The Evil of Banality

[Dave Monroe]

The Evil of BanalityTroubling new revelations about Arendt and Heidegger.
By Ron Rosenbaum
Posted Friday, Oct. 30, 2009, at 12:37 PM ET


Will we ever be able to think of Hannah Arendt in the same way again?
Two new and damning critiques, one of Arendt and one of her longtime
Nazi-sycophant lover, the philosopher Martin Heidegger, were published
within 10 days of each other last month. The pieces cast further doubt
on the overinflated, underexamined reputations of both figures and
shed new light on their intellectually toxic relationship.

My hope is that these revelations will encourage a further
discrediting of the most overused, misused, abused pseudo-intellectual
phrase in our language: the banality of evil. The banality of the
banality of evil, the fatuousness of it, has long been fathomless, but
perhaps now it will be consigned to the realm of the deceitful and
disingenuous as well.

[...]

http://www.slate.com/id/2234010/