Grandpies t1_j26xnws wrote on December 30, 2022 at 2:20 AM

Reply to comment by SanctusSalieri in How the concept: Banality of evil developed by Hanna Arendt can be applied to AI Ethics in order to understand the unintentional behaviour of machines that are intelligent but not conscious. by AndreasRaaskov

The person you're responding to is not saying Nazism is banal. Eichmann in Jerusalem is about the mental gymnastics certain high-ranking Nazis went through to dress up genocide as bureaucratic humdrum. Arendt basically argues that Eichmann was very stupid, failed upward into a position of power, and managed to convince himself he was just doing his job.

Have you read the book, or just this comment thread?

SanctusSalieri t1_j26zk1t wrote on December 30, 2022 at 2:34 AM

I have read the book. The person I'm replying to very specifically said Nazism is banal, which is what I took issue with.

"When we look at society today, people didn't change. It is exactly as it was at the time of Nazist regime."

They are saying Nazism's qualities are humdrum, quotidian, unsurprising, and perpetual rather than specific and historically circumscribed.

I'm always shocked when people with poor reading comprehension so confidently accuse others of misunderstanding.

ThorDansLaCroix t1_j274suz wrote on December 30, 2022 at 3:12 AM

I was not saying that we live in a Nazist system or Nazist like sistem today. I said that the way people trusted authorities rule of order over people welbing that allowed Nazist atrocities to happen and being accepted by many, is similar to how people see others suffering today ans trying to justify it because of laws or authorities decisions.

Many of the people who accepted the slavement of people (working at no nazist family houses and farms) and kidnapping of minorities during Nazist regime were not Nazist supporters but just "good citizens" (following the authorities rules to better self benefit from its system even if it means sacrificing minorities).

Or to put it shorter, it is like what Deleuze and Guattari wrote on Anti-Oedipus, that we all have a little fascist inside us that we must be very careful to not let it out.

It is my way to say that we all have a potencial of abusive relashionship with others that we must not take advantage of by convincing ourselves that we have a good reason to take such advantage by saying to ourselves that is not our fault but just how things are.