The Banality of Evil

Evil is an act of deliberately or unwittingly causing harm to others, in body, speech or mind (‘unwittingly’ because at the back of our mind, in our conscience, we know what we are doing but we have gone so far down the road of habitual behaviour that we find it difficult to turn back).

This activity of causing harm is something we are all good at. It can range from making someone feel uncomfortable (where it is the sowing of a seed), to ignoring them, to physical and mental abuse. Evil happens when we lack love: love is recognising our own goodness in others.

Even if we are not the perpetrator, but instigate it or permit others to do the evil, we are just as accountable. Despite the fact that evil-doers may have been ‘brought to account’, a residue of their action leaves an effect….even worse is the intention to leave an effect, which is generally one of fear.

Ignorance is no excuse, as the harm has been done. We are all accountable, and all controlled by fear, which happens in every walk of life: there are assumptions we make about life which put pressure on others. Our behaviour is learnt. We may justify our actions by telling ourselves that we are caring, but behind our actions is a personal agenda – or worse, an unwitting expression of the agenda of others.

Evil is a very subtle business, and we hardly notice its presence.The real danger is when, by merely watching evil, whether in life or on film, we note that we want to retaliate: that is evil welling up inside us!

Of course we have to stop evil. If we approach this on a conventional level (the relative level) we run into many problems, as this is approached though the ego. We need to be able to apply clarity and cool intelligence, otherwise we just make things worse.

In order to have clarity and cool intelligence, we need to go to the absolute level – spirituality.We are talking here about allowing our thoughts and emotions to control us, and thereby control others. Until we know the true nature of our mind – beyond the contents, which are ego-driven – we cannot say that we are free and awake, and beyond manipulation.

“The banality of evil” is a philosophical term, meaning that evil occurs when ordinary individuals are put into corrupt situations which encourage their conformity. The phrase, “the banality of evil” was coined by the philosopher Hannah Arendt, after witnessing the trial of high-ranking Nazi Adolf Eichmann, who seemed, at least to Arendt, to be the most mundane of individuals whose evil acts were driven by the requirements of the state and orders from above.

The Milgram experiment on obedience to figures of authority was a series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram. They measured the willingness of study participants to obey a figure of authority who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience. These experiments began in July 1961, three months after the start of the trial of Eichmann.

The world is becoming more and more unjust,
and many are closing their eyes to this.
Evil is thus committed by consent.

If we still think we are beyond all this,
we need to think again.
Until we know what is going on in our own minds,
we will never be free of evil.