The Banality of Evil: Duane W.H. Arnold, PhD
The Banality of EvilThere are days (and sometimes weeks) when you don’t know what to write. Whatever you decide to write has the possibility of being negated by a religious or political cancel culture that seems to argue that awkward or troubling matters cannot be discussed, at least not without having your motives impugned.
Yet there are matters that should be discussed. Unfortunately, however, these are matters upon which we are divided. For instance, simply to discuss ethics and morality in public policy becomes a matter of partisan bickering. Are we then to say that as believers public ethics and morality have no place in our discussions? If lies are told that endanger the common good are we simply to keep silent? I begin to wonder, have we come to a place that words no longer matter?
I think we may, in some instances, have come to a place in time in which it is more than words not mattering, but actions as well.
A week or so back, I was reminded of one of the most frightening movies I have ever seen. The name of the film is ‘Conspiracy’ and it starred Kenneth Branagh and Stanley Tucci among others. It was, literally, a horror film. Yet, there was no violence or bloodshed. There were no special effects employed. In fact, the film portrayed an event with which most of us are familiar, a board meeting around a conference table. The dialogue in the film is taken directly from the shorthand minutes of the secretary. Of the fifteen men around the table, nine are lawyers, with eight holding academic doctorates. Coffee and tea are offered before the meeting is called to order and the chairman announces that to save time, lunch will also be provided for the attendees. It could be the meeting of the board of directors of any multi-national company, but it isn’t. It is the Wannsee Conference of 20 January 1942 at which the Final Solution for the extermination of the Jews was planned. The film shows the personality clashes or the participants as they move through the agenda, passing the motions for the classification and “evacuation” of the Jews with a simple show of hands. Words like “evacuation” are given new meanings and the brutal killing of millions is decided in comfort from chairs around a conference table.
It is perhaps the clearest example I know of what Hannah Arendt called “the banality of evil”.
I was reminded of this when I read the widely reported account of the 2018 meeting of US cabinet officials, including, among others, Sec. Pompeo, Sec. Azar, Sec. Nielsen and then Attorney-General Sessions. The meeting was chaired by White House senior advisor Stephen Miller. Round about a conference table in the White House situation room they discussed the new “zero tolerance” policy for immigration at the southern border. According to two officials present, they decided by a show of hands to separate children from their parents as a part of the new policy. Over three thousand children would be separated from their parents as an immediate result.
No, it is not the same as Wannsee except in certain respects, first and foremost being yet another example of the banality of evil. Moreover here, “custody” did not mean death (except in some few cases) it meant wire cages inside detention facilities.
Words matter. Lies matter. Actions matter.
This is true not only when it comes to the political arena, it is also true when it comes to churches and those institutions which are allied to churches. For example, while the case of Jerry Falwell, Jr., has faded from the headlines, we have been left with numerous unanswered questions. Was the board of Liberty University unaware of the blatant nepotism in which it seemed every member of the Falwell family had a salaried position? Was the board unaware of the insider real estate deals that they voted to sanction? Was the board unaware of Falwell’s expense account and spending? Forgetting the events which led to his resignation, where was the accountability for words and actions previous to those events?
Words should matter. Lies should matter. Actions should matter. Unfortunately, unless it appears to affect us directly, we let it go or we make excuses.
Perhaps that is the banality of evil as well…
Duane W.H. Arnold, PhD
The Project
It appears that some relish in thinly veiled attacks against our president and conveniently omitting the sins of previous administrations. Drone strikes ? nothing to see here. Abortion ? keep moving along. Just say it’s Whataboutism. Just say you’re being current. It’s about immigration, and don’t use the word “illegal immigration”.
We all make choices, each and every day, and some are tougher than others. Many are not black and white but shades of grey. We need to pray every day for the Holy Spirit to guide us. And to stay humble.
I miss MLD. Many times his words made me question the madness.
Duane – I agree with all your points – I even like the title “The Banality of Evil”.
However, I wonder why when we look for comparative evils we always run to Hitler and ignore our own?
How was the FDR decision made to place our own yellow American citizens in concentration camps – around a conference table, voice vote, show of hands?
How about Truman’s racist decision to drop the A bomb on our yellow enemies, obliterating 2 cities and all people in it’s path – and choosing not to do so to our white enemies in Europe? Was the decision made around a conference table, voice vote, show of hands?
America has a long list of evil throughout our history – we don’t need to go beyond our borders to make today’s actions look bad.
I don’t doubt that Americans throughout history have been bastards – I just think we should use ourselves as the examples.
Richard beat me to it LOL. I had a phone call midway through my typing – good chance we would have been simultaneous. 🙂
So how would you describe a leader of a community who allowed over 100 days of destruction of community property, businesses, disregard for authority, the humiliation of women, and eventually open murder?
A man who did nothing except blame others for inciting the destruction and murder in his community, the one he was paid to protect, and then the best he could do was ban the use of facial recognition algorithms used to find the murderer.
If we were to go through the decalog, line by line, how would this man be evaluated?
Did he act in a moral way, love his neighbor or was it pure evil cloaked in rhetoric and deception?
MLD
I had not originally planned to go to 1942, but thinking of “the banality of evil” linked the Wannsee Conference with Hannah Arendt and her use of the term in describing Eichmann at his trial.
Yes, I am sure there are a multitude of examples, but the banality of evil, behind closed doors, should concern us all… at least in my opinion.
Duane, I understand – I just don’t want it to always be “If we don’t watch out, we will be evil like Hitler / the Nazis.”
Instead, the warning should be “If we don’t watch out we will be evil like FDR / Truman (or fill in the blank of your favorite American evil doer).
Perhaps the greatest warning is that if you had asked the lawyers and PhDs gathered round that table, they would not have considered what they were doing as being evil. They went home that night to their wives and children after “just another meeting”…
2 things FWIW…. We weren’t prepared for war… Pearl Harbor, remember? Some of the Japanese in the western U.S. were helping their homeland and we couldn’t sort out who, nor would the patriotic Japanese citizens snitch on their fellows.. And those two bombs we dropped? They actually saved lives of both our soldiers and the Japanese as the citizens of that land were prepared to fight to the last man, woman and child defending their homeland. Was it Christian? Probably not – – –
What our nation or any previous administration did in the past can’t be changed by anyone, nor does using a past decision as a litmus test or for comparison purposes, determine whether a current action is acceptable or evil.
We as a country today are dealing in the administration of the southern border. What is being done is either good and acceptable or it is evil. If children are separated from their parents and caged without proper nutrition, education, medical care, hygiene, bodily security, access to parents or a legal guardian, is that moral? If those things are done to innocent victims intentionally for the purpose of deterrence or punishment, is that moral? Would we treat white European undocumented immigrants in a similar manner?
We are responsible as citizens and leaders for the administration of the border. I am certain that if church leaders organized in defense of those children the way then do for the unborn, the administration would reform their actions and provide humane treatment for those children. I can only assume that church leaders are either afraid of their members or don’t care about the children or don’t think our treatment of the children is immoral.
And. 😇 there is such a thing as evil masquerading as good
Jean
“I can only assume that church leaders are either afraid of their members or don’t care about the children or don’t think our treatment of the children is immoral.”
Or they want to act as though they don’t know what’s happening…
Welcome to twitter truths.
“Would we treat white European undocumented immigrants in a similar manner?”
Another statement made without checking the facts. Even a simple internet search would reveal the hardships of past immigrants into the USA.
https://www.history.com/topics/immigration/u-s-immigration-before-1965
Does it make it right? Never, but it does reveal man has not changed and will always build an enemy from within. Including spreading false truths on the internet.
History Test.
Who first said, “the Jewish question…” Hint, it wasn’t Hitler.
Another fine article. I would submit that there is a counter-point, the banality of good as well. Loving our neighbor can be as routine, boring, and everyday as evil. It doesn’t have to be extreme or trendy to be good or evil. Our culture’s constant quest for originality, flash, and recognition makes the challenge of love more difficult in my opinion.
thanks for another provocative piece.
Jean, I hope you were admonishing Duane and not me. He made the moral comparison of tactics – I only suggested alternatives.
I’m admonishing anyone who wants to hide our nation’s current behavior behind the sins of the past, or wishes to excuse the behavior by drawing a oral equivalence to something done in the past.
The past is in the rear view, and we as a nation are not captive to the past.
I admit all of our nation’s sins – fighting in unwarranted wars – troops stockpiled in foreign lands – the NSA / CIA / FBI spying on American citizens – I could list another 50 without making my thumb tired.
MM
Most 12th graders know that it is Marx… not Groucho.
As for the rest, I think in your desire to defend your political turf, you have missed the point…
Jean
No one is hiding behind anything at all. You did your typical biased post without considering history. By doing so you actually repeat history and (using a popular theme) posted a racist at its heart comment.
If our leaders fail to know and consider history then yes we will repeat it again, just different faces, ethnics and borders.
BTW you are using the very same style of rhetoric as Presidential Candidate Biden who just called President Trump an “arsonist” in his Delaware campaign speech. Surprisingly while President Trump was about to land in California to survey the wild fires raging (and attributed to arsonist in many cases) on this Nation’s West Coast.
filbertz
Many thanks and good point!
Duane
It wasn’t Marx, so you failed your history test.
But, I understand you’re expertise is “church history.”
Me, I don’t have any expertise.
Duane
Have you every sat at a table and raised your hand? Maybe a table with eleven others would be more appropriate.
My point, your and I are equally as guilty.
MM
As I said, “I think in your desire to defend your political turf, you have missed the point…”
First, I don’t think anyone here, myself included, as requested anyone’s admission for the sins of our nation’s past.
Second, I haven’t said that our nation should not learn from the past.
Is there a reading comprehension issue, or do people simply not want to face the present, particularly the subject matter of this article?
Thank you for this, Duane.
I have very limited time, but for the record, I lambasted Obama many times publicly over his immigration policies and lack of movement on DACA.
Every time I would point out that Obama was the deporter in chief, conservatives would say I was lying.
Jean – I was not talking about our nation’s past sins in my 11:06 – what I listed are current and ongoing.
I would hope you too see them as our national sins as much as the border.
MLD,
Regarding your 11:06, I don’t see them as “categorical” national sins at all.
There may be unwise or unlawful examples, within the whole, but there are as many or more examples that are moral and lawful within the categories.
Jean
“Is there a reading comprehension issue, or do people simply not want to face the present, particularly the subject matter of this article?”
Not at all, however you made a non-factual statement designed to spread a bias and brought zero to the table.
The separation of children from their parents is reprehensible no matter who does it or for what reason. Ironically the very first poster here was 100% correct in Duane has posted this article, veiled as it may be, to point out his political position.
No one here would argue what was done was wrong, but the actual discussion of immigration, the proper channels and legality is being ignored for personal political purposes of the writer. The topic Duane brings up and how he demonizes it via the Nazi party and all the implications he makes should be obvious.
If he was truly interested in solving, or at least addressing the real issues of immigration for discussion purposes or maybe the topic “banality of evil” and how it really is in us all, maybe he would have taken another direction or example.
Immigration and how to handle those who attempt to do so illegally is always a problem. The question really in this situation is, what is to be done with those children born in the USA through illegal immigrant parents? Truly separation from their parents was and is the absolutely wrong solution.
As always the unintended consequences of allowing illegal immigration is what it does to the children involved. This needs to, no must be addressed and I believe it is.
Now for a more fair position on the subject:
https://www.lawyers.com/legal-info/immigration/general-immigration/children-of-illegal-immigrants-fight-for-parents.html
And if you think this is limited to the current administration then again another you have accepted another “twitter” untruth.
The Arizona Republic article, in part, said:
“They are undocumented. They entered the country illegally. And when they were apprehended by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, they were shipped to Nogales from overwhelmed processing facilities in Texas.
“But they are still children in cages, not gangsters, not delinquents. Just children, 900 of them, in a makeshift border-town processing center that is larger than a football field.”
The article adds that the children are “housed behind 18-foot-high chain-link fences topped with razor wire.”
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/sep/13/joe-biden/fact-checking-biden-use-cages-during-obama-adminis/
I am really tired of the current trends to deny truth and misrepresent the facts.
One of the favorite delay/ignore tactics of the right is to say, “such and such also needs to be discussed as part of the solution” I say, no, evil should be stopped and “such and such” can be solved in the absence of evil.
Over and over again, whether it’s healthcare, guns, undocumented minors, racial justice, etc., some big overarching issue is raised, which has no simple solution, so the evil part just somehow is accepted as part and parcel with the whole. I say, no! Stop the evil, then deal with the whole.
MM
I was actually addressing the issue of the banality of evil, but you can only read through a political lens. BTW, I explained to MLD the “why” of my example, but you seem more interested in promoting a partisan view. Moreover, I do think the decision made by that show of hands in 2018 is a prime example of the banality of evil… just as Hannah Arendt wrote about in the 1950s…
MM,
Immigration issues have been my passion for twenty years.
This administration is by far the worst in my lifetime and delights in creative cruelty to those fleeing poverty and violence.
I’m not going to argue about…you won’t find an immigration lawyer or activist that believes differently.
This is not a political issue to me…it’s a biblical one.
I still don’t understand how bringing up or comparing the past with the present addresses the banality of evil.
Jean, I guess you have made up your ‘pecking order’of evil differently than some others.
We live in a world where we make those distinctions.
Jean, as I pointed out, Duane brought up the comparison to past evils.
I don’t argue that past sins may be valid in discussion. I just think he chose the wrong ones.
Why do people still bring up our past sin of slavery? 160 yrs in the rear view mirror according to you.
MLD
The “banality of evil” used a particular historical example… I used the same and I would again, it fits.
Duane, I think we need to learn from the past. I didn’t argue with that.
Jean seems to think the past national sins are not only irrelevant but get in the way.
“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. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together.”
― Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil
This is very much my view of those raised hands in 2018. I don’t consider Sessions or Pompeo to be monsters. The fact that they are “normal” and could make such a decision and implement it is far more terrifying…
Thank you Duane for reminding us of what is happening in our name on the southern border. I have been anguished since the beginning thinking of the horrible emotional toll our actions have perpetrated and continue to perpetrate on these poor fellow human beings. It’s unconscionable. Of course it is immoral beyond belief. There can be no defending it. I agree with them MLD that America’s list of sins is long and dark. May God have mercy on those poor families and may God have mercy on all of us.
MLD: “Jean seems to think the past national sins are not only irrelevant but get in the way.“
Me: “Second, I haven’t said that our nation should not learn from the past.”
Now, apologize for bearing false witness. Your lying gets tiresome.
Mike E
Many thanks… yes, “immoral beyond belief” is a good description.
Jean, at 12:56 you indicated that bring up the past sins only confuses (at least it confuses you).
Look MLD, either humble yourself in apology, or I bind your comment and request that you cease and desist from any further interaction with me or my comments, either directly or indirectly, on this blog. I will pay you the same courtesy. I don’t have the time or energy to correct your misrepresentations of me. Thank you.
Michael,
Some good news on the immigration front as it relates to DHS and ICE.
Because both DHS Secretary Chad Wolf and ICE head Cuccinelli are not actually legitimate in their roles as “acting” head as the time of 210 has expired. Both are in violation of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act (FVRA). Since any officer appointed in violation of the FVRA is an unconstitutionally appointed officer, any rules promulgated during the tenure of that officer cannot be enforced.
https://www.cato.org/blog/acting-officers-cant-act-forever-their-rules-are-illegitimate
So rest assured both DHS and ICE rules will be challenged in Federal Courts with motions to dismiss any all cases that stem from said rules.
Apparently “Law and Order” only applies to the people rioting according to Trump.
Michael,
Here is the GAO office report on this:
https://www.gao.gov/assets/710/708830.pdf
CM,
I fear our country is entering a period in which there is the law and there is the way things are done.
We are in a period where the pardon power is being deployed to encourage defiance of the law.
MLD… You may want to reconsider the Nazi comparison. https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/like-an-experimental-concentration-camp-whistleblower-complaint-alleges-mass-hysterectomies-at-ice-detention-center/
Duane
First let’s get this straight I am not trying in any way to promote a “partisan view” of anything. In fact I am accusing you of consistently doing so and showing your bias both politically and socially.
You may disagree, but I have consistently pushed an unbiased view of the facts as much as we are individually capable of doing so.
I have also consistently pointed out all of us are unable to be completely unbiased or “open minded,” something you and Jeans seem to be unable to confess.
I will leave it at that and continue to read your often hyperbolic biased positions, something all of us can are guilty of.
Michael
I clearly understand your position on immigration and whole heartily agree with it. I also know it is clearly a bi-partisan problem and not limited to the current or past Presidents. The facts and evidence clearly show for decades the USA has not had a clear policy or fairness in the matter.
On the issue of the “cages,” attributing this solely to this President and his Administration is factually incorrect and dishonest. It is a problem inherited by him from the past Administration. and will be dealt with by the one elected in this November.
I believe the only thing the public can do is to continue to make known the issue and make maybe do a “Snowden,” (who BTW was part of the former Administration) and point out the abuses.
Thank you for your work!
Jean
“We are in a period where the pardon power is being deployed to encourage defiance of the law.”
Don’t you ever fact check your comments!
President Trump as of Aug 28, 2020
A total of 26 and 11 clemencies.
President Obama total 212 pardons and 1,715 clemencies (most in his last year)
“On Jan. 19, then-President Barack Obama commuted the sentences of 330 federal inmates who were convicted of drug crimes. As a result, Obama increased the total number of commutations to 1,715 individuals during his presidency, including 568 people who have been sentenced to life in prison.
Though CNN once declared him one of the “least merciful presidents” in U.S. history, Obama granted more commutations than any president and has surpassed the number of commutations granted by the past 13 presidents combined, the White House reported. ”
Just numbers which make it obvious the previous President used his Executive power to pardon and commute to a greater degree.
What you should be asking is, what are the differences in the people pardoned by various presidents?
Instead you make another biased non-factual broad brushed political statement.
MM
“You may disagree, but I have consistently pushed an unbiased view of the facts as much as we are individually capable of doing so.”
You are correct… I disagree.
MM,
You misunderstood me, and if I was ambiguous, then it’s my fault, not yours. I am not talking about pardoning convicted drug offenders. I am talking about encouraging civil servants, who have sworn an oath to the Constitution, to break the law with a prophylactic commitment from the President to pardon said civil servant should a criminal proceeding be brought in court against him or her.