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| banality of evil psychology: Eichmann in Jerusalem Hannah Arendt, 2006-09-22 The controversial journalistic analysis of the mentality that fostered the Holocaust, from the author of The Origins of Totalitarianism Sparking a flurry of heated debate, Hannah Arendt’s authoritative and stunning report on the trial of German Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann first appeared as a series of articles in The New Yorker in 1963. This revised edition includes material that came to light after the trial, as well as Arendt’s postscript directly addressing the controversy that arose over her account. A major journalistic triumph by an intellectual of singular influence, Eichmann in Jerusalem is as shocking as it is informative—an unflinching look at one of the most unsettling (and unsettled) issues of the twentieth century. |
| banality of evil psychology: The Lucifer Effect Philip Zimbardo, 2008-01-22 The definitive firsthand account of the groundbreaking research of Philip Zimbardo—the basis for the award-winning film The Stanford Prison Experiment Renowned social psychologist and creator of the Stanford Prison Experiment Philip Zimbardo explores the mechanisms that make good people do bad things, how moral people can be seduced into acting immorally, and what this says about the line separating good from evil. The Lucifer Effect explains how—and the myriad reasons why—we are all susceptible to the lure of “the dark side.” Drawing on examples from history as well as his own trailblazing research, Zimbardo details how situational forces and group dynamics can work in concert to make monsters out of decent men and women. Here, for the first time and in detail, Zimbardo tells the full story of the Stanford Prison Experiment, the landmark study in which a group of college-student volunteers was randomly divided into “guards” and “inmates” and then placed in a mock prison environment. Within a week the study was abandoned, as ordinary college students were transformed into either brutal, sadistic guards or emotionally broken prisoners. By illuminating the psychological causes behind such disturbing metamorphoses, Zimbardo enables us to better understand a variety of harrowing phenomena, from corporate malfeasance to organized genocide to how once upstanding American soldiers came to abuse and torture Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib. He replaces the long-held notion of the “bad apple” with that of the “bad barrel”—the idea that the social setting and the system contaminate the individual, rather than the other way around. This is a book that dares to hold a mirror up to mankind, showing us that we might not be who we think we are. While forcing us to reexamine what we are capable of doing when caught up in the crucible of behavioral dynamics, though, Zimbardo also offers hope. We are capable of resisting evil, he argues, and can even teach ourselves to act heroically. Like Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem and Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate, The Lucifer Effect is a shocking, engrossing study that will change the way we view human behavior. Praise for The Lucifer Effect “The Lucifer Effect will change forever the way you think about why we behave the way we do—and, in particular, about the human potential for evil. This is a disturbing book, but one that has never been more necessary.”—Malcolm Gladwell “An important book . . . All politicians and social commentators . . . should read this.”—The Times (London) “Powerful . . . an extraordinarily valuable addition to the literature of the psychology of violence or ‘evil.’”—The American Prospect “Penetrating . . . Combining a dense but readable and often engrossing exposition of social psychology research with an impassioned moral seriousness, Zimbardo challenges readers to look beyond glib denunciations of evil-doers and ponder our collective responsibility for the world’s ills.”—Publishers Weekly “A sprawling discussion . . . Zimbardo couples a thorough narrative of the Stanford Prison Experiment with an analysis of the social dynamics of the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.”—Booklist “Zimbardo bottled evil in a laboratory. The lessons he learned show us our dark nature but also fill us with hope if we heed their counsel. The Lucifer Effect reads like a novel.”—Anthony Pratkanis, Ph.D., professor emeritus of psychology, University of California |
| banality of evil psychology: The Banality of Evil Bernard J. Bergen, 2000-01-01 This highly original book is the first to explore the political and philosophical consequences of Hannah Arendt's concept of 'the banality of evil,' a term she used to describe Adolph Eichmann, architect of the Nazi 'final solution.' According to Bernard J. Bergen, the questions that preoccupied Arendt were the meaning and significance of the Nazi genocide to our modern times. As Bergen describes Arendt's struggle to understand 'the banality of evil,' he shows how Arendt redefined the meaning of our most treasured political concepts and principles_freedom, society, identity, truth, equality, and reason_in light of the horrific events of the Holocaust. Arendt concluded that the banality of evil results from the failure of human beings to fully experience our common human characteristics_thought, will, and judgment_and that the exercise and expression of these attributes is the only chance we have to prevent a recurrence of the kind of terrible evil perpetrated by the Nazis. |
| banality of evil psychology: The Evil of Banality Elizabeth K. Minnich, 2024-11-05 In this expanded edition of The Evil of Banality, Elizabeth Minnich argues for a tragic yet hopeful explanation of “extensive evil,” her term for systematic, normalized harm-doing on the scale of genocide, slavery, sexualized dominance. The book now includes a new preface, new chapter, and expanded afterword addressing ongoing extensive evils, the paradox of lying, and the importance of developing the thinking without which conscience remains mute. Extensive evils are actually carried out not by psychopaths, but by people like your quiet next-door neighbor, your ambitious colleagues. There simply are not enough moral monsters to do the long hard work of extensive evils, nor enough saints for extensive good. In periods of extensive evil, people little different from you and me do its work for no more than a better job, a raise, the house of the family “disappeared” last week. So how can there be hope? Such evils are neither mysterious nor demonic. If we avoid romanticizing both the worst and best of which humans are capable, we can recognize and say no to extensive evil, practice and sustain extensive good, where they must take root – in ordinary lives. |
| banality of evil psychology: Eichmann in Jerusalem Hannah Arendt, 1963 Hannah Arendts authoritative report on the trial of Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann includes further factual material that came to light after the trial, as well as Arendts postscript directly addressing the controversy that arose over her account. |
| banality of evil psychology: The Man Who Shocked The World Thomas Blass, 2009-02-24 The creator of the famous Obedience Experiments, carried out at Yale in the 1960s, and originator of the six degrees of separation concept, Stanley Milgram was one of the most innovative scientists of our time. In this sparkling biography-the first in-depth portrait of Milgram-Thomas Blass captures the colorful personality and pioneering work of a social psychologist who profoundly altered the way we think about human nature. Born in the Bronx in 1933, Stanley Milgram was the son of Eastern European Jews, and his powerful Obedience Experiments had obvious intellectual roots in the Holocaust. The experiments, which confirmed that normal people would readily inflict pain on innocent victims at the behest of an authority figure, generated a firestorm of public interest and outrage-proving, as they did, that moral beliefs were far more malleable than previously thought. But Milgram also explored other aspects of social psychology, from information overload to television violence to the notion that we live in a small world. Although he died suddenly at the height of his career, his work continues to shape the way we live and think today. Blass offers a brilliant portrait of an eccentric visionary scientist who revealed the hidden workings of our very social world. |
| banality of evil psychology: The Banality of Good and Evil David R. Blumenthal, 1999-04-05 People who helped exterminate Jews during the shoah (Hebrew for holocaust) often claimed that they only did what was expected of them. Intrigued by hearing the same response from individuals who rescued Jews, David R. Blumenthal proposes that the notion of ordinariness used to characterize Nazi evil is equally applicable to goodness. In this provocative book, Blumenthal develops a new theory of human behavior that identifies the social and psychological factors that foster both good and evil behavior. Drawing on lessons primarily from the shoah but also from well-known obedience and altruism experiments, My Lai, and the civil rights movement, Blumenthal deftly interweaves insights from psychology, history, and social theory to create a new way of looking at human behavior. Blumenthal identifies the factors — social hierarchy, education, and childhood discipline — that shape both good and evil attitudes and actions. Considering how our religious and educational institutions might do a better job of encouraging goodness and discouraging evil, he then makes specific recommendations for cultivating goodness in people, stressing the importance of the social context of education. He reinforces his ideas through stories, teachings, and case histories from the Jewish tradition that convey important lessons in resistance and goodness. Appendices include the ethical code of the Israel Defense Forces, material on non-violence from the Martin Luther King, Jr., Center, a suggested syllabus for a Jewish elementary school, and a list of prosocial sources on the Web, as well as a complete bibliography. If people can commit acts of evil without thinking, why can’t even more commit acts of kindness? Writing with power and insight, Blumenthal shows readers of all faiths how we might replace patterns of evil with empathy, justice, and caring, and through a renewed attention to moral education, perhaps prevent future shoahs. |
| banality of evil psychology: Eichmann Before Jerusalem Bettina Stangneth, 2014-09-02 A total and groundbreaking reassessment of the life of Adolf Eichmann—a superb work of scholarship that reveals his activities and notoriety among a global network of National Socialists following the collapse of the Third Reich and that permanently challenges Hannah Arendt’s notion of the “banality of evil.” Smuggled out of Europe after the collapse of Germany, Eichmann managed to live a peaceful and active exile in Argentina for years before his capture by the Mossad. Though once widely known by nicknames such as “Manager of the Holocaust,” in 1961 he was able to portray himself, from the defendant’s box in Jerusalem, as an overworked bureaucrat following orders—no more, he said, than “just a small cog in Adolf Hitler’s extermination machine.” How was this carefully crafted obfuscation possible? How did a central architect of the Final Solution manage to disappear? And what had he done with his time while in hiding? Bettina Stangneth, the first to comprehensively analyze more than 1,300 pages of Eichmann’s own recently discovered written notes— as well as seventy-three extensive audio reel recordings of a crowded Nazi salon held weekly during the 1950s in a popular district of Buenos Aires—draws a chilling portrait, not of a reclusive, taciturn war criminal on the run, but of a highly skilled social manipulator with an inexhaustible ability to reinvent himself, an unrepentant murderer eager for acolytes with whom to discuss past glories while vigorously planning future goals with other like-minded fugitives. A work that continues to garner immense international attention and acclaim, Eichmann Before Jerusalem maps out the astonishing links between innumerable past Nazis—from ace Luftwaffe pilots to SS henchmen—both in exile and in Germany, and reconstructs in detail the postwar life of one of the Holocaust’s principal organizers as no other book has done |
| banality of evil psychology: Becoming Evil James Waller, 2002-06-27 Political or social groups wanting to commit mass murder on the basis of racial, ethnic or religious differences are never hindered by a lack of willing executioners. In Becoming Evil, social psychologist James Waller uncovers the internal and external factors that can lead ordinary people to commit extraordinary acts of evil. Waller debunks the common explanations for genocide- group think, psychopathology, unique cultures- and offers a more sophisticated and comprehensive psychological view of how anyone can potentially participate in heinous crimes against humanity. He outlines the evolutionary forces that shape human nature, the individual dispositions that are more likely to engage in acts of evil, and the context of cruelty in which these extraordinary acts can emerge. Illustrative eyewitness accounts are presented at the end of each chapter. An important new look at how evil develops, Becoming Evil will help us understand such tragedies as the Holocaust and recent terrorist events. Waller argues that by becoming more aware of the things that lead to extraordinary evil, we will be less likely to be surprised by it and less likely to be unwitting accomplices through our passivity. |
| banality of evil psychology: The Social Psychology of Good and Evil, First Edition Arthur G. Miller, 2013-10-24 This compelling work brings together an array of distinguished scholars to explore key concepts, theories, and findings pertaining to some of the most fundamental issues in social life: the conditions under which people are kind and helpful to others or, conversely, under which they commit harmful, even murderous, acts. Covered are such topics as the complex interaction of individual, societal, and situational factors underpinning good or evil behavior; the role of guilt and the self-concept; and issues of responsibility and motivation, including why good people do bad things. The volume also examines whether aggression and violence are inescapable aspects of human nature, and how cooperative interaction can break down stereotyping and discrimination. |
| banality of evil psychology: Anatomy of Malice Joel E. Dimsdale, 2016-05-28 An eminent psychiatrist delves into the minds of Nazi leadershipin “a fresh look at the nature of wickedness, and at our attempts to explain it” (Sir Simon Wessely, Royal College of Psychiatrists). When the ashes had settled after World War II and the Allies convened an international war crimes trial in Nuremberg, a psychiatrist, Douglas Kelley, and a psychologist, Gustave Gilbert, tried to fathom the psychology of the Nazi leaders, using extensive psychiatric interviews, IQ tests, and Rorschach inkblot tests. The findings were so disconcerting that portions of the data were hidden away for decades and the research became a topic for vituperative disputes. Gilbert thought that the war criminals’ malice stemmed from depraved psychopathology. Kelley viewed them as morally flawed, ordinary men who were creatures of their environment. Who was right? Drawing on his decades of experience as a psychiatrist and the dramatic advances within psychiatry, psychology, and neuroscience since Nuremberg, Joel E. Dimsdale looks anew at the findings and examines in detail four of the war criminals, Robert Ley, Hermann Göring, Julius Streicher, and Rudolf Hess. Using increasingly precise diagnostic tools, he discovers a remarkably broad spectrum of pathology. Anatomy of Malice takes us on a complex and troubling quest to make sense of the most extreme evil. “In this fascinating and compelling journey . . . a respected scientist who has long studied the Holocaust asks probing questions about the nature of malice. I could not put this book down.”—Thomas N. Wise, MD, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine “This harrowing tale and detective story asks whether the Nazi War Criminals were fundamentally like other people, or fundamentally different.”—T.M. Luhrmann, author of How God Becomes Real |
| banality of evil psychology: Psychoanalysis of Evil Henry Kellerman, 2014-08-31 |
| banality of evil psychology: The Psychology of Socialism Gustave Le Bon, 2017-09-08 First published in 1899 during a period of crisis for French democracy, The Psychology of Socialism details Le Bon's view of socialism and radicalism primarily as religious movements. The emotionalism and hysteria of the period-especially as manifested during the Dreyfuss Affair-convinced Le Bon that most political controversy is based neither on reasoned deliberation nor rational interest, but on a psychology that partakes of contatgion andhysteria. Le Bon points to the irrationality of religion and uses the religiosity of socialism to debunk socialism as an irrational movement based on hatred and jealousy. |
| banality of evil psychology: The Psychology of Good and Evil Ervin Staub, 2003-07-21 This book gathers the knowledge gained in a lifelong study of the roots of goodness and evil. Since the late 1960s, Ervin Staub has studied the causes of helpful, caring, generous, and altruistic behavior. He has also studied bullying and victimization in schools as well as youth violence and its prevention. He spent years studying the origins of genocide and mass killing and has examined the Holocaust, the genocide of the Armenians, the autogenocide in Cambodia, the disappearances in Argentina, the genocide in Rwanda. He has applied his work in many real world settings and has consulted parents, teachers, police officers, and political leaders. Since September 11th, he has appeared frequently in the media explaining the causes and prevention of terrorism. Professor Staub's work is collected together for the first time in The Psychology of Good and Evil. |
| banality of evil psychology: Hitler's Bureaucrats Yaacov Lozowick, 2005-07-01 For many, the name Adolf Eichmann is synonymous with the Nazi murder of six million Jews. Alongside Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler, he is probably the most infamous of the Nazi murderers; unlike them, the aura linked to his name is that of the ultimate evil that may lurk in each and every one of us. This understanding can be attributed above all to Hannah Arendt, and her seminal book, Eichmann in Jersualem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, in which she suggested that Eighcmann and many bureaucrats like him never actually realized what they were doing:they were thoughtless rather than consciously evil. By taking this position, Arendt rejected the biblical story of Genesis, which sets the ability to distinguish between right and wrong at the very core of beign human. Instead, she implied that Eichmann represented a potential face of the future. This book claims that she was wrong. It describes the facts as they appear in the documentation created by Eichmann and his colleagues, and suggest that they fully understood what they were doing. The primary motivating force for their actions was a well-developed acceptance of th tenents of Nazi ideology, of which antisemitism was a central component. As far as one is able to determine, after the war not a single one of them ever expressed regret for their actions against the Jews, unless it was regret for having to pay the consequences. These were no run-of-the-mill bureaucrats who merely 'followed orders'. |
| banality of evil psychology: The Science of Evil Simon Baron-Cohen, 2012-09-04 A groundbreaking and challenging examination of the social, cognitive, neurological, and biological roots of psychopathy, cruelty, and evil Borderline personality disorder, autism, narcissism, psychosis: All of these syndromes have one thing in common--lack of empathy. In some cases, this absence can be dangerous, but in others it can simply mean a different way of seeing the world.In The Science of Evil Simon Baron-Cohen, an award-winning British researcher who has investigated psychology and autism for decades, develops a new brain-based theory of human cruelty. A true psychologist, however, he examines social and environmental factors that can erode empathy, including neglect and abuse. Based largely on Baron-Cohen's own research, The Science of Evil will change the way we understand and treat human cruelty. |
| banality of evil psychology: The Life of the Mind Hannah Arendt, 1981 The author's final work, presented in a one-volume edition, is a rich, challenging analysis of man's mental activity, considered in terms of thinking, willing, and judging. Edited by Mary McCarthy; Indices. |
| banality of evil psychology: The Path to Mass Evil Michael Hardiman, 2022-07-19 On the Southern border of the United States in 2018, the decision was made to implement a separation policy among refugees and migrant families arriving at the border – and so a group of government employees left their homes, bidding farewell to their families as they went to work, and began to separate hundreds of children from their families, forcefully taking them to holding centres. Developing Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the banality of evil, The Path to Mass Evil demonstrates how the most educated, sophisticated and advanced societies in human history have the potential to descend into profound inhumanity and in the extreme can turn into enormous killing machines, implementing mass murder on a vast scale. Suitable for undergraduates and graduates in philosophy, sociology, psychology and religion, Michael Hardiman reveals how traditional understandings of morality fail to grasp how ordinary citizens become collaborators and engage in a range of levels of evildoing. He also highlights the necessity of confronting this evil in the increasingly divided and antagonistic world in which we find ourselves today. |
| banality of evil psychology: Beyond Choices Miguel Sicart, 2013-09-06 How computer games can be designed to create ethically relevant experiences for players. Today's blockbuster video games—and their never-ending sequels, sagas, and reboots—provide plenty of excitement in high-resolution but for the most part fail to engage a player's moral imagination. In Beyond Choices, Miguel Sicart calls for a new generation of video and computer games that are ethically relevant by design. In the 1970s, mainstream films—including The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, Raging Bull, and Taxi Driver—filled theaters but also treated their audiences as thinking beings. Why can't mainstream video games have the same moral and aesthetic impact? Sicart argues that it is time for games to claim their place in the cultural landscape as vehicles for ethical reflection. Sicart looks at games in many manifestations: toys, analog games, computer and video games, interactive fictions, commercial entertainments, and independent releases. Drawing on philosophy, design theory, literary studies, aesthetics, and interviews with game developers, Sicart provides a systematic account of how games can be designed to challenge and enrich our moral lives. After discussing such topics as definition of ethical gameplay and the structure of the game as a designed object, Sicart offers a theory of the design of ethical game play. He also analyzes the ethical aspects of game play in a number of current games, including Spec Ops: The Line, Beautiful Escape: Dungeoneer, Fallout New Vegas, and Anna Anthropy's Dys4Ia. Games are designed to evoke specific emotions; games that engage players ethically, Sicart argues, enable us to explore and express our values through play. |
| banality of evil psychology: Evil and Human Agency Arne Johan Vetlesen, 2005-12-01 Evil is a poorly understood phenomenon. In this provocative 2005 book, Professor Vetlesen argues that to do evil is to intentionally inflict pain on another human being, against his or her will, and causing serious and foreseeable harm. Vetlesen investigates why and in what sort of circumstances such a desire arises, and how it is channeled, or exploited, into collective evildoing. He argues that such evildoing, pitting whole groups against each other, springs from a combination of character, situation, and social structure. By combining a philosophical approach inspired by Hannah Arendt, a psychological approach inspired by C. Fred Alford and a sociological approach inspired by Zygmunt Bauman, and bringing these to bear on the Holocaust and ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia, Vetlesen shows how closely perpetrators, victims, and bystanders interact, and how aspects of human agency are recognized, denied, and projected by different agents. |
| banality of evil psychology: Becoming Eichmann David Cesarani, 2007-04-24 Becoming Eichmann, the first account of Eichmann's life to appear in over forty years, reveals a surprising portrait of the man once seen as epitomizing the “banality of evil.” Drawing on recently unearthed documents, David Cesarani explores Eichmann's early career, when he learned how to become an administrator of genocide, and shows how Eichmann developed into the Reich's “expert” on Jewish matters, becoming ever more hateful and brutal. This sobering account deepens our understanding and challenges our preconceptions of Adolf Eichmann and offers fresh insights into both the operation of the “Final Solution” and its most notorious perpetrator. |
| banality of evil psychology: Talking about Evil Rina Lazar, 2016-10-04 How can we talk about evil? How can we make sense of its presence all around us? How can we come to terms with the sad fact that our involvement in doing or enabling evil is an interminable aspect of our lives in the world? This book is an attempt to engage these questions in a new way. Written from within the complicated reality of Israel, the contributors to this book forge a collective effort to think about evil from multiple perspectives. A necessary effort, since psychoanalysis has been slow to account for the existence of evil, while philosophy and the social sciences have tended to neglect its psychological aspects. The essays collected here join to form a wide canvas on which a portrait of evil gradually emerges, from the Bible, through the enlightenment to the Holocaust; from Kant, through Freud, Klein, Bromberg and Stein to Arendt, Agamben and Bauman; using literature, history, cinema, social theory and psychoanalysis. Talking about Evil opens up a much needed space for thinking, in itself an antidote to evil. It will be of interest to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, and scholars and students of philosophy, social theory and the humanities. |
| banality of evil psychology: Political Psychology Christopher J. Hewer, Evanthia Lyons, 2018-08-17 A research-based guide to political psychology that is filled with critical arguments from noted experts Political Psychology is solidly grounded in empirical research and critical arguments. The text puts the emphasis on alternative approaches to psychological enquiry that challenge our traditional assumptions about the world. With contributions from an international panel of experts, the text contains a meaningful exchange of ideas that draw on the disciplines of social psychology, sociology, history, media studies and philosophy. This important text offers a broader understanding of the different intellectual positions that academics may take towards political psychology. Comprehensive in scope Political Psychology provides a historical context to the subject and offers a critical history of common research methods. The contributors offer insight on political thought in psychology, the politics of psychological language, narrating as political action, political decision-making and much more. This important text: Offers contributions from a panel of international experts on the topic Includes a review of some political ideas associated with the work of Karl Marx, Erich Fromm, R.D. Laing, Michel Foucault and others Presents information on prejudice, stereotypes and discrimination in the context of mass migration Reviews a wide range of relevant topics such as identity, social exclusion and foreign policy and more Contains questions for group debate and discussion at the end of each chapter Written for academics and students of political psychology, Political Psychology is a comprehensive resource that includes contributions from experts in a variety of fields and disciplines. |
| banality of evil psychology: Being Evil Luke Russell, 2020 With the media bringing us constant tales of terrorism and violence, questions regarding the nature of evil are highly topical. Luke Russell explores the philosophical thinking and psychological evidence behind evil, alongside portrayals of fictional villains, considering why people are evil, and how it goes beyond the normal realms of what is bad. |
| banality of evil psychology: Ordinary Men Christopher R. Browning, 2013-04-16 The shocking account of how a unit of average middle-aged Germans became the cold-blooded murderers of tens of thousands of Jews. |
| banality of evil psychology: The Nuremberg Mind Florence R. Miale, Michael Selzer, 1975 |
| banality of evil psychology: Psychology and the Natural Law of Reparation C. Fred Alford, 2006-05-15 Are there universal values of right and wrong, good and bad, shared by virtually every human? The tradition of natural law argues that there is. Drawing on the work of psychoanalyst Melanie Klein, whose analyses have touched upon issues related to original sin, trespass, guilt, and salvation through reparation, in this 2006 book C. Fred Alford adds an extra dimension to this argument: we know natural law to be true because we have hated before we have loved and have wished to destroy before we have wanted to create. Natural law is built upon the desire to make reparation for the goodness we have destroyed, or have longed to destroy. Through reparation, we earn salvation from the most hateful part of ourselves, that which would destroy what we know to be good. |
| banality of evil psychology: Evil in Modern Thought Susan Neiman, 2015-08-25 Whether expressed in theological or secular terms, evil poses a problem about the world's intelligibility. It confronts philosophy with fundamental questions: Can there be meaning in a world where innocents suffer? Can belief in divine power or human progress survive a cataloging of evil? Is evil profound or banal? Neiman argues that these questions impelled modern philosophy. Traditional philosophers from Leibniz to Hegel sought to defend the Creator of a world containing evil. Inevitably, their efforts--combined with those of more literary figures like Pope, Voltaire, and the Marquis de Sade--eroded belief in God's benevolence, power, and relevance, until Nietzsche claimed He had been murdered. They also yielded the distinction between natural and moral evil that we now take for granted. Neiman turns to consider philosophy's response to the Holocaust as a final moral evil, concluding that two basic stances run through modern thought. One, from Rousseau to Arendt, insists that morality demands we make evil intelligible. The other, from Voltaire to Adorno, insists that morality demands that we don't. |
| banality of evil psychology: Get 'em All! Kill 'em! Bruce Wilshire, 2005 Why do groups become genocidal and try to incapacitate all members of an alien group, even sometimes killing fetuses? Prematurely alluding to evil or to the Devil blocks the possibility for further inquiry. Get 'Em All! Kill 'Em! is the first systematic attempt to explain what, up until now, has seemed to be inexplicable phenomena. |
| banality of evil psychology: Arguing, Obeying and Defying Stephen Gibson, 2019-03-07 Presents an extensive qualitative analysis of the transcripts of Stanley Milgram's (in)famous obedience experiments. |
| banality of evil psychology: Thinking Without a Banister Hannah Arendt, 2021-02-23 Hannah Arendt was born in Germany in 1906 and lived in America from 1941 until her death in 1975. Thus her life spanned the tumultuous years of the twentieth century, as did her thought. She did not consider herself a philosopher, though she studied and maintained close relationships with two great philosophers—Karl Jaspers and Martin Heidegger—throughout their lives. She was a thinker, in search not of metaphysical truth but of the meaning of appearances and events. She was a questioner rather than an answerer, and she wrote what she thought, principally to encourage others to think for themselves. Fearless of the consequences of thinking, Arendt found courage woven in each and every strand of human freedom. In 1951 she published The Origins of Totalitarianism, in 1958 The Human Condition, in 1961 Between Past and Future, in 1963 On Revolution and Eichmann in Jerusalem, in 1968 Men in Dark Times, in 1970 On Violence, in 1972 Crises of the Republic, and in 1978, posthumously, The Life of the Mind. Starting at the turn of the twenty-first century, Schocken Books has published a series of collections of Arendt’s unpublished and uncollected writings, of which Thinking Without a Banister is the fifth volume. The title refers to Arendt’s description of her experience of thinking, an activity she indulged without any of the traditional religious, moral, political, or philosophic pillars of support. The book’s contents are varied: the essays, lectures, reviews, interviews, speeches, and editorials, taken together, manifest the relentless activity of her mind as well as her character, acquainting the reader with the person Arendt was, and who has hardly yet been appreciated or understood. (Edited and with an introduction by Jerome Kohn) |
| banality of evil psychology: Women and Evil Nel Noddings, 1991-05-08 Human beings love to fictionalize evil--to terrorize each other with stories of defilement, horror, excruciating pain, and divine retribution. Beneath the surface of bewitchment and half-sick amusement, however, lies the realization that evil is real and that people must find a way to face and overcome it. What we require, Carl Jung suggested, is a morality of evil--a carefully thought out plan by which to manage the evil in ourselves, in others, and in whatever deities we posit. This book is not written from a Jungian perspective, but it is nonetheless an attempt to describe a morality of evil. One suspects that descriptions of evil and the so-called problem of evil have been thoroughly suffused with male interests and conditioned by masculine experience. This result could hardly have been avoided in a sexist culture, and recognizing the truth of such a claim does not commit us to condemn every male philosopher and theologian who has written on the problem. It suggests, rather, that we may get a clearer view of evil if we take a different standpoint. The standpoint I take here will be that of women; that is, I will attempt to describe evil from the perspective of women's experience. |
| banality of evil psychology: Understanding Genocide Leonard S. Newman, Ralph Erber, 2002 When and why do groups target each other for extermination? How do seemingly normal people become participants in genocide? In these essays, social psychologists use the principles derived from contemporary research in their field to try to shed light on the behaviour of perpetrators of genocide. |
| banality of evil psychology: Evil Julia Shaw, 2019-02-26 An expert in criminology and psychology uses science to understand evil in today’s society. What is it about evil that we find so compelling? From our obsession with serial killers to violence in pop culture, we seem inescapably drawn to the stories of monstrous acts and the aberrant people who commit them. But evil, Dr. Julia Shaw argues, is largely subjective. What one may consider normal, like sex before marriage, eating meat, or working on Wall Street, others find abhorrent. And if evil is only in the eye of the beholder, can it be said to exist at all? In Evil, Shaw uses an engrossing mix of science, popular culture, and real-life examples to break down timely and provocative issues. How similar is your brain to a psychopath’s? How many people have murder fantasies? Can artificial intelligence be evil? Do your sexual proclivities make you a bad person? Who becomes a terrorist? If you could travel back in time, would you kill baby Hitler? In asking these questions, Shaw urges readers to discover empathy and to rethink and reshape what it means to be bad. Evil is a wide-ranging exploration into a fascinating, darkly compelling subject from wickedly smart and talented writer. Praise for Evil “A brilliant panorama that elucidates humanity’s dark side. . . . This science-based foundation for studying the minds of sadists, mass murderers, freaks and creeps, as well the new role of tech in promoting evil is presented in a totally engaging fashion.” —Philip Zimbardo, PhD; Professor Emeritus, Stanford University; author of The Lucifer Effect “This overview of various kinds of aberrant behavior grouped under the umbrella term evil is well backed up by the expertise of Shaw. . . . Shaw’s work will be particularly appropriate for college and high school libraries for its sober-minded, academically rigorous examination of an oft-sensationalized subject.” —Publishers Weekly “Capably written with a smooth mix of scientific insight and theoretical thought, the book will hopefully inspire empathy and understanding rather than hysteria and condemnation. A consistently fascinating journey into the darker sides of the human condition that will push on the boundaries of readers’ comfort zones.” —Kirkus Reviews |
| banality of evil psychology: Radical Evil Richard J. Bernstein, 2002-08-02 At present, there is an enormous gulf between the visibility of evil and the paucity of our intellectual resources for coming to grips with it. We have been flooded with images of death camps, terrorist attacks and horrendous human suffering. Yet when we ask what we mean by radical evil and how we are to account for it, we seem to be at a loss for proper responses. Bernstein seeks to discover what we can learn about the meaning of evil and human responsibility. He turns to philosophers such as Kant, who coined the expression 'radical evil', as well as to Hegel and Schelling. He also examines more recent explorations of evil, namely the thinking of Freud and Nietzsche on the moral psychology of evil. Finally, he looks at the way in which three post-Holocaust thinkers - Emmanuel Levinas, Hans Jonas, and Hannah Arendt - have sought to come to grips with evil after Auschwitz. Bernstein's primary concern throughout this challenging book is to enrich and deepen our understanding of evil in the contemporary world, and to emphasize the vigilance and personal responsibility required for combating it. Radical Evil will be essential reading for students and scholars of philosophy, social and political theory, and religious studies. |
| banality of evil psychology: Exit Right Daniel Oppenheimer, 2016 Oppenheimer takes a provocative, intimate look at the evolution of America's political soul through the lives of six political figures who abandoned the left and joined the right: Whittaker Chambers, James Burnham, Ronald Reagan, Norman Podhoretz, David Horowitz, and Christopher Hitchens. The result is an unusually intimate history of the American left, and the right's reaction. |
| banality of evil psychology: Bower Lodge Paul Pastor, 2021-12-10 Bower Lodge journeys inward to a wild landscape of joy, grief, and transformation. By turns mournful, meditative, incantatory, and rejoicing, this poetry collection's fresh, potent images and unforgettable, musical language carves a map into that hidden, holy world that lies deep at the core of our own. |
| banality of evil psychology: Working Towards the Führer Anthony McElligott, Tim Kirk, 2003 Covering issues such as the legacy of the World Wars, the female voter, propaganda, occupied lands, the judiciary, public opinion and resistance, this volume furthers the debate on how Nazi Germany operated. Gone are the post-war stereotypes--instead there is a more complex picture of the regime and its actions, one that shows the instability of the dictatorship, its dependence on a measure of consent as well as coercion. |
| banality of evil psychology: The Nazi and the Psychiatrist Jack El-Hai, 2013-09-10 In 1945, after his capture at the end of the Second World War, Hermann Gög arrived at an American-run detention center in war-torn Luxembourg, accompanied by sixteen suitcases and a red hatbox. The suitcases contained all manner of paraphernalia: medals, gems, two cigar cutters, silk underwear, a hot water bottle, and the equivalent of 1 million in cash. Hidden in a coffee can, a set of brass vials housed glass capsules containing a clear liquid and a white precipitate: potassium cyanide. Joining Gög in the detention center were the elite of the captured Nazi regime -- Grand Admiral Döz; armed forces commander Wilhelm Keitel and his deputy Alfred Jodl; the mentally unstable Robert Ley; the suicidal Hans Frank; the pornographic propagandist Julius Streicher -- fifty-two senior Nazis in all, of whom the dominant figure was Gög. To ensure that the villainous captives were fit for trial at Nuremberg, the US army sent an ambitious army psychiatrist, Captain Douglas M. Kelley, to supervise their mental well-being during their detention. Kelley realized he was being offered the professional opportunity of a lifetime: to discover a distinguishing trait among these arch-criminals that would mark them as psychologically different from the rest of humanity. So began a remarkable relationship between Kelley and his captors, told here for the first time with unique access to Kelley's long-hidden papers and medical records. Kelley's was a hazardous quest, dangerous because against all his expectations he began to appreciate and understand some of the Nazi captives, none more so than the former Reichsmarshall, Hermann Gög. Evil had its charms. |
| banality of evil psychology: Enhanced Interrogation James E. Mitchell (Psychologist), Bill Harlow, 2016 The creator of the CIA's controversial Enhanced Interrogation Program provides a dramatic firsthand account of the design, implementation, flaws and aftermath of the program, including personally interrogating 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and learning from America's enemies what we need to know to win the continuing struggle against global jihad-- |
The Political Psychology of Evil - JSTOR
The Political Psychology of Evil C. Fred Alford Professor of Government University of Maryland Fifty-eight subjects were interviewed about their concepts of evil. They include students, ... A …
Banality of Heroism - Springer
The banality of evil is matched by the banality of heroism. Both are not the consequences of disposi-tional tendencies, not special inner attributes of ... Psychology Compass 2 (4): …
Making a Virtue of Evil: A Five-Step Social Identity Model of …
Social and Personality Psychology Compass 2/3 (2008): 1313–1344, 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00113.x Making a Virtue of Evil: A Five-Step Social Identity Model of the …
The Eichmann Polemics: Hannah Arendt and Her Critics - Dissent
on the Banality of Evil. During the Second World War, Adolf Eichmann had been the head of Section IV-B-4 in the Nazi SS, overseeing the deportation of the Jews to their deaths. After the …
Becoming Evil How Ordinary People Commit Genocide And …
Evil The Chronicles of Elira How Hitler was Even More Evil Than You Think - Prof. Jordan Peterson The Psychology of Evil People How Did Ordinary Citizens Become Murderers? …
What Does Banality Of Evil Mean - pivotid.uvu.edu
The Evil of Banality Elizabeth K. Minnich,2016-12-07 How is it possible to murder a million people one by one? Hatred, fear, madness of one or many people cannot explain it. No one can be so …
Banality of Heroism - Springer
The banality of evil is matched by the banality of heroism. Both are not the consequences of disposi-tional tendencies, not special inner attributes of ... Psychology Compass 2 (4): …
Downfall Social Psychology…the investigation of how our …
evil”. These are idealism, threatened egotism, instrumentalism, and sadism. • Of these, Baumeister sees idealism and threatened egotism as the primary factors relevant to the …
The banality of education policy: Discipline as extensive evil …
School of Education, Language and Psychology, York St John University, York, UK ... zero tolerance, banality of evil, school discipline, no excuses, isolation, behaviour management, …
What Does Banality Of Evil Mean - api.flyairpeace.com
philosopher Hannah Arendt coined the phrase “the banality of evil” to explain the psychology of Nazis who killed Jews during the Holocaust. In the ensuing years the world has witnessed …
Contesting the ‘‘Nature’’ Of Conformity: What Milgram …
psychology of tyranny is dominat-ed by classic studies from the 1960s and 1970s: Milgram’s research on obedience to authority and Zim-bardo’s Stanford Prison Experi-ment. Supporting …
Eichmann's Kant - JSTOR
Arendt believed that Eichmann's being expressed a "banality" of evil, that is, an evil emanating not from a will (to do evil) but from a lack of thinking. Eichmann was not a pathological criminal; …
Extreme Obedience Milgram’s Obedience Experiment - uwo.ca
The Banality of Evil From Eichmann in Jerusalem, 1963 • [Eichmann] remembered perfectly well that he would have had a bad conscience only if he had not done what he had been ordered to …
The Banality of Heroism
As we have come to understand the psychology of evil, we have realized that such transformations of ... Historical inquiry and behavioral science have demonstrated the “banality …
HANNAH ARENDT: RADICAL EVIL, RADICAL HOPE - JSTOR
Hannah Arendt: Radical Evil, Radical Hope place. Her use of the term 'radical evil' and later of the 'banality of evil' leads in this article to a question as to whether the concept of 'radical hope' …
The Lucifer-Effect – The Importance of Arendt’s ’Banality of …
’Banality of Evil’ for Social Psychology In 1971 the social-psychologist Philip Zimbardo showed with his ”Stanford Prison Experiment“ that certain social and political conditions are favourable …
The banality of evil - cpalanka.org
Jerusalem called the “banality of evil”. Arendt’s book was based on the trial of Adolph Eichmann, a Nazi war criminal, in Jerusalem and her thesis was that people ... Psychology at Stanford …
Banality Of Evil Meaning - new.context.org
The banality of evil challenges this simplistic view. It necessitates a deeper understanding of the psychosocial factors, social dynamics, and ... This phenomenon, well-documented in …
Is Radical Evil Banal - PhilArchive
diabolical character or pathological psychology. In her Eichmann book Arendt claims that her account of the banality of evil works only at a “strictly factual level”,28 and is thus not to be …
The Lucifer-Effect – The Importance of Arendt’s ’Banality of …
’Banality of Evil’ for Social Psychology In 1971 the social-psychologist Philip Zimbardo showed with his ”Stanford Prison Experiment“ that certain social and political conditions are favourable …
Banality Of Evil Meaning - gsy-www01.bailiwickexpress.com
1. Is the banality of evil a justification for harmful actions? No, it is not. Recognizing the banality of evil is about understanding the mechanisms behind harmful acts, not excusing them. 2. How …
Is Radical Evil Banal - PhilPapers
diabolical character or pathological psychology. In her Eichmann book Arendt claims that her account of the banality of evil works only at a “strictly factual level”,28 and is thus not to be …
Working Paper The Psychology of Evil: Reality and …
This article also considers the concept of the banality of evil, the existence of social psychological forces, and social experiments that suggest that seemingly normal people willingly commit …
Hannah Arendt The Banality Of Evil - ffcp.garena
the Non-Banality of Evil The Life of the Mind Hitler's Bureaucrats The Trial That Never Ends Psychoanalysis of Evil Unlearning with Hannah Arendt The Eichmann Trial Evil and Human …
What Does Banality Of Evil Mean - apache4.rationalwiki.org
Banality Of Evil Mean - apache4.rationalwiki.org WEBtaken-for-grantedness of social practices over Hannah Arendt on Banality - De Gruyter WEBThe banality of evil—the ability to kill …
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the banality of evil.
3. Ervin Staub, The Psychology of Good and Evil. This is an optional purchase; we will read several chapters, but it will also be available as an e-book through the libraries. If you would …
Banality Brannigan - JSTOR
BOOKREVIEWS Branniganprovidesawealthofinformationregardingissuesrelatedtogenocide andgivesaninsightintothesystematizationofgenocide,particularlyinrelationtothe ...
Trump’s Inducement of America’s Banality of Evil - PhilArchive
Keywords: Trump; Arendt; banality of evil; philosophy of law; psychopathology Competing Interests Statement: The author declares no competing interests. 2 Trump’s Inducement of …
The banality of education policy: Discipline as extensive evil …
School of Education, Language and Psychology, York St John University, York, UK ... zero tolerance, banality of evil, school discipline, no excuses, isolation, behaviour management, …
The Banality Of Evil Hannah Arendt
The Banality Of Evil Hannah Arendt Questioning the banality of evil | The Psychologist The Banality of Evil: Hannah Arendt and 'The Final ... Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem: A …
Hannah Arendt and the Banality of Evil - JSTOR
died. Arendt did not mean that banality is itself evil, nor did she assert that evil is always banal. (Whereas Eichmann held a series of conven-tional jobs in Argentina-managing a farm, working …
MODERNITY AND THE EVIL OF BANALITY - JSTOR
sist, so will the potential for this evil. But banality and evil have another affinity equally typical of modernity; and it is the mirror image of the first: not only has evil lost transcendence and …
MODERNITY AND THE EVIL OF BANALITY - JSTOR
sist, so will the potential for this evil. But banality and evil have another affinity equally typical of modernity; and it is the mirror image of the first: not only has evil lost transcendence and …
Heroism: A Conceptual Analysis and Differentiation Between …
ArendtÕs (1963) Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil , which underscored the latent ability of even seemingly normal people to commit horriÞc acts. The banality of heroism ...
Banality Of Evil Meaning - lms.sabt.edu.au
The banality of evil challenges this simplistic view. It necessitates a deeper understanding of the psychosocial factors, social dynamics, and ... This phenomenon, well-documented in …
Rethinking the psychology of tyranny: The BBC prison study
In the introduction to his text on The Roots of Evil, Staub writes: ‘the widespread hope and belief that human beings had become increasingly ‘civilized’ was shattered by the ... group-level …
Is Radical Evil Banal - philarchive.org
fundamentally interdependent. Instead, I contend that radical evil and the banality of evil are independent but nonetheless highly complementary concepts. 2. Radical Evil For Arendt, as for …
Providing evidence for a philosophical claim: The Act of Killing …
explanation of the banality of evil and also a serious problem in her account. The portrait of Eichmann that emerges from her report as someone who took his own career more seriously …
Más allá de la obediencia: reanálisis de la investigación de …
Milgram’s obedience to authority study is considered one of the most important studies in social psychology. Its im-pact has gradually spread to social psychology, other branches of …
EVIL IN ORGANIZATIONS AND CORPORATIONS: THE …
Zimbardo’s social psychology, I will provide a general definition of the concept as the basis for application and case studies in public administration and private business corporations. ... My …
The Human Chameleon: Zelig, Nietzsche and the Banality of …
and the Banality of Evil Nidesh Lawtoo, KU Leuven Abstract: This article revisits the case of Woody Allen’s mockumentary Zelig (1983) via Friedrich Nietzsche’s diagnostic of mimicry in …
David R. Blumenthal. The Banality of Good and Evil: Moral
human being, as well as what forces contribute to evil. The second is to identify teachings and moral precepts from the Jewish Tradition that could prevent the ba-nality of evil. The Banality …
Heroism Research: A Review of Theories, Methods, …
the last century, despite an almost overwhelming interest in the psychology of evil (Franco & Zimbardo, 2016). ... “the banality of hero-ism”). This idea crystalizing the notion of “small-h …
full - platypus1917.org
Note to the Reader This is a revised and enlarged edition of the book which first appeared in May, 1963. I covered the Eichmann trial at Jerusalem in 1961 for The New Yorker, where this …
The Banality of Evil
The Banality of Evil 43 workers to visit institutions and take family histories of the patients. It was inspired also by the work of Richard Dugdale, who compiled family histo-ries of criminals and …
THE BYSTANDER’S DILEMMA The Banality of HEROISM
THE BYSTANDER’S DILEMMA thirty-five years ago, one of us (Philip Zimbardo) launched what is known as the Stanford Prison Experiment. Twen-ty-four young men, who had responded to
