On Arendt’s "the Banality Of Evil"

In recent years, there is a storm of research about Arendt’s thought in theacademia around the world, while the study of evil is one of the hot spots. Since the1980s, there has being an astonishing number of research papers and monographsbeing published firstly in the North America, then in Germany and France, and theamount and speed of publication is still unabated until now. Many studies concerning"the banality of evil" come into being under the influence of the internationalacademia all over China in recent years. The thought of Arendt "the banality of evil"thoroughly and directly exposes the inundation of all sorts of evil in the modernsociety, which has great significance in the real life. This paper attempts to deeplyanalyze the causes of "the banality of evil" mainly starting from the perspective ofethics, and to look for the countermeasures to prevent and eliminate "the banality ofevil" from the two aspects, individual and system, on the basis of the research aboutthe thought of Arendt "the banality of evil".This paper is divided into three chapters. The first chapter deeply analyses thebasic meaning, main performance and its basic causes of "the banality of evil" via theelaboration on the thought of Arendt "the banality of evil". After the introduction ofArendt’s report on the trial of Eichmann, this paper proposes the understanding about"the banality of evil" from three aspects: the perpetrator’s "banality","thoughtless"and the evil without depth. Then, the paper discusses the transformation of Arendt’sthoughts on evil, which changes from "the radical evil" to "the banality of evil" aswell as the relationship between them. The transformation of Arendt’s thought actuallytells us that there are numberless ordinary people who lose the plurality ofhuman-being acting as the totalitarian tool in the society, and they all have no theability of thinking, judging and moving but commit the incredible crimes."Thebanality of evil" exposes the terrible essence of totalitarianism. Finally, the paperintroduces the further testification on Arendt’s thought about "the banality of evil"through Milgram’s "obedience experiment" and the Stanford "prison experiment".This two scientific experiments prove that: the power of authority and situation canmake ordinary people lose the capacity of reflection and resistance, and make themost ordinary people become ruthless killer. The second chapter makes a more detailed and deep ethical analysis on thecauses of "the banality of evil" from the two aspects, the limitation of individualvirtue and the deletions of system justice. The paper analyses the limitation ofindividual virtue that how to change everyone in daily life from three different anglesthat the perpetrators, victims and bystanders, and illustrates why it always appearsaround us. The perpetrators who fail to think and have a plurality’s defect, the victimwho has been dehumanized and loses the capacity of resistance, and the bystander’sevil of inaction, which together constitute the power and energy for evil starting. Interms of the external system, the modern mechanism makes the individuals restrainthe "animal sympathy " and weaken the individual conscience with the help oftechnical rationality; the absolute authority of system makes individual virtue meltaway in obeying commands, which take off the individual responsibility at the sametime; for civil disobedience, the injustice system also lacks a tolerant attitude whichsuppresses the citizen’s diversity, so that ordinary people can easily become aneasy-manipulated tool. The profound defects of system have paved the way for theinundation of "the banality of evil".The third chapter attempts to search the countermeasure and outlet to prevent andeliminate "the banality of evil" from two respects, the cultivation of individual virtueand construction of justice system. In author’s opinion, to resist and refuse "thebanality of evil" should firstly base on the individual, then ensure the integrity ofindividual diversity and responsibility; the individuals should learn to think and usetheir own capacity of judgment to live a moral life; it’s very important to the healthdevelopment of modern society that insisting on the unique social responsibility ofintellectuals, who are the main force to resist the inundation of "the banality of evil".The paper points out, the system justice in modern society is not only the basicpremise of individual virtue cultivation, but also is the fundamental guarantee ofprevention and suppression to the inundation of "the banality of evil". Justice systemshould be essentially the unity of the value rationality and technical rationality.