Talk:Banality of evil

I re-added the link to "Questioning the Banality of Evil" which I found very valuable and I believe was removed without sufficient cause. ModernHacker (talk) 15:45, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Hey, to whomever is responsible for this page, at the present moment this is one of the worst articles I have yet to encounter on Wikipedia. There are clear grammatical errors and stylistic blunders (I don't feel like fixing them at the moment, but I might do so later) and the page doesn't even have a section in which the concept is explained from Arendt's point of view, on the basis of citations to the article, but rather, the piece launches straight into some criticism of the concept that was published in a British journal. For shame. WEAK ARTICLE. Fix it. Matthew Baldwin (talk) 09:18, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Still a weak article and hasn't been fixed. The size of the critique based on a non-peer reviewed, four page *trade journal* article is outrageous. I'm a rare editor and don't feel up to the dramatic, detailed changes this piece requires, but for the love of heaven, it's bad.99.127.212.28 (talk) 15:24, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I think Henry_David_Thoreau coined the phrase in Walden. I might be wrong, and thats just what I was taught in school. I will try to verify

In this sentence fragment "but rather by very ordinary people who", 'very' should be removed because it is redundant. --Patpecz 22:46, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

hey don't vandalize, and do your job
I have restored my expansion of this stub, which was requested. Atlan, don't vandalize this. Your action was banally evil in itself.


 * Continue, and I will act on your constant block evasion. Be happy that I let you edit at all.--Atlan (talk) 13:14, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

If you want to make yourself useful, you can formalize my cites. I have expanded the article as requested with references and YOU are vandalizing.


 * You cite nothing. You always give your personal opinion on matters. Go write a blog or start your very own Nilgespedia. Just don't dump your opinionated pieces of OR here.--Atlan (talk) 17:58, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Atlan, I checked edits and I mostly agree with you. However this sentence seems neutral to me, and relevant to the book: "Arendt noted that Eichmann produced arguments for his behavior like a "normal" person and even claimed to be following Kant's maxim to "so act that your action may be recommended as a general moral law".". It cites the book itself. Could it be reintroduced, maybe with a bit more of context? Just an idea. --Cyclopia (talk) 15:27, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, of course. Edward Nilges is a smart guy and he would be a valuable contributor if he could just adhere to NPOV and cite his edits. I generally don't take the time to extricate anything useful from his edits if they are so blatantly POV. If you care to use any on his deleted edits, feel free to do so.--Atlan (talk) 17:10, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

202.82.33.202 (talk) 05:27, 1 April 2008 (UTC)You seem to believe that if a writer uses complex syntax and unfamiliar words, or writes like a girl or something, he's POV. You also seem to infer from an overly humanistic tone, one whose background hiss as it were is constituted in the belief that there IS deviant behavior in the first place as well as its normalization, the writer doesn't have enough hip nihilism to be "truly" NPOV. Of course, if the writer is ethically nihilist (or nihilist in the manner of the male Fundamentalist, whose Fundamentalism is an effort to shore up a ruin), the result is as we see pages like the foul essay on Ayn Rand, or the tobacco articles which constitute adverts for smoking: the slack-jawed pseudo-NPOV are usually slaves to a loud POV and are blissfully unaware of their own slavery.

202.82.33.202 (talk) 05:39, 1 April 2008 (UTC)Well, you're wrong. The overview was NPOV.

202.82.33.202 (talk) 05:39, 1 April 2008 (UTC)You're dang tootin' that Eichmann claimed to follow Kant. That's in Eichmann in Jerusalem, which I've read. Similar supporting material is in the unabridged ORIGINS OF TOTALITARIANISM, by Arendt, which I've read. More is in Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's ORDINARY MEN, which I've read. The banal way in which the Nazis manipulated the Weimar constitution to come to power without getting an electoral majority is in Shirer, whom I've read. Still more is in Adorno, whom I've read, extensively.

202.82.33.202 (talk) 05:39, 1 April 2008 (UTC)I started reading all this crap when Fascism arrived in America in its whimpering and banally-evil way on Dec 12 2000 when it turned out to be too hard to count votes, having encountered the preconditions for this in my career amongst banally evil people who made other men rich. That's a POV and it's NOT in the article except in the way the shoe fits.

202.82.33.202 (talk) 05:39, 1 April 2008 (UTC)I've done my homework: you can add the cites because I don't have the time and I refuse to be a virtual slave.

202.82.33.202 (talk) 05:27, 1 April 2008 (UTC)Your job was to find and formalize my cites because as I have said, I don't have the time to make Jimbo Wales rich as he tries to figure out how to remove good contributors like me (by means of harassment) and capitalize as a Rand-selfish person on my work.

202.82.33.202 (talk) 05:27, 1 April 2008 (UTC)Get to work. Add the goddamn cites. The references can all be found in Amazon. Don't make me think of you as a "little Eichmann". Be a stand up guy instead. For my part I won't revert the edit: third parties who want to see my stub expansion can see it on the History page.

Edward G. Nilges

Thoreau did not use 'banality of evil' in Walden. The word 'banality' does not occur in the book (Project Gutenberg) and the word 'evil' does not occur in a phrase close in meaning. Please remove this comment when the suggestion it refers to is removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wilmslow (talk • contribs) 23:11, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

You gotta luv the sniping and warfare on this article! Thus Spake Good (talk) 17:10, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

banality of evil proved
Might not belong here (in fact, probably doesn't), but Goldhagen's reaction to the Milgram experiments was a classic example of someone raging against the "banality of evil" argument. Milgram essentially proved that most people could be induced to commit an evil act. Goldhagen was offended by this and contends that the Nazis exhibited an especially severe brand of evilness. 208.181.100.18 04:12, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

This is a superficial reading of Goldhagen. Sure, he believed that the Nazis were "especially" evil, but so did Arendt: Arendt took a pessimistic view of our potential for evil. And Goldhagen's empirical research confirm Arendt in that he could find no predictor of who would choose, under the voluntary nature of service, who would join the Einsatzgruppen.

"Banality" is a misinterpreted word. Arendt didn't mean by "banality", veniality, smallness-of-harm. She meant that the preconditions for big harm happen every day. The problem is that American mass media celebrates the every day, especially in its uncritical approach to the supposed virtues of the patriarchal family, since American society relies on "strong" (strong to abusive in some cases) patriarchs to assume a societal responsibility in the absence of safety nets. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.82.33.202 (talk) 09:56, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

what's so ironic is that people need some "authority" to state a truism before they believe it. Thus Spake Good (talk) 03:09, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Move to "banality of evil"
The article title was capitalized shortly after its creation with the comment "Phrase is always capitalised". Well, of course it's not always capitalized—I don't think it ever is. Arendt didn't capitalize it. I would have been bold and moved the article, but I can't because of a silly bot edit on the redirect page. -- BenRG (talk) 14:47, 3 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Support. No reason to regard this as a proper noun, and the claim that it's always capitalised appears mistaken, so the capitalisation is a stylistic effect and contrary to WP:NC. Andrewa (talk) 14:47, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Uncontroversial. At least, that's how I'd have proposed it. Srnec (talk) 19:56, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Closing early. This is indeed an uncontroversial move blocked by a silly bot edit.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:19, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Style edit needed
The body of the article begins with the line: "Intuition of Hannah Arendt was confirmed..." This isn't grammatical English (although it might conceivably be grammatical Russian). I have no idea what the author had in mind so I don't want to touch it, but someone who knows about the subject might like to have a go. 203.129.46.247 (talk) 01:13, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Superfluous Picture
I'm not saying that the Tuskegee Experiments weren't a bad thing, I just don't see how a request for autopsies could have anything at all to do with this particular article, and so I'm taking the liberty of removing it. Kalmbach (talk) 07:29, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

The illustration is of a simple bureaucratic document requesting an autopsy of a man, produced by people who are (morally though perhaps not legally) his murderers. It's a good illustration of the subject of the article and I think ""don't see how a request for autopises could have anything at all to do with" is being a little obtuse. This is a highly relevant image and concerns history that should not be suppressed, however if you have a suggestion for a better illustration please make it. I'm restoring the image. --Simon Speed (talk) 09:56, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Kalmbach, your inability to see that an experiment that deprives people of treatment for syphilis in order to see what happens to them is evil, and that the autopsy request is banal, is not sufficient justification for removing the material. Please obtain consensus before making such deletions. -- 98.108.214.121 (talk) 01:57, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

while the picture might be an example of the "banality of evil" i am with kalmbach in that it just doesn't fit, this might be because understanding its relevance requires too many interpretative leaps - i don't know what would be better, maybe a picture of Arendt's book? the concept is not easily depicted and i think the current picture is cryptic at best. LazyMapleSunday (talk) 05:10, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd agree with the first and last assertions: this picture isn't clearly related to the article. I'll fully agree that it is when explained, but it isn't the natural accompaniment to this piece - at least not without explanation in the article, and still then arguably not so. I'd second the move for an image of Arendt's book. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.110.158.27 (talk) 00:22, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree that it is incongruous; maybe a better caption, i.e. one which made explicit the interpretive steps Simonxag has outlined, would help? findlayjy (talk) 16:27, 22 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I actually think the picture is a great illustration of the topic, although totally against WP:NOR policy. Jaque Hammer (talk) 01:12, 9 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The picture is almost too good an illustration of banality. I suggest that the average reader would react, "Autopsy requests? So what?" Hence, a mention in the article is seriously needed. Depending on consensus, I (or someone else) may post something like the following as the next-to-last paragraph of the article:

The accompanying illustration of banality comes from the records of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment: a perfectly ordinary piece of bureaucratic trivia, even conscientiously updated by hand. The evils of the experiment itself have become routine.

--LCE(talk contribs) 10:11, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I just read this article. I'm French, and I knew nothing of the Tuskegee experiment; to understand the picture, I had to actually read the article on the experiment (which is somehow a good thing, since it deserves to be known). I agree that it is a perfect illustration for the banality of evil, but still, as it has been said, it needs to much explanation, while a good illustration shouldn't. And adding an explanation won't change that. Since I'm the first to go back to this discussion in more than 6 months, and because it seems the favored option, I'm removing the picture. If someone thinks I'm wrong (I'm not that used to Wikipedia procedures), don't hesitate to intervene. -- Ophiccius (talk) 08:06, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

As a thought, if a picture *were* to be added, the natural image is Eichmann on trial. 99.127.212.28 (talk) 15:24, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

The criticism section is as long as the introduction! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.106.226.176 (talk) 04:12, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Merge?
How about a merge with Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil? I think the book and the concept are linked and you can't really have an article on one without talking about the other. Readers would be better served to have all the info in one article. BayShrimp (talk) 00:07, 9 August 2013 (UTC)