The 'Curious, but Quite Authentic, Inability to Think'

[ZiprHead]

What struck Arendt was Eichmann’s “curious, but authentic, inability to think.”

“However monstrous the deeds were, the doer was neither monstrous nor demonic, and the only specific characteristic one could detect in his past as well as in his behavior during the trial and the preceding police examination was something entirely negative: it was not stupidity but a curious, quite authentic inability to think.”

Eichmann didn’t subscribe to any “theory or doctrine,” exhibited no “particularity of wickedness, pathology, or ideological conviction;” his “only personal distinction was a perhaps extraordinary shallowness.”

Note, Arendt did not intend her characterization to be interpreted as commentary upon Eichmann’s IQ. Nor, for that matter, did she mean to suggest that he was literally incapable of thinking critically. Rather, her point was that Eichmann showed no will to think beyond the clichés—the memes, bumper sticker slogans, and hashtags—of his day.

This article was written in response to government restrictions on travel, congregation and mask wearing in the early days of the covid plague. Considering the events of last week, I find it highly ironic it was published by David Horowitz' Frontpage Magazine.

 

[Trausti]

I don't think ideas make people do bad things. Many people are born evil but contain it due to societal disapproval. Once society gives excuses to behave badly, these people will be who they really are. Like how the fascist headquarters in Budapest was subsequently occupied by the demonstratively worse socialist ÁVH. These were the same people.

 

[Gospel]

I don't think ideas make people do bad things. Many people are born evil but contain it due to societal disapproval. Once society gives excuses to behave badly, these people will be who they really are. Like how the fascist headquarters in Budapest was subsequently occupied by the demonstratively worse socialist ÁVH. These were the same people.

Or like how Hip Hop was a platform for the disenfranchised to express themselves before being a drug dealer &/or killer became popular. All of a sudden there was an influx of Niggas With Attitudes.

 

[Swammerdami]

Like how the fascist headquarters in Budapest was subsequently occupied by the demonstratively worse socialist ÁVH.

Ignoring that Mr. Trausti misses the entire point of OP, I find the example he insists on amusing. I wonder why he didn't reflexively promote "socialist" to communist" — isn't that all the rage with his in-crowd these days?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Sounds like Eichmann was a sadist, and not a very smart one. What's the big takeaway that I'm missing?

 

[Trausti]

Like how the fascist headquarters in Budapest was subsequently occupied by the demonstratively worse socialist ÁVH.

Ignoring that Mr. Trausti misses the entire point of OP, I find the example he insists on amusing. I wonder why he didn't reflexively promote "socialist" to communist" — isn't that all the rage with his in-crowd these days?

Doesn’t matter the ism. Bad people will use whatever excuse society gives them to behave badly.

 

[Swammerdami]

Sounds like Eichmann was a sadist, and not a very smart one. What's the big takeaway that I'm missing?

I think that what you're missing is that the truth is quite opposite to what you say. Eichmann was neither stupid nor evil. He was just a shallow man following orders without thinking. Millions of other ordinary Germans also went along with the Nazis.

For decades Americans have assumed "that couldn't happen here;" yet Americans and Germans are almost indistinguishable genetically. And do we still believe that fanatical devotion to a sociopathic demagogue "can't happen" in the U.S.A.?

 

[Elixir]

The fact is that some double digit percentage of Americans still "believe" The Big Lie.

I remember reading about the proposition that you can get people to believe any lie if it's big enough - back in the 1950s. It was a hot topic in those post-war years. I was too young to understand that we were in post-war years, or to understand why a bigger lie was easier to sell.

The inability to think has a lot to do with it. It doesn't take much thought if you are a believer in Trump's Big Lie, to ascertain that you are believing in something in the complete absence of evidence, the complete absence of witnesses, and in contradiction to every court in the land, and every State government. When confronted (IME) the Believers say there is a crisis in confidence in our electoral system. That's a little lie, offered in support of their belief in the Big Lie. There is no "crisis in confidence", as lofty and urgent as it sounds. The jackasses offering that excuse are uniformly willing to see downballot Republicans seated, who wee elected on the same ballots, in the same election in which they say they lack confidence.
Occams razor would point us toward the very simple, very obvious explanation for the behavior of the believers in the Big Lie:
THEY ARE SORE LOSERS.

Fuck 'em. If they get violent, lock them up. Shoot them if necessary.