Questions for Phil

Can a republic become a tyranny when one person gains more power and creates movement?

Questions for Bill

Is there a time when thinking will happen automatically regardless of all the distractions that kids face these days?

Questions for Emily

Are metaphors an accident of language or something that is conditioned into us as we learn the language?  What do you think and what would you say Arendt thought?

Where do telling details come from?  When do we develop them?

Conformity and its contribution to the roots evil

Conformity plays a vital role in the implementation of evil on a large-scale, but it is not the beginnings of evil.  There is always an underlying group of conspirators who set evil goals that take much ingenuity to translate from the drawing board into action.  Like any well thought out plan, it must start from the top and trickle down through bureaucracy.  Arendt wrote about totalitarianism and the political backgrounds that lead up to them and occur throughout totalitarian rule.  However, conformity is not just a consequence of totalitarianism but is already imbedded in the fabric of most societies.  The difference is the lack of disparity in opinion under totalitarian rule.  People who think differently, are killed.  Therefore, people are forced to conform or flee.  In the case of the Nazis, blaming the Jews was something that only fed on the consensus of the group.  It took cunning subtle persuasion to slowly ease the society into the extermination of the Jews as a norm.  The policies are generally unopposed by those who have any influence so the norm goes on without being questioned.  However, the German people did not wake up one day with the common desire to kill all Jews. The ethnic discrimination was already present, all that was needed was a determined man with a strategy to turn that inclination into a hate strong enough to accept their demise.  Therefore, it takes more than conformity for evil to manifest itself in the world.  At the same time, only conformity can lead to a widespread acceptance and implementation of evil works and attitudes.  Each component is contingent on the other.  Conformity starts with an idea that spreads, whether evil or not, and together, the idea and the acceptance, evil becomes perceivable in the world.

Arendt on Education

Arendt's unique combination of both a liberal and conservative view on education keeps her from belonging to any particular theory-based formula set for education. She probably sees that as a strength knowing how she feels about ideologues. She seems to discuss more of the issues with education rather than a solution. She proposes a return to classical education but there obviously can't be a complete return to that because that would be a step back, not forward. So she adds dimension to it by intertwining natality and introducing the children to the world. It is more about the concepts than actual applications that should be used in the classroom. This is where her theory has strengths. It isn't all guidelines but something open for interpretation.

Progression of Selfishness

One point that I think everything boils down to in terms of Eichmann's failure to think can be found in "his almost total inability ever to look at anything from the other fellow's point of view." When he interacted with Jews he could only express unemotional sorrow and an apology for their predicament. When asked to recall events he could only remember those events that were directly consequential to him getting (or failing to get) a promotion. He viewed cooperation with his men as everyone "pulling together," creating the illusion of a willing coalition. Eichmann always primarily and singularly concerned with himself and first would not and later could not shift his focus away from himself.

Eichmann's Banality

It is ironic that Eichmann is considered so normal when he can't even carry on a conversation properly.  I found it interesting that Arendt couldn't take his completely serious due to the extent of his reliance on political jargon and cliches of the time.  It seems clear that anyone could be reduced to this state having undergone the changes of the Nazi regime, but I am surprised Arendt didn't discuss how in particular, Eichmann was not able to articulate events correctly.  She discussed his skewed memory, but I think that he may have been more impacted than the average German by the unification under Hitler.  He was not so easily pulled back into post-war mentality as the rest of Germany was.  He seemed to be stuck in his wartime identity.  He may no longer be the head of transporting Jews to their deaths, but he didn't seem to be recovered necessarily either (at least by Arendt's accounts).  I think it goes beyond simply being swayed by authority either way due to a lack of thinking, but there was something more, at least in Eichmann, that kept him from reverting back to "everyday life".  He obviously tried to defend himself in his trial, but like Heidegger  he never was actually "sorry" about what HE did.  He may have been sorry about what happened, but he never took responsibility.  Even if others in the Nazi state 'let things happen' they probably would have seen the atrocities and taken some sort of responsibility.  I just see Eichmann as beyond just a 'non-thinker' and was actually 'stuck' with the Nazi party as his authority even after the war.