analytical reviews. They exist merely so that my channel doesn't go for like three months without any content. Also, I've tried to make these more sharable and easily-digestible than my major reviews, so please share them around to your friends.
cuddle2ol I was at a party last night and talked with a lot of people and my voice wore out. But as my voice wears out, it becomes deeper for some reason, so that's why I sound different.
This makes me think of the saying "No one is the villain of their own story." And while that is true, that no one actually thinks they are the bad guy when doing horrible things, I would still call this man (and many others like him) a monster because he knew what was going on but let it happen all for 'the sake of his job'. Doing nothing and letting others die and suffer in spades is just as bad as killing them yourself, especially when you are in a position to do something about it. Still a very nice review Mr. Cloud and I hope to see more of your work. :) BTW: Thanks for reviewing the Witcher books, you got me to become a fan of that amazing world and to buy the games.
I believe the point was that by calling him a monster, we separate ourselves from him semantically, and so it acts as a way of naively denying that we can commit the same evils that he did by fooling ourselves into believing unsubstantiated justifications for our actions. Remember, he didn't just say that he was doing his job. He had read Immanuel Kant and extrapolated a flimsy justification from that. So examine your own moral compass and ask yourself if it excuses some actions that could reasonably be seen as evil from a different perspective.
***** That's a very good point actually. Its good to be reminded we all need to take a moment and look in the mirror every now and then to asses ourselves and out actions. :)
I think a fallacy in eichmann's defense is the fact that he wasn't just a bureaucrat as Hannah and he would like to point out. He was a bureaucrat in the SS and anyone in the SS especially at eichmann's level new what their mission was. All he had to do to not be a mass murder was to not join the SS.
Arendt DIDN't posit that he is "just a bureaucrat". She pointed out that he was worse than the criminally minded monsters we suppose to exist. She pointed out that he is exactly the GREATER evil because he isn't "monstrous".
Best way I can put it is," The greatest evil is the evil you don't see, in till it's too late." As the Joker said," Sometime all it takes is a little push."
I need to do a book report on it for a legal theory class and it is super helpful to listen to this after reading it, because I can confirm I understand the work. Thanks!
Just found your channel doing a seminar for my class about this book, holy shit, in this video alone i found 3 phrases that i'll try my hardest to make a part of me, while of course thanks to my cortex, credit you in the end...
Great review! It reminded me about other, lesser-known book - “Conversations with an Executioner” by Kazimierz Moczarski, a high-ranked officer in Polish resistance army during German occupation, thrown after the war by communist regime to one prison cell with Nazi criminal Jürgen Stroop, where they spend 225 days locked together, before Stroop was executed. The almost surrealistic, bitter irony of this situation speaks volumes about totalitarian systems, doesn’t it? Moczarski tried to understand Stroop, having some similar reflections as Hannah Arendt. Even if there are some significant differences between Eichmann and Stroop, as the latter was a fanatic Nazi to the end, directly and up close involved in multiple atrocities (including the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising). However he still was no “monster” somehow fundamentally different from “normal” people. The most extraordinary thing about him seemed to be (like in Eichmann’s case) his outrageous stupidity.
Wow, such a nice review. I enjoyed it a lot, especially because it is so concise and informative for someone who hasn´t educated himself that much on this topic. Thank you!
not to mention this trial became the basis for testing if humans will cause harm to one another if an authority figure tells them to do it and they are not face to face with the person. in most cases, yes people will do it.
Immoral acts are carried out everyday of the week in all spheres of civic society, at all levels within systems of power yet the people carrying out these acts are often 'unthinking' and merely acting as a cog in a wheel, detached and removed from how their actions might impact on another.
I enjoyed your video, and your review of Hannah Arendt’s book, Eichmann in Jerusalem. However, I was wondering if you are aware of some modern views of her book. I have read a good deal of criticism of her misperception of Eichmann. Maybe you could do a video review of Bettina Stangneth’s book, Eichmann Before Jerusalem. Stangneth and other writers contend that Eichmann was in fact an unrepentant Nazi, who reveled in his work, and merely adopted the persona of a meek clerk to try to fool the Israeli court and the world. I have also read that Arendt spent very little time in Jerusalem. Moreover, she had her own biases, which clouded her judgment. Perhaps I can conclude by saying that Arendt may have been correct about the banality of evil, but wrong to attribute that trait to Eichmann.
@@CloudCuckooCountry I just finished Deborah Lipstadt's book about the Eichmann trial. She devotes a whole chapter to Hannah Arendt, pointing out Arendt's errors but also praising some of her observations. You might find it illuminating.
Arendt herself in a 1965 interview pointed out at length that no one of the nazis on trial in Neurenberg, or indeed Eichmann had ever repented. Read some more, David. And perhaps read the text itself, and see the excellent 1965 interview. FWIW, I think her view on the Jewish councils was far more controversial, als a stance that has been willfully misconstrued.
well I have never been asked the question if I was in Nazi Germany would I comply with the atrocities, but knowing that back then refusing meant endangering your family and loved ones I probably would have, and knowing what kind of person I am even if I had no family to be threatened, I would still comply under the defense that if I don't do it then someone else will and would hate to burden someone else the travesty of those acts. I would hate doing it but I would do it so that it would be me and not someone incapable of handling that mental burden.
The book actualy explains how no officer in the Nazi army was ever severly disciplined for refusing to be part of the Final Solution.In fact they looked for a people that wanted to be a part of it.
Nobody was forced to be in the SS. Also, there are no known reports of an SS officer refusing to execute civilians and then getting executed themselves for not complying.
Every single criticism of this book I've read (and I can tell you you'll need quite a few hands to count them) relied on either misreading or voluntary misrepresentation. Have you read any other of Arendt's works, like the totalitarianism trilogy?
@@CloudCuckooCountry I'm referring to the relevance of your takeaway from the book describing the radicalization of both parties in the States, and their supporters willing to outright make a meme out of casting their opponents as inhuman AI-like figures to justify violence towards either. Maybe that's just naivety on my part for being impressed by a three year span when Arendt's observations in the trial date over 50 years ago, but for another widespread example to be shown almost immediately after you uploaded this is kind of chilling. To top it all off, Eichmann's plea was released in early 2016, but there isn't much within it that deviates from his defense during the trial. Overall, great video
Okay thanks. It’s hard to parse tone in internet comments and I was concerned that your original post was sarcasm. Thanks for the kind feedback. I’m absolutely baffled at the reemergence of actual Nazis, but I’m not surprised that people are still dehumanising their political opposition.
+Shabih -ul-Hassan It's fairly advanced if only because it deals with very abstract concepts, but it was written by a native German-speaker, so it's not completely inaccessible if your comprehension of English is fairly basic.
So basically this book tells you that you don't need to be a monster to do something abhorrently evil. Frightening when you think about it. Kind of reminds me of the Lego movie. My interpretation of that was that you don't need to be a champion chosen by destiny to be a hero and save that what you love.
It's much more complicated than that. Obviously I can't summarize the entire novel in 7 minutes, but one of the most important things was her evaluation of why there was so much compliance to the evils in Nazi Germany, and the crux of her very detailed and complex series of arguments was that people simply weren't thinking critically enough to even notice that they were committing great evils.
