On 'The Banality of Evil'

The Banality of Evil is a phrase coined by the noted political philosopher Hannah Arendt in her book 'Eichmann in Jerusalem'. In her attempt to understand how someone like Eichmann – apparently normal and sane – could commit the crimes he had, Arendt discredited the previous assumption that obeying orders to such a degree, without cognizance of wrong-doing or one's own conscience, was a trait wholly particular to subjects of the Third Reich, and came to the conclusion that such behavior was possible from the civilized citizens of the Free World as well. Not unnaturally – particularly in the aftermath of the emotionally-charged Eichmann Trial and the still raw wounds of the Holocaust – the book provoked a huge storm of outrage, and Arendt became the target of a lot of animosity. Her critics failed – or perhaps refused - to understand that evil isn't necessarily a matter of deliberate malevolence, but rather more often the inability to rationally think through or even understand one's actions and the consequences they might lead to. Often it is senseless, meaningless. This is what she meant by banality. It doesn't excuse the perpetrator, but in fact adds to the horror.

Around about the same time as Arendt's book, Stanley Milgram, a young Psychology Professor at Yale, carried out experiments to study the conflict between obeying a stark authority and following one's personal conscience in morally fraught situations. The experiment consisted of a 'Teacher' (a paid volunteer), a 'Learner' (an actor or a student) and the Experimenter. The Teacher, given to understand that it was an experiment on learning behavior, was kept under the impression that it was the Learner that was the subject of the study, when, in fact, it was the behavior of the Teacher himself during the experiment that was under scrutiny. He was asked to administer electric shocks of increasing intensity to the Learner for every mistake made; there was an instrument panel before him with thirty, clearly labeled lever switches, from 14 volts to 450 volts. The Teacher, of course, thought that this contraption was genuine too, especially as with each increasing voltage the Learner screamed and writhed as if being really and truly electrocuted. The initial assumption was that, despite being strongly urged to continue, the Teacher would refuse to administer the shocks after perceiving the 'real' agony of the Learner – a person he/she had no grudge against and so had no reason in the world to want to hurt. However the results of these experiments (repeated in other parts of the world) showed that an astonishingly high percentage of 'normal, decent' people willingly continued administering shocks – high enough to permanently damage or kill, had they been real – and this was, as most of them said later, because they had been 'told to' by the Experimenter, the figure of Authority here. In most cases, they didn't 'think' about what they were doing to the Learner – or if they did, their concern about following orders and doing the job well and pleasing Authority over-rode it. It is worthwhile to note that at no point were they coerced and neither, unlike Eichmann and his subordinates, was there any question of being punished for disobedience. There were also none of the other social pressures like peer opinion, ostracism, job loss, or incarceration. They obeyed Authority of their own free will.

Eichmann too repeatedly claimed to have only 'followed orders', and had been remarkably conscientious too about doing the job well. He received his orders, relayed them accordingly to the Concentration Camp Commandants, and these they implemented - also 'under orders'. To do otherwise would have meant a firing squad and hardly anybody chose this option. If there was any initial distaste for the job, it soon passed. As horrible as it seems, they simply became 'used to it'. And yet many of these people too ordinarily would have been called 'normal, decent'. They had family and friends that they wouldn't have dreamed of hurting, but they could carry out the killings without any compunction. They could kill in the mornings, and laugh and relax in the evenings. Their victims were never individuals to them, but 'people' or 'Jews' or 'Gypsies' or such others – there was no identifying or empathizing with them, and this failure is another face of evil.

Of course certain individuals – both in the Milgram experiments and in Nazi Europe – refused to follow orders that clashed with their own personal morality and judgment. Such people held themselves accountable for their own actions, and were not willing to let the responsibility be shifted onto someone else. In the Lab, they only had to say no and that was the end of it; it took a lot more courage to do this under the Nazis. Many were imprisoned or killed – or, like Arendt, escaped in the nick of time. If the rest of the population had followed suit, perhaps the Nazis wouldn't have flourished – it would have hardly been possible to punish everyone. Bulgaria stands out as a singular example of this – not a single Bulgarian Jew was carted off to be murdered – the Bulgarians, following the examples of the monarch King Boris III and the Patriarch of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, refused to allow this to happen, and it didn't. In the other countries, however, most people fell in line with whatever the authority ordered – or, equally worse, stood by and did nothing. It was 'nothing to them' – a lack of empathy, as mentioned before; it was happening to the Jews, already categorized as sub-human by the propaganda machine, and if the Authority deemed it necessary perhaps they deserved it – later, after the war, most of these people, with their unerring herd mentality, either shifted the responsibility onto the 'Authority' or rationalized their behavior to the more acceptable 'What could we have done?' A truly valid question – it is easier to talk of upholding moralistic principles, but hard to put them into actual practice in difficult situations – and, honestly, how many of us, when faced with overwhelming power or sinister, ruthless killers or an angry mob, could step forward and say, stop, it's not right what you're doing?

Recent events reveal remarkable parallels. An unnecessary, unwarranted war could be started on a pack of outright lies – lies that the public accepted, without examining the facts, since they had been sprouted by 'the Authority'. There were a lot of incredible statements like 'The President knows what he's doing' or 'If the President says so, it must be right'. This kind of attitude prevailed not just with the American public, but also amongst the rest of the world. Apart from a few token protests, the 'World Leaders' were too concerned with not antagonizing the Super Power; there were economic issues involved after all. So no strong stance was taken in either Iraq's or Afghanistan's defense. There was a curious general lack of empathy too with the people of the targeted countries – widely depicted either as terrorists or the harborers of terrorists in the propaganda, they no doubt deserved what they were getting – and if many of the victims were young children and unarmed civilians, well, too bad, but it was a war after all, and the people who were bombing them were 'only following orders'. No doubt the bombers later relaxed and e-mailed their families about missing them, while the rest of the 'normal, decent' public probably switched off their television sets or computers and went to spend some quality time with their own children. The responsibility of what was happening afterall lay with the 'Authority', not with them. An argument that had been strongly refuted at the Nuremberg Trials. The conclusion of these trials in fact was that it was the duty, no, the obligation, of any soldier – and any decent human being – to refuse to follow orders that were illegal and violated human rights.

That the recent atrocities committed at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib are in clear violation of all ethical and civilized behavior goes without saying, and the attempt to salvage the situation by stating that such photographs would have never surfaced in Saddam Hussein's regime cannot in any way erase U.S. culpability. For a country that prides itself as a free and humane democracy, how is it possible that such violations even occurred without any action being taken against them for so long? Human Rights Organizations, including the Red Cross, had certainly complained about the abuses months prior to the publication of the photographs. And it certainly cannot be the case of just some rogue soldiers when the leadership itself has so blatantly flaunted all International Law.

What is heartening though is that there were many people – civilians and soldiers - who vehemently protested against the war from the start and that many more are now beginning to speak out against it. Since the war began, the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors has received on its hot-line thousands of calls from soldiers reluctant to serve in Iraq, and the number is steadily climbing. A significant number have deserted, irregardless of the harsh penalties they are likely to incur – according to U.S. law, a soldier can face the death penalty for desertion in wartime; while this law hasn't been implemented in actual fact since World War II, the absconding soldier can expect to be incarcerated in Military Prison for one or more years. Of course there are exceptions, notably the current President George Bush, Jr. To paraphrase George Orwell, some people are more equal than others. The others, very brave and decent human beings, are to be hounded as criminals - people like Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia, who, as a Conscientious Objector, has refused to serve any further in Iraq, Lance Cpl. Stephen Funk, another objector, who was sentenced to six months in jail last year, Private Jeremy Hinzman and Private Brandon Hughey, who both decamped to Canada rather than fight against their convictions in Iraq. It is a telling comment on the current state of the U.S. that while purporting to be bringing 'freedom' to the Iraqis, it is driving its own citizens into exile for wanting to have the liberty of their own beliefs.

Brandon Hughey, who is only eighteen, states on his website www.brandonhughey.org -

"It wasn't until after I had joined the Army that I really began to learn about the war in Iraq. I could not think of a single justifiable cause for this war and much to my disappointment, I realized that my country was not acting in its self defence, and was the aggressor in this conflict. This is when I admitted to myself that signing up for the Army was a mistake."

"I believe that, even if one signs a binding contract, he is not obligated to throw out all of his moral principles. Regardless of any contract signed, if a soldier is asked to carry out an order that he knows is illegal and immoral, it is not only his right but also his responsibility to resist."

"Knowing full well that this occupation was a needless waste of human life with no justifiable cause, I could not say that I was just 'following orders' if I went along with it. The fact that I was ordered to participate in a criminal and immoral war makes my contract meaningless."

A humane response to a senseless situation. Arendt and Milgram would have approved.