Exploration To Hannah Arendt’s Notion Of "The Banality Of Evil"

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) was the important female ideologist and political theorist in the 20th century. Since the publication of The Origins of Totalitarianism, her rich original and profound idea had received the attention of scholars, and even lead the political and philological research of the 20th century in some aspect. In her whole life, she had experienced two times of world wars, and suffered from the persecution of Nazi Concentration camp, which made her political idea always focus on the feedback to the political disasters in the 20th century. Her thinking of the evil problem of totalitarianism even became the core of her thinking. In The Origins of Totalitarianism, she proposed the concept of "the radical evil", such associated evil of this totalitarianism eradicated the duplication and specialty of human, made humanity become redundant and exceeded the understanding scope of humans. However, after she took part the trial of Nazi official Eichmann, her thinking toward evil was turned, and she put forward the abundantly disputed "the banality of evil". She believed that evil was not so ferocious as we imagined, it was just because of our lack of thinking and judgment behind the evildoing, and the blind follow of orders and disciplines replaced the moral responsibility of humans. The essence of evil lies in "non-thinking", and it equips with destructive consequences.Arendt’s "banality of evil" thinking still equips with very important significance to our realistic life, providing a new perspective for flooding of various evils in the current society at present.This paper attempts to make the profound analysis on "banality of eviF’from these three aspects of theoretical connotation, formation reasons, dispel paths on the basis of the research of Arendt’s "banality of eviF’in the academic circle.This paper is elaborated in four parts. In the first part, it discusses the transition of Arendt’s thinking on political evil from "the radical eviF’to "the banality of evil", specially dissects the connotation, characteristics, relations of the both as well as the necessity of this transition. In the second part, it explains the reasons why "the banality of evil"happens from the decline of the public field and the rise of masses and mobsters. The endless expansion of capitalism, the gradual rise of the social field has made political public space to be seriously squeezed, producing large amounts of atomized individuals, these lonely masses are indifferent to public affairs, gradually lose their judgment and fallen into the evil subject of "the banality of evil". The third part elaborates the Arendt’s investigation on the life in heart, exploits the political significance of thinking and judgment and regarded as the barrier to defend"the banality of evil". In the forth chapter, it summarizes and evaluate the above described contents briefly and combines the reality of the existing world to illustrate the realistic meaning of Arendt’s idea.