“The sad truth of the matter is that most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be or do either evil or good.”
Hannah Arendt · Political philosophy
ethicsmindsociety
Well attested
Philosopher
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Hannah Arendt
1906–1975 · Political philosophy · Modern
Hannah Arendt fled Nazi Germany and spent her later life thinking about totalitarianism, action, and thinking itself. The Origins of Totalitarianism analyses antisemitism, imperialism, and the camps, and argues that the ideal subject of totalitarian rule is someone for whom fact and fiction have ceased to be distinct. The Human Condition separates labour, work, and action, and treats plurality, men and not Man, as the condition of politics.
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Forgiving and promising, in the action chapter, answer irreversibility and unpredictability. Eichmann in Jerusalem, her report on the trial, gave her the phrase the banality of evil. It does not mean the evil was trivial. It means a shallow, cliché-speaking functionary did enormous harm, and that his normality was the frightening part. The Life of the Mind ties the same worry to people who never decide to be either good or evil.
On Violence distinguishes power, acting in concert, from violence, which she says cannot create power. She wrote in English. Compressions in this library are marked as compressions. She is not a theorist of teamwork, and she is not an apologist for Eichmann.
Start here
The Human Condition, chapter 1, then the epilogue of Eichmann in Jerusalem.
The first gives you her political vocabulary without a slogan. The epilogue shows what 'banality' was doing in a real argument about a trial.
Quotations
“Power corresponds to the human ability not just to act but to act in concert. Power is never the property of an individual; it belongs to a group.”
Hannah Arendt · Political philosophy
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“Men, not Man, live on the earth and inhabit the world.”
Hannah Arendt · Political philosophy
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“Action, the only activity that goes on directly between men without the intermediary of things or matter, corresponds to the human condition of plurality.”
Hannah Arendt · Political philosophy
freedomsocietypower
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“the lesson of the fearsome, word-and-thought-defying banality of evil.”
Hannah Arendt · Political philosophy
ethicsmindsociety
Well attested
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”
Hannah Arendt · Political philosophy
knowledgepowersociety
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“Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.”
Hannah Arendt · Political philosophy
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“Forgiving and promising are the only moral precepts that are not applied to action from the outside.”
Hannah Arendt · Political philosophy
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Paraphrase or translation
“Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent.”
Hannah Arendt · Political philosophy
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“The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal.”
Hannah Arendt · Political philosophy
ethicssocietymind
Well attested
Key ideas
Plurality
Politics is among many, not the management of a singular Man.
Action
Speech and deed between people, without a material product. Distinct from labour and work.
Banality
Thoughtlessness and normality, not the claim that the crime was ordinary.
Power
Acting in concert. The opposite of violence, not a polite word for it.
Major works
The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)
Ideology and terror. Confirm the chapter in your edition.
The Human Condition (1958)
Labour, work, action, plurality.
Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963)
The report. Banality is in the epilogue.
Men in Dark Times (1968)
Essays, including the one on Isak Dinesen.
On Violence (1970)
Power, strength, force, authority, violence.
The Life of the Mind (1978)
Thinking, and the sentence on evil without a decision.
Influences
Influenced
- Jürgen Habermas
Common misreadings
- Banality does not mean evil is small or excusable. Fearsome is her adjective. She asked for the death penalty.
- Power is not the ability to hurt. Where violence rules absolutely, she says power is absent.
- Men, not Man, is a claim about plurality. Updating the noun is fine. Deleting the contrast is not.
Famous lines Hannah Arendt never said
None of the lines this library files for Hannah Arendt is marked Questionable or Misattributed. That is only a fact about these cards. It is not a certificate that every popular sentence is theirs.
FAQ
What is the best book to start with?
The Human Condition, chapter 1, then the epilogue of Eichmann in Jerusalem. The first gives you her political vocabulary without a slogan. The epilogue shows what 'banality' was doing in a real argument about a trial.
What is the most famous quote?
This library does not measure fame, and it does not rank lines by how often they are shared. The first line it files for Hannah Arendt that is not marked Questionable or Misattributed is “The sad truth of the matter is that most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be or do either evil or good.” (The Life of the Mind, 'Thinking' (1978), Well attested).
What is the most misquoted line?
None of the lines this library files for Hannah Arendt is marked Misattributed or Questionable. That is a fact about these cards, not a certificate that every popular sentence is theirs.
What is one key idea, in a sentence?
Plurality: Politics is among many, not the management of a singular Man.