Schopenhauer’s Tragedy Of The Will And The Banality Of Evil

Schopenhauer regarded tragedy as the peak of literature and art,and its purpose is to show the terrible side of life.Schopenhauer believed that the root of tragedy lies in the evil in the will.His theory of tragedy is not only an example of his philosophy of will,but also a search for the root of misfortune and suffering.Schopenhauer made people realize the latent evil in human nature,which,once combined with the motive,would explode in mediocre people and lead to immeasurable and horrible evil.The point is that people may not even realize they are doing evil.Schopenhauer’s view of the greatest evil coincides with Hannah Arendt’s view of the banality of evil.In Arendt,the banality of evil also comes from the actor himself.On the surface,the tragic causes of the banality of evil are nothing more than a lack of thinking and the nourishment of an institutionalized social environment.In fact,the former originates from people’s greed and laziness,while the latter cannot be formed without many people who do not think.Therefore,both of them are related to the negative factors in human nature.In this case,the way to avoid the banality of evil is to start with human nature.However,the negative factor in human nature is only potential after all,that is,an unrealized possibility.Moreover,there are other non-evil factors lurking in human nature,which cannot directly negate the will according to Schopenhauer.Despite the limitations of Schopenhauer’s view of tragedy,Schopenhauer’s emphasis on tragedy and its source was more advanced than those before him.And in today’s era of consumerism and entertainment across to death,people are enveloped by material desires and sensual pleasures,the vigilant in thinking,Schopenhauer’s tragedy theory gives us a warning that one person could make evil and don’t even know it’s terrible,so as to make people pay attention to their own and resist the arrival of evil.