Eichmann in Jerusalem A Report on the Banality of Evil

I suggest that those who are always quoting or using or misreading the last line of the book should read it again. Looking at you, Jonathan Glazer.

We dismiss people as monsters because we would have a much harder time reckoning with what it would mean if they were human

From the Postscript: Justice, but not mercy, is a matter of judgment,and about nothing does public opinion everywhere seem to be in happier agreement than that no one has the right to judge somebody else. What public opinion permits us to judge and even to condemn are trends, or whole groups of people - the larger the better - in short, something so general that distinctions can no longer be made, names no longer be named. Needless to add,this taboo applies doubly when the deeds or words of famous people or men in high position are being questioned. This is currently expressed in high-flown assertions that it is "superficial" to insist on details and to mention individuals, whereas it is the sign of sophistication to speak in generalities according to which all cats are gray and we are all equally guilty. Thus the charge Hochhuth has raised against a single Pope - one man, easily identifiable, with a name of his own- was immediately countered with an indictment of all Christianity. The charge against Christianity in general, with its two thousand years of history, cannot be proved, and if it could be proved, it would be horrible. No one seems to mind this so long as no person is involved, and it is quite safe to go one step further and to maintain: "Undoubtedly there is reason for grave accusations, but the defendant is mankind as a whole."

“They knew, of course, that it would have been very comforting indeed to believe that Eichmann was a monster, even though if he had been, Israel’s case against him would have collapsed or, at the very least, lost all interest. Surely, one can hardly call upon the whole world and gather correspondents from the four corners of the earth in order to display Bluebeard in the dock. 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 our moral standards of judgement, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together, for it implied - as had been said at Nuremberg over and over again by the defendants and their counsels - that this new type of criminal, who is in actual fact hostis generis humani, commits his crimes under circumstances that make it well-nigh impossible for him to know or to feel that he is doing wrong.”

Essential reading - still horribly relevant.

Read this book for my Interpreting the Past class. It was rather intriguing but I read it mostly late at night when I was already exhausted so not much of it stuck with me. Maybe I'll read it again at some point, but let's be honest.

Eye-opening book.