Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann

Reconsidered
Peter Schotten

DOES THINKING prevent evil? Can critical self- ters.2 Her works addressing this issue are
reflection protect a person from partici- widely acknowledged to be substantial
pating in evil, particularly in a totalitar- and provocative. Yet, in the end, like most
ian regime? The distinguished political intellectuals, Arendt overvalued the power
philosopher Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) of thinking, in this instance overestimat-
thought so. Her famous 1963 case study ing its influence on individual conduct.
Eichmann in Jerusalem advanced the the- We know now that Arendt’s descrip-
sis that Adolf Eichmann’s inability to tion of a “new type of criminal” uninflu-
think—his extraordinary shallowness— enced by ideology and unmotivated by
led him blindly to pursue evil. His super- wickedness simply was not a factual de-
vision of genocide could not be attrib- scription of Eichmann. David Cesarani’s
uted to great vice, to culpable passions, biography of Eichmann carefully details
to the influence of ideology, or to the the Nazi’s moral disintegration in the face
existence of misplaced idealism. He was of a debased ideology and a morally cor-
not monstrous, or demonic, or even stu- rupt bureaucracy.3 Arendt’s thesis none-
pid, merely banal. Eichmann was the sort theless remains provocative. Even if her
of mindless bureaucrat who was essen- banality-of-evil thesis did not accurately
tial to the functioning of a totalitarian describe Eichmann, she believed that her
state. understanding captured a broader truth
Arendt was one of her age’s greatest explaining how so many ordinary people
intellectuals. She highly valued thinking. could so effortlessly and enthusiastically
She valued it for its own sake. Yet, in commit evil acts in a totalitarian state.
Eichmann in Jerusalem, she provided an “The Trouble with Eichmann,” wrote
additional, utilitarian rationale for think- Arendt, “was precisely that there were so
ing.1 Properly exercised, it could help many like him, and that the many were
people avoid moral catastrophe. Arendt neither perverted nor sadistic, that they
spent the last twelve years of life theoriz- were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly
ing about what it meant to think, and normal.”4
specifically what it meant to think in prac- Although Arendt believed that
tical terms about moral and political mat- Eichmann and those like him were re-
sponsible for their actions and therefore
PETER SCHOTTEN teaches in the Department of deserved to be punished, she nonethe-
Government at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, less was particularly troubled by this ba-
South Dakota. nal genocidal-minded bureaucrat who

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“commits his crimes under circumstances evil, posed a different kind of problem for
that make it well-nigh impossible for him Arendt than had her earlier encounter
to know or to feel what he is doing is with Nazism in Germany, or her study of
wrong.”5 Arendt initially was concerned Nazism in her Origins of Totalitarianism
with the inner life, the conscience, and (1951). Hers was not the attitude of a Jew
the judgment of a perpetrator who par- encountering a high-ranking Nazi official.
ticipated in genocide in the Nazi state. Rather, it was the reaction of one human
Most striking to her was how easy it had being trying to understand another. She
been to reverse that most basic moral saw Eichmann as a clown (her term) who
rule—Thou shalt not murder—only later had reflected not a wit upon the signifi-
(during times of normalcy after the cance of his murderous acts. She had
regime’s collapse) to see it effortlessly observed him carefully at his trial and he
again reversed to its original form. The repulsed her.
perversity of the Nazi regime was reflected After the trial, Arendt focused upon
by what it had done by normal human the question of not who was Eichmann
beings, who were now tempted by the but rather how one avoided becoming
newly forbidden, namely, “not to murder, Eichmann. Her first systematic attempt to
not to rob, not let their neighbors go off to answer that question surfaced some eight
their doom...and not to become accom- years later with the publication of her
plices in all these crimes by benefiting essay “Thinking and Moral Consider-
[sic] from them.” “But, God knows,” Arendt ations.” There, she elaborated upon
ruefully added, “they knew how to resist thinking’s capacity to innoculate a per-
temptation.”6 son against participating in evil. That
The attraction of Arendt’s banality-of- person potentially could be almost any-
evil formulation is its seeming capacity to one (including her), as the last sentence
explain how so many people [in totalitar- of her presentation made clear. Praising
ian states] could participate in evil ac- thought that culminates in judgment,
tions. The brief answer she furnished was Arendt concluded her article by noting
that many such people were neither de- that “this indeed may prevent catastro-
monic nor unusual, merely unreflective. phes, at least for myself, in the rare mo-
As she thought through the problem of ments when the chips are down.”8
evil and thinking, Arendt increasingly In thinking through the problem of
wondered how Eichmann had become how one might avoid becoming Eichmann,
the person he was and whether such a Arendt rejected the kind of life presented
person could have turned out differently. by Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), who had
Her interest was no mere theoretical mat- wielded the greatest intellectual influ-
ter. Her encounters with Nazism occurred ence upon her. Heidegger had been her
not as a S.S. member but as a Jewess. Her teacher, her lover, and (late in life), her
response to Hitler’s assumption of power intellectual colleague. Yet Heidegger’s
seemed to her obvious. By 1933, after work- influence upon Arendt’s ability to think
ing illegally on Zionist causes, she was through how one overcame the evil-do-
arrested; she would leave Germany that ers’ banality had been profoundly mixed.
year, becoming stateless until 1951. “When On the one hand, while acknowledging
one is attacked as a Jew, one must defend that Heidegger was a profound thinker,
oneself as a Jew,”7 Arendt would later re- Arendt could hardly ignore Heidegger’s
mark. Her opposition to Hitler and Nazism initial public pro-Nazi enthusiasms. Al-
was early, inevitable, and unavoidable. though Heidegger would soon withdraw
But Eichmann, the focus of her first from public life and his overt support of
concentrated reflection upon personal Hitler, his support of early Nazi anti-Jew-

140 Spring 2007

ish practices and his politically provoca- Nazi Party and advancing Hitler’s racial/
tive 1933 address made upon assuming political agenda, it was utterly compat-
the position of Rector of the University of ible with it. And although Heidegger’s
Freiburg, were widely discussed in intel- public flirtation with active Nazism was
lectual circles of the time (and since have short-lived and his anti-Semitism was not
been endlessly commented upon by con- racial or eliminationist, his moral pro-
temporary scholars). Arendt heard of nouncements were every bit as vacuous
numerous instances of Heidegger’s anti- as Eichmann’s. When Karl Jaspers asked
Jewish attitudes and actions and found him in 1933 how he could favor someone
them impossible to ignore. She no doubt as uncultured as Adolf Hitler to rule Ger-
confronted Heidegger by a letter (which many, Heidegger famously responded by
was subsequently not saved). Heidegger citing Hitler’s alleged aesthetic elegance.
denied any anti-Jewish bias. Arendt would “It is not a question of culture,” Heidegger
not write him again for fifteen years. observed. “Look at his beautiful hands!”10
After withdrawing from public life in After the War, Heidegger barely said
1934, he eschewed the designation of anything about the Nazi horror, although
philosopher. He proclaimed himself a he did compare it to mechanized chicken
thinker. Heidegger appeared to be the farming (about which he similarly disap-
exact opposite of Eichmann, who, Arendt proved). Only very infrequently, he would
claimed, had not thought at all. But, in furnish an indirect allusion to genocidal
one respect, they were alike. Neither had evil, but it would inevitably be couched
thought through how one could act mor- in some sort of opaque ontological for-
ally in the face of evil. Thus, she saw mula about being, specifically about its
Eichmann as a person who simply absence and mystery. The bluntest char-
mouthed moralistic clichés, who auda- acterization of Heidegger’s unsatisfactory
ciously claimed to have read Kant’s Cri- response to genocidal evil has been made
tique of Practical Reason, but who had not by the Jewish ethicist Rabbi Joseph
thought a wit about moral matters. It was Telushkin: “Despite the veneration ex-
quite apparent that these matters were pressed for Heidegger’s brilliance by in-
unimportant to Heidegger as well. He had tellectuals such as Jean-Paul Sartre,
written nothing about morality, or virtue Hannah Arendt, Richard Rorty, and
and vice, in Being and Time (1962 [1927]) George Steiner,” “Heidegger was, in moral
or elsewhere. Rather, he had eschewed all terms, an idiot.”11
moral considerations, describing only a In the years immediately after World
remarkably unattached, apolitical human War II, Arendt on several occasions tried
being whose resoluteness provided a re- to explain what had gone wrong with
lease from fear, freeing the person to act, Heidegger. She observed that he simply
and act boldly. did not know what he was talking about.
A well-known Heidegger’s biographer, Before Hitler, he had been a thinker, re-
Rüdiger Safranski, asserts the sum total of moved from worldly affairs, but then he
Heidegger’s ethical teaching in that work had succumbed to temptation and had
could “be summed up in a single sen- intervened in the world. He did not under-
tence: Do whatever you like, but make stand Nazism. He had read insufficiently
your own decision and do not let anyone and observed poorly (having ignored the
relieve you of the decision and hence the Gestapo’s secret rooms and newly-estab-
responsibility.”9 Hitler promised histori- lished concentration camps). If Eich-
cal greatness. Heidegger was stirred by a mann’s banality stemmed from a shallow-
romantic German nationalism. Although ness understood as thoughtlessness,
his world view did not dictate joining the Heidegger’s philosophical thinking simi-

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larly ill prepared him for understanding Even Socrates—who practiced a differ-
or participating in politics. Pure philo- ent kind of thinking and who Arendt held
sophical thinking provided no innocu- out as model whose example could pro-
lation against participation in evil. vide a solution to this conundrum—was
Even though Arendt championed not without problems. Socrates ques-
thinking as a solution for avoiding the tioned everything and taught no positive
banality of evil, she advocated a different doctrine. Furthermore, while non-think-
kind of thinking than that practiced by ing caused human beings to accept evil
Heidegger. She suggested (but never re- moral teaching, Socratic thinking—by
ferred to) something akin to Aristotle’s challenging every belief—paralyzed
practical wisdom plus conscience, which people. As Arendt pointed out, this type
she called judgment. Judgment allowed of thought taught nothing positive about
one to distinguish the good from the bad, how people ought to act. Rather, it had a
the beautiful from the ugly, and so forth. destructive, undermining effect on all cus-
Although this might seem to be a straight- toms and rules of conduct.
forward effort, it was complicated by a It would seem that neither by mindless
crucial reality, which was Heidegger’s conventionalism nor by paralyzing inac-
reality. For at the same time that Arendt tion induced by abstract philosophical
rejected Heidegger’s isolation as a pre- thinking could people help avoid evil.
ventative for evil, she accepted whole- But Arendt’s highly original interpreta-
heartedly his ontology that denied the tion of Socrates provided her with a way
existence of moral absolutes altogether. out. To her mind, Socratic thinking was
According to Arendt, Heidegger’s great not merely negative. Rather, she detected
accomplishment was to overcome tradi- two additional positive aspects to
tional metaphysics. There was only this Socratic thought. Each could be found in
world, which Arendt constantly refers to the Gorgias. First, Socrates had declared
as the world of appearances. Experience, that it was better to be wronged than to
and living in this world, was real, while do wrong. Arendt interpreted this not to
traditional, universal conceptions of God be a general statement of truth applying
and Platonic ideas were mere construc- to all people, but an insight stemming
tions. With Heidegger, Arendt advocated from Socrates’s experience and thinking.
a perspective rooted in individual experi- In other words, this moral principle was
ence. true for Socrates, but perhaps only for
Given this approach, the question for him. A prerequisite for this statement was
Arendt became: How does one talk about Socrates’s second positive injunction:
preserving morality, avoiding moral ba- namely that it is important to avoid dis-
nality, and not becoming evil if tradi- harmony within oneself. Socrates as-
tional moral absolutes no longer exist? sumed that (for him) doing wrong would
Non-thinking provides no answer. As cause internal disharmony. Such dishar-
Eichmann demonstrated, non-thinking mony is disclosed by thinking, which af-
means individuals reflexively will accept fects action by interrupting it.
that which is: Thou shall murder or shall Arendt believes thinking consists of a
not murder are equally compatible with soundless dialogue that a person (like
non-thinking’s conventionalism. But Socrates) has with himself. It is dialecti-
thinking, even when it is not dependent cal interchange, consisting of question-
upon the existence of wrong-headed tra- ing and answering not of others, but of
ditional metaphysical forms, also proves ourselves. It is a conversation among
to be a problematical solution. Heideg- “friends.” Disharmony occurs when con-
ger’s early philosophizing had failed him. tradictions appear. But disharmony can,

142 Spring 2007

or ought to be, resolved in favor of pre- assumed to be the province of the few.
serving goodness because wicked people Her assertion that thinking could be
avoid their own company, meaning that ascribed to everyone was not widely
thinking helps one avoid a disordered or elaborated upon but was, nonetheless,
turbulent soul. Additionally, Arendt sug- absolutely critical to her overall argu-
gests that a person’s being conscious of ment. It served two purposes. First, it was
existing or potential turbulence and dis- a logically necessary belief. Without it,
order points to the existence of a con- Eichmann and anyone like Eichmann,
science. Such a conscience recognizes could not be held responsible for their
that a person ultimately will have to live actions. For example, If critical self-dia-
with himself. Describing the person who logue and self-examination were beyond
has engaged in the internal conversation the ordinary person’s capacity, and it
called thinking, Arendt writes that con- was essential to acting morally in totali-
science is “the anticipation of the fellow tarian regimes, then it would be wrong to
who awaits you if and when you come blame individuals for refraining from
home.”12 doing that which they could not do. But
Arendt suggests that the kind of inter- Arendt not only believed almost every-
nal dialogue that she described as think- one could engage in critical self-exami-
ing leads the person in harmony with nation, but also accepted as faith that
himself to make and act in accordance they should want to. Socratic internal
with sound moral judgments. Such think- dialogue culminating in inner harmony
ing was one kind of thinking—but was was a high human calling open to all.
that kind of thinking essential to leading Those who refrained from thoughtfully
the moral good life? Not to think in this reflecting on their lives and souls were
fashion is not to be fully alive. It is not to not mere exceptions but ridiculous or
live in this world. Unthinking individuals pitiful (like clowns or sleepwalkers).
are like sleepwalkers. The person who Socratic thinking represented a crucial
thinks critically (in Arendt’s terms, within means to human well-being that every
himself and about himself) would never person both can employ and should want
become an Eichmann, or act like a to employ.
Heidegger.13 She believed that her expla- Arendt’s critique of Eichmann’s that
nation of critical, reflective thinking held thoughtlessness caused evil has had a
the key to avoiding evil. Additionally, she lasting appeal. “Stop and think” we are
thought she had solved an important theo- told since childhood, and perhaps it is
retical problem. She had explained how plausible that if lack of thinking can con-
one might avoid acting diabolically with- tribute to foolishness, then a failure to
out having to consider evil as a mental think can similarly aid, or perhaps even
construction posing as a Platonic idea or help explain, a person’s descent into evil.
a divine prohibition. Her emphasis upon Why Arendt believed this formula so fer-
the individual’s internal thought as an vently is not hard to fathom. She regarded
instrument for that person’s self-creating herself primarily as a thinker and attrib-
of a harmonious self allowed her to retain uted to it great explanatory powers. As a
her understanding of a world where evil person whose happiness, career, and
existed and people experienced all things identity were defined by her capacity for
uniquely. Still, in order for her explana- thought, Arendt was disposed to assume
tion to be plausible, she had to make a what she thought true for herself was true
crucial assertion. She postulated that for everyone. She genuinely believed that
such critical thinking could be ascribed thinking could protect her and others
to everybody and that it could not be from evil, just as she was prone to believe

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that non-thinking significantly contrib- nally derived from various sources, the
uted and explained much of the evil that values that led them to act were ingrained
occurred in totalitarian states. In coming in their inherently moral makeup. These
to this conclusion, her analysis proved values were experienced as powerful and
problematic for several reasons. compelling guides to personal conduct
First, by tracing the cause of evil’s ba- and, and prior to the rescuers’ good deeds,
nality to non-thinking, Arendt identi- had been previously well-established and
fied, at best, only a partial truth. Many often practiced.15 A second expert ob-
Nazi evil-doers acted and spoke reflex- served that the rescuers’ “concept of right
ively, not thoughtfully. But the insight is and wrong was so much a part of who they
not very helpful in explaining evil, be- were and are that it was as if I asked why
cause most people tend to act reflexively they breathed.”16 Yet another study con-
out of an established disposition of char- cluded that the rescuers’ preparation for
acter. Virtue ethics, which originated with rescue began long before the event, with
Aristotle, explains as much, although this the development of emotions and cogni-
aspect of moral philosophy never much tion through which they routinely related
interested Arendt. To the contrary, her to others and made their decisions. In
explanation of ethics is noteworthy for other words, most rescuers acted charac-
its blatant disregard of virtue and vice teristically. In making these observations,
and for its ignoring of the importance of the researchers observed that the moral
habituation’s ability to help form human life is not something that is switched on
character. Her lack of interest in this sub- in a particular crisis but rather something
ject is important because it points to a that goes on continually in small piece-
reason why thoughtlessness cannot fur- meal habits of living.17 The filmmaker
nish a persuasive explanation of the Pierre Sauvage, whose film Weapons of the
evildoer’s behavior. Spirit described the heroic rescue of 5000
Aristotle’s insight that people, for good refugees by 5000 villagers of the southern
and ill, act out of a fixed disposition of rural village of Le Chambon, summarized
character meant that they generally do much of what he learned about rescuers
not think at length about what they ought during the Holocaust. In a PBS interview
to do. Habit, not teaching (and thinking), with Bill Moyers, Sauvage concluded that
is the key to behavior, and changing be- those who had acted did not think and
havior. Thus, the men of Christopher those who thought had not acted. Con-
Browning’s Reserve Police Battalion 101 trary to Hannah Arendt (not to mention
habituated themselves to cold-blooded cognitive developmental theorists like
murder as surely as Eichmann did after Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg), Iris
writing and approving numerous orders Murdoch was right: “The unexamined life
condemning millions of innocent people can be virtuous.”18 Thus, non-thinking is
to their deaths.14 Similarly, the non- Jew- compatible with a great many human
ish rescuers of fleeing Jews during the behaviors, including the best and most
Holocaust were habituated to do what virtuous. For that reason alone, Arendt’s
they did, even when their acts seemed description of non-thinking simply does
uncommonly courageous. Interestingly, not provide an adequate account of the
the attempt to explain what distinguished cause of evil nor supply a fully satisfying
the rescuers from their numerous peers account of its banality.
who acted far worse, has elicited this Furthermore, there are additional prob-
precise explanation repeatedly. lems with positing critical self-reflection
According to one scholar, while the serving as a prophylactic to becoming
rescuers’ imperative to help others origi- evil. It is probable that the kind of Socratic

144 Spring 2007

thinking Arendt identifies is far more dif- problem. She also minimized or ignored
ficult to engage in, and therefore far rarer, the importance of external factors that
than she thought. The most obvious im- can undermine impartial thinking. For
pediment to Socratic self-examination is example, It is significant that she explic-
simply that many or most people simply itly specified that Eichmann’s evil acts
do not want to reflect critically and con- could not be traced to wickedness, pa-
stantly upon the moral quality of their thology, or ideology but only to extraor-
lives or the state of their souls. Such think- dinary shallowness (thoughtlessness).
ing requires effort and most of the time it Not only did Arendt refuse to recog-
is easier to avoid the hard work of think- nize ideology’s effect on Eichmann, her
ing. Furthermore, individuals may not functional description of Nazi totalitari-
welcome the discomfort that can result anism pictured Nazism and the Holocaust
from reflective self-examination. People as the product of the modern bureau-
can feel a sense of unease, perhaps dimly cratic state, thus downplaying the impor-
perceiving or even despairing that their tance of the specifically Germanic char-
lives have gone astray. Also, they may acter both of Nazi ideology and of the
anticipate that enhanced self-knowledge Holocaust.20 Undeniably, ideology mat-
may require questioning the very strate- ters greatly in a totalitarian state. It, along
gies, choices, and decisions that have with other external factors (peer group
been adopted. In these and similar cases, pressure, politicized professions, propa-
individuals, perhaps numerous, lack the ganda, etc.) profoundly affected the atti-
incentive or the courage to examine their tudes, beliefs, and world outlook of Nazi
lives or engage in the kind of thinking officials and German citizens. Eichmann
Arendt championed.19 was decisively influenced by Nazi core
There is another reason why the kind beliefs; not surprisingly, his self-interest
of thinking Arendt believed to be avail- and racial animosity developed together.
able to all proves far more problematical As his career advanced, so did his hatred
than she believed. When she wrote that of Jews.
self-reflection, the process by which we The Nazi regime affected its citizens’
understand and can alter our moral lives, very souls. It altered the sense of self-
is available to all, she necessarily assumed identity, and the consciences of its most
that clear-headed, accurate thinking is zealous officials, including Eichmann. But
available to everybody (for surely she did Nazism did not decimate Eichmann’s
not advocate sloppy or misdirected think- conscience. Significantly, the con-
ing). Yet there are good reasons why ac- sciences of such men were not so much
curate thinking about oneself is hard to lacking as malformed. A society suffused
come by. There are many incentives to in ideology and propaganda did not
engage in misguided thinking and numer- merely affect the way people thought,
ous ways self-directed thought can go but in many cases profoundly altered
bad. Arendt systematically underesti- their deepest sense of right and wrong.
mated or neglected those internal factors The Nazi state affected people in a way
that can corrupt thought and mislead somewhat different than Arendt had pos-
individuals about their own moral well- tulated. She had complained that Eich-
being, thus misdirecting their judgments mann’s conscience had confounded the
and actions. In her writings, there is no just with the legal. Hitler, and Hitler’s
discussion of the relationship of thought edicts, had become his guide. Arendt was
to the passions, or to the role of self-love, confident that such a moral degenera-
or about the human capacity for self- tion could be avoided by Socratic think-
deception. Nor is this the full extent of the ing. When such “two-in-one” thinking

Modern Age 145

occurred, a person’s awareness of his evaluation. The existence of such a widely
wrongdoing, or potential wrongdoing, disseminated, perverse Nazi conscience
occurred. Consciousness produced con- reflected the celebration of an evil that
science. Arendt had formulated a theory did not, and would not, recognize its true
of thinking and conscience reminiscent nature. For that reason, but not only for
of Gresham’s law: The good part of the that reason, the “road to Auschwitz was
self, in dialogue with my new unethical paved with righteousness.”21
self, decides it cannot live with it and Eichmann was the epitome of a self-
purges it (thus my good self forces my bad deceived man. He thought himself righ-
self out of circulation). teous but he had become evil. At one
Arendt’s theory failed to capture the time, this high-ranking SS official had
sense in which even a person’s best part seemed bigger in life; but in Jerusalem he
was susceptible to pernicious influences appeared to be merely unimpressive, or-
so prevalent in totalitarian states. Often, dinary, banal. More than once he had
the Nazi conscience contained the belief claimed moral self-knowledge but he
that murdering Jews and other social lacked even the most elementary knowl-
undesirables was not merely a necessary edge of himself. Smugness constituted
burden but a noble duty. Genocide seemed Eichmann’s outer face, and Arendt found
justified and even morally praiseworthy both his appearance and his past actions
because many Nazis believed, encour- repugnant. No more Adolf Eichmanns,
aged by every element of the regime, that she thought. But what would have pre-
Jews either posed a lethal threat to the vented Eichmann from becoming
state, or were subhuman, or both. Admit- Eichmann, or anyone from becoming
tedly, these beliefs constituted outright Eichmann? The problem posed by
self-deception based upon lies. There- Eichmann—how had an ordinary man
fore one wonders: Could Arendt’s critical become one of the worst representatives
self-thought have unearthed these lies of humanity—needed addressing. Totali-
that were so inextricably bound up with tarianism provided no excuse for the vile
conscience? Or would thinking simply actions of such a human being. Arendt
prove ineffectual in actually changing surveyed her own life and concluded that
the judgments, attitudes, and behaviors self-reflection in the mode of Socrates
of believing Nazis? Arendt’s Socratic think- had served her well “when the chips were
ing would have had to bear a heavy bur- down.” No doubt, she reasoned, such
den. The souls of many Germans—and thinking could serve anyone well, includ-
particularly Nazis in positions of political ing Eichmann. Eichmann, Arendt con-
and military authority—had been cor- cluded, was evil because he was thought-
rupted by a combination of resolute ha- less. As a comprehensive account of evil-
tred and a perverse sentiment borne of a doing, her formulation fails to persuade.
misplaced moral idealism. At its root was Thoughtlessness may contribute to evil,
a political faith brought on by faulty think- but it hardly provides a fully satisfying
ing, and often closed to new thinking, a explanation of evil-doing. One wonders if
faith that emboldened while it reassured. Arendt’s critique of Eichmann amounted
Such Nazis believed in a way that was to much more than the assertion that he
genuinely resistant to objective self- was not her.

1. Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report larly important article is “Thinking and Moral
on the Banality of Evil, rev. and enl. ed. (New York, Considerations,” in Responsibility and Judgment,
1978). Hereafter cited as Banality. 2. A particu- ed. Jerome Kohn (New York, 2003), 159-189. The

146 Spring 2007

article was originally published in 1971 in the Heidegger parallels Dana R. Villa, “The Anxiety of
journal Social Research. Important aspects of this Influence on Arendt’s Relationship to Heidegger”
article were subsequently incorporated into Politics, Philosophy, Terror: Essays on the Thought
Arendt’s unfinished, most renowned work. See of Hannah Arendt (Princeton, N.J., 1999), 85. 14.
The Life of the Mind (San Diego, 1977). Much of the Christopher Browning, Reserve Police Battalion
analysis of Arendt’s explanation of moral thinking 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (New York,
referred to in this article is based upon these two 1992). 15. Nechama Tec, When Light Pierced the
sources. 3. David Cesarani, Becoming Eichmann: Darkness: Christian Rescue of Jews in Nazi-Occu-
Rethinking the Life, Crimes, and Trials of a “Desk pied Poland (New York, 1986), 189. 16. Eva Fogelman,
Murderer” (Cambridge, Mass., 2004). 4. Banality, Conscience & Courage: Rescuers of Jews During the
276. Emphasis mine. 5. Ibid. Nonetheless, Arendt Holocaust (New York, 1994), 161. 17. Samuel P.
acknowledges that such a person was hostis Oliner & Pearl M. Oliner, The Altruistic Personality,
generis humani. 6. Ibid., 150. 7. “‘What Remains? Rescuers of Jews In Nazi Europe: What Led Ordinary
The Language Remains,’” in Essays in Understand- Men and Women to Risk Their Lives on Behalf of
ing, 1930-1954, ed. Jerome Kohn (New York, 1994), Others? (New York, 1988), 221-222. The comment
12. 8. “Thinking and Moral Considerations,” 189. is attributed to Iris Murdoch. 18. Cited at Ibid., 9.
9. Rüdiger Safranski, Martin Heidegger: Between 19. This point is made by John Kekes, The Roots
Good and Evil (Cambridge, Mass., 1998), 166. 10. of Evil (Ithaca, N.Y., 2005), 188-189. 20. Richard
Karl Jaspers, Notizen ze Martin Heidegger (Munich, Wolin, Heidegger’s Children: Hannah Arendt, Karl
1988), 288. 11. Joseph Telushkin, A Code of Jewish Lowith, Hans Jonas, and Herbert Marcuse (Princeton,
Ethics: You Shall Be Holy (New York, 2006), Vol. 1, 2001). 57-62. 21. See Claudia Koonz, The Nazi
41. 12. The Life of the Mind, 191. By at home, Arendt Conscience (Cambridge, Mass., 2003), 3.
meant in thought. 13. My discussion of Arendt and

Modern Age 147