Eternal vigilance is King!

Hannah Arendt (German, English; 2012)

Hannah Arendt, a political thinker, who is famous for her assessment of the Eichmann trial and the coining of the phrase 'banality of evil' is depicted here. The film depicts the time surrounding the trial and the controversies of Arendt's articles in the New Yorker and her subsequent book, 'Eichmann in Jerusalem' in 1963.

First of all, the trial was considered an illegal exercise. Eichmann was charged in the Israeli Courts for cruelty against humanity as if Israel had jurisdiction over this; there was already the Nuremberg trial for that, and the International Courts would be the appropriate platform to try war crimes. Furthermore, the Israeli Secret Service, Mossad,  apprehended him in Argentina through clandestine methods. Prime Minister of Israel then, Ben Gurion, thought it was apt that the world should hear the plight of the Jews during the Second World War. It was an opportune time for the Jews to showcase to the whole wide world their sufferings through the Holocaust survivors and 200 over witnesses during the trial.

Many of the trial scenes were actual footages of the actual proceedings. Interestingly, it is said that, at a time when Israel did not have TV transmission, the hearing was transmitted live the world over. It mainly drew viewers from the USA. 

Rather than seeing a monstrous person, the epitome of evil, Lieutenant Colonel Adolf Eichmann who was tasked with the logistics of transporting Jews to be terminated turned out to be an unimpressive chap. He had no personal hatred towards the Jewish people. He did not perceive his job as morally wrong and was not remorseful. He portrayed an image of a bureaucrat who was just interested in carrying out diligently the orders given to him by his superiors. With a smirk on his face, he gave the impression of victimisation, speaking in a bureaucratic language, comparing himself as a steak being grilled.

Arendt posited that totalitarianism is an absolute evil that is no longer related to human victory but its destruction. In the words of her somewhat tainted mentor and ex-lover, Martin Heidegger, thinking is a lonely business. It is easier to follow orders than to think. People feel that it is their job to just carry out the instruction and that judgement can be done by history or God in heaven.

Like a caged animal.
Eichmann in a bullet-proof glass enclosure.

As it appears, the whole stage was set for the world to sympathise with the Jewish, for the world to look at the accused with contempt. Arendt's article, on the other hand, did not vilify Eichmann but instead put him just as a vessel of a greater narrative. Eichmann was just a diligent civil servant, a non-thinking fool with no ill-intent but just carrying his designated duties. That is terrifying enough, worse than any atrocity carried out by evil regimes. The worse kind of evil is done by nobodies. And the act of evil becomes a banal affair.

Arendt got a lot of brickbat for that; accusing her of being as anti-Semantic and a closet Nazi supporter. Whatsmore with her past intimate liaison with Martin Heidegger, a Nazi party member. She was also ostracised for criticising the Jewish leadership for allowing such an event to happen in the first place. But that responsibility also fell on the people themselves for their inability to choose a capable one for themselves.

A pessimist outlook on the whole of humanity. The lesson we get here is that this type of mishap can happen anywhere. No part of the planet is immune from it. It is our duty as thinking individual to be wary Eternal vigilance is King. When a person is stripped of his name, identity and personality, he is no more a person, he is just a piece of flesh, a number.

https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/riflerangeboy/

Don't blame me, I am just following orders!

Experimenter (2015)

Now, how often have we seen seemingly good people doing incomprehensibly evil deeds which are atypical of their general behaviour and predisposition? Too many times, middle management officers had been cruel beyond comprehension just because they were given the authority to do so. Even though, these junior officials know it is wrong to do certain things, they still do it as long as somebody else is taking charge. This phenomenon of blind obedience to authority was a favourite subject of Dr Stanley Milgram, a Jewish psychologist whose relatives perished in Hitler's concentration camps.

The question of the Holocaust and the justification for the acts of genocide by those accused at the Nuremberg trial must have been close to his heart.

Around the time of Eichmann trial, in 1962, in Yale, Milgram performed an ingenious social experiment (see Youtube clip below) which was later condemned as unethical, for invoking emotional stress is some participants, to show that most people would perform immoral things if ordered to do so by an authoritative figure. Not many would stand up against the majority to fight for what he feels is just. He went on to show this in other planned experiments. We are followers and can be easily triggered to go into an agentic state where we behave like an agent of the people in authority without taking any responsibility for the consequence of our actions. We blindly follow the order of someone in authority.

Many of his social experiments made it to the telly as seen in 'Candid Camera' series. The movie ends by saying that we are just puppets but with perception and awareness. Perhaps we can achieve liberation if we are aware of the strings that tie us down!

In order to get things running in an orderly fashion, the society needs to have appendages that ease administration. It cannot have all its officers having a mind of their own and doing things their way. Pandemonium would be the order of the day. Unfortunately, people is power may abuse this privilege to fulfil their own self-agendas. Herein lies the danger as seen around us. Charismatic sweet talking politicians and wayward theologian have a way to the heart of the followers to turn them into automatons to perform their dirty job. Philip Zimbardo's notorious 1971 Stanford Prison Study showed findings of the same effect. In that experiment, it was the situation rather than their individual personality that determines the participants' behaviour.

Good people do bad things through omission, coercion, with the desire to conform to society and not rock the boat!

Conformists, not thinkers wanted!

Hannah Arendt (2012, English, German, Hebrew)
Yes, this is story of the chain smoking Jewish-American philosopher who at the height of her career would be sent to Israel in 1962 for observation and coverage of the Adolf Eichmann trial in Israel for atrocities against the Jews in Nazi Germany during WW2. 

She was thought to be the best candidate to cover the event as she herself, a Jewess, was a victim of Nazi imprisonment in France during WW2. 
What she was saw during her trial changed her life and her reputation forever. She could not understand why such an unimpressive servant who is just an ordinary man without any epitome of evil could do something so horrendous without an iota of guilt. He was just doing his job of transporting as if it was the most important thing in the world without thinking. He was more interested in completing his job (of transporting Jewish prisoners to Auschwitz concentration camp) than thinking on the consequences of his work.She reiterate that the worst kind of evil is the one done by nobodys with no motives and purpose. This, she described as 'the banality of evil'.
In her article later, she upset many fellow Holocaust survivors and peers for downplaying the evils of Eichmann and the Israeli courts for their wishy-washy steamrolling and witch-hunting of the trial. Unlike the Nuremberg trial, Eichmann was no leader but just a spoke in the wheel of the machinery. She also blamed the Jewish leaders partially for the Jewish predicament.
Arendt was cast as a pariah and labelled a Jewish hater and a Nazi collaborator even though she was a Jew herself.

Thinking is a silent dialogue between me and myself!