HANNAH ARENDT

Hannah Arendt: German Jewish Philosopher

The Human Condition
Between Past and Future

On Revolution

Men in Dark Times

Crises of the Republic

The Life of the Mind

I found this DVD at the library about a woman I had never heard of named Hannah Arendt. I grew up with a family named Arendt, but we pronounced it like one word “aren’t” . It seems the original is two syllables, like A-rend(t). 

She was an academic tenured professor and wrote about a lot of ideas, but the movie’s story was about her most controversial work called Eichmann in Jerusalem. It had the usual effect on my historical knowledge. It expanded it in a highly relatable format that I love (movie investments are short and sweet, if the writing or the acting or the cinematography is good, and great if it all comes together!) 

Like too many religious critics, her work was often reduced to controversy by word of mouth and reactions based on superficial knowledge instead of actually reading the book! Even the revised audiobook I obtained had a long preamble trying to tell me what I should think about it. It gave context that I better understood than most starting the book, because I had watched the film. Still, it bothered me so I skipped ahead to make up my own mind.

The movie director features actual footage of Eichmann on trial, which is brilliant, and manages, like many European and occasionally Quebec films, to flip back and forth between German, English, and Hebrew casually, spanning her life and languages.

I can’t say yet if the script does justice to her words, and I suspect she has a lifetime of other thoughts that I do not have knowledge of that the screenwriter, as a university professor, most likely does. I do, however, like the way she thinks, making up her own mind, no matter how the cards are laid on the table.

From what I gather, the trial, set in Israel, and made possible with Mossad agents and President Ben Gurion’s involvement skewed the public from the get-go. I have very little knowledge of international law and how it works for crimes against humanity, but (spoiler alert) Eichmann is hanged in short order. 

So far, Hannah Arendt, of the film, is not sure this is the right outcome, which to me is a brave position for a Jewish woman who was interred in France for over a year during the war to have.

Afterwards, I found that McGill library lends the audiobook, and I did errands lost in the first three chapters of her book. I have lots more to learn.

What she clarified for me was the definition of totalitarianism. I don’t think I really understood what it meant before. She defines it as being separate from “despotism, tyranny, and dictatorship”, all more easily understood concepts. This is how she made the much necessary distinction: that totalitarianism “applied terror to subjugate mass populations, not just political adversaries”. 

She is quoted as saying “Niemand hat das Recht zu gehorchen” [No one has the right to obey]. She is credited (although may have later regretted) coining the phrase “banality of evil”, which is in the subtitle of the book on Eichmann’s trial. It was really an astute observation that given the right bureaucratic pressures, we could all be capable of systemic evil. Replace evil with racism or sexism, and it’s a little easier to see.

There is a lecture she gives that I will quote here (subtitled movie English may not be the perfect translation, but with my rudimentary German skills, it seemed to track well):

“Western tradition wrongly assumes that the greatest evils of mankind arise from selfishness. But in our century, evil has proven to be more radical than was previously thought. And now we know that the truest evil, the radical evil, has nothing to do with selfishness or any such understandable sinful motives. Instead, it is based on the following phenomenon; making human beings superfluous as human beings.”

She was talking about the concentration camp system, designed to  convince the prisoners that they were unnecessary before they were murdered. Work doesn’t free you. (ARBEIT MACHT FREI). No matter what you do in that system, it doesn’t matter. The system of the concentration camp teaches you that everything you do is senseless.

In this way, “absolute evil is when it exists, whether humans are in the system, or not”. I would argue (especially in light of the Ukrainian Russian war currently) that all humans are harmed by this evil. Yes, those in it who are not the victims have it better, but they too pay a price to the evil inherent in such systems of systemic racism and dehumanization. For me, the problem I cannot wrap my head around is; how then do you dismantle such a system without too much cost to the humans already serving as cogs in the wheel?

Arendt criticized the cooperation of the Jewish leaders as well as the failure to resist. I imagine my own life at that moment would feel incredibly valuable at the train station before you board the train, even though that would be the best place to revolt, before you are herded towards the gas chamber, or worse. I am not as sure as she was that this obviously the right choice. It must be incredibly hard to risk you life now when everything is screaming  for the need to survive until later. 

What are the options between resistance (which survival instinct may make impossible) and cooperation? 

Another problem I have is that this feels familiar. With no intention to diminish the concentration camp system level of evil, it feels like so many systems in which we humans play the cogs is rigged in such a way that evil exists. It is hard to see how to change it from within. The temptation is to revolt and dismantle, but no one can do that alone. 

So what is my personal responsibility? Eichman is criticized and condemned to death for upholding the rules of a system that ultimately lead to harm for others. How do you know if you are are doing your job for an evil end? If your terrorist cell just gets the victims to the murderers, and you don’t know the murderers, are you responsible? If you follow orders, and are disconnected to the next chain of events, should you blame yourself?

My thoughts are always to the mid-COVID pandemic health care system around me, and how do I find a way to change things that fail our patients. Patients and health care workers seems to be experiencing record high amounts of moral and personal distress in a system that seem, like Eichmann’s work, leads to inherent evils by making it so difficult to do the best by the patient because it is often at cross purposes with the efficiency of the system. 

It is so easy to “just do your job” and go home so overwhelmed and exhausted that you just want not to think about it. But years later, even if it was the job that never allowed time to consider, discuss, evaluate and criticize what the outcome was, aren’t you still to blame?

Those of us who try at every interaction to keep it human can succeed for a beautiful moment. It seems clear to me, however, that these acts of humanity are like cogs, being worn down and crushed again and again under the wheel, which feels no cost to our use and wear. We have to see this, and figure out how to change the way the wheel works. We can’t accept the consumption of our humanity and energy as the price to pay for the system to work. It is clear that right now, don’t win as a rule, then, but as an exception. We need to find a way to change the system so that it spares the cogs and the wheels turn without crushing those in the very system they were designed to serve.