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Hannah Arendt: The Banality Of Evil

592 Words3 Pages

Hannah Arendt once said, “There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is dangerous”. This quote really helps to grasp the harsh reality of the world Arendt went through because it captures the essence of the fierce criticism she faced. Arendt was a thinker, but her thinking was different which led her to become the face of huge controversy not only in the local community, but among her own people. Arendt’s major focus in her book Eichmann of Jerusalem revolves around a famous concept of hers, the “banality of evil”. The “banality of evil” lies in Hannah Arendt’s belief that Eichmann was not thinking and was merely following the commands of his superior. To put into Arendt’s own words “[h]e merely, to put the matter colloquially, never realized what he was doing” (Dueck 2017). The following paper argues that the preceding quote was the emphasis of the legal framework that went into the movie Hannah …show more content…

Rather, the movie continued to apply it up until the ending scene to show the intricacy of the matter. Once the trial had taken place and Arendt returned to her world, she was tasked with writing a report of her findings to hand in to the journal company she worked for. Along the way of completing her work, she shared her opinions with her family and friends and was met with backlash. Those that were close to her felt that she was defending the actions of the Nazis by putting the blame on the Jews and felt as if she was going against her own people. The ending scene was of a speech she gave to her students to justify her stance on the matter and explain where her judgements came from and clear the controversies surrounding her words. It is at this scene that the viewer fully understands the depth of the legal framework that went into the trial and can fully grasp to the focus of judgement in Hannah’s own court of law, which is Eichmann’s

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