The Evil of Banality

[Robert Mahnke]

If you don't like his work, that's too bad. I find his stuff valuable
(though I don't have an opinion on his piece about Arendt).  I haven't
read the Hitler book, but I got a lot out of his Shakespeare book and
his collection of essays, the Secret Parts of Fortune.  I was a
regular reader of his NY Observer column, though I read it less often
now that he's at Slate.  Rosenbaum turned me onto Charles Portis, a
real gift.  He's also enough of a Pynchon fan to have devoted a whole
column to Mason & Dixon months before it came out
(http://www.thomaspynchon.com/mason-dixon/reviews/rosenbaum.html).

On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 1:02 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> Rosenbaums hyper inflated language and refutation via innuendo combine
> perfectly with the weak  logic of his  arguments to deter me from reading
> anything else he has to say.
> On Nov 28, 2009, at 12:06 AM, Richard Romeo wrote:
>
>> Read that one too
>> I liked it but it's hardly a scholarly work
>> A series of interviews really
>> I'm not sure u can dismiss heideggers work because he was an asshole
>>
>> Sent from my iPod
>>
>> On Nov 27, 2009, at 7:22 PM, Robert Mahnke <rpmahnke at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> In Rosenbaum's defense, he didn't just a read a book (or the two
>>> prompting this article), he also wrote one:
>>>
>>> http://www.amazon.com/Explaining-Hitler-Search-Origins-Evil/dp/006095339X
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 1:21 PM, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> i'm sure many experts in philosophy read Slate to help them with their
>>>> scholarly investigations and conclusions
>>>>
>>>> hey, I've [rosenbaum] read a book on the subject and now I'm bursting
>>>> with ill-deserved indignation
>>>>
>>>> whatever you think about these two, you best read their work, and not
>>>> some pseudo-intellectual to make your judgements for you
>>>>
>>>> and can u condemn a scholar's work solely because of his/her own
>>>> actions which can be seen as brutish, petty, etc.
>>>>
>>>> I recently re-read The Banality of Evil and found it as powerful as
>>>> ever though Arendt, to give one example, was insanely viscious to Raul
>>>> Hilberg's work.
>>>>
>>>> just saying...
>>>>
>>>> rich
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 10:38 PM, Dave Monroe
>>>> <against.the.dave at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> 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/
>>>>>
>>>>
>
>