In the shadow of dark times: Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem and the problem of thinking in modern era

Abstract

ABSTRACT The purpose of this article is to provide a different reading of Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem, that situates it as an expression of Arendt’s perception of the political sphere and of the individual’s mental and moral activity within totalitarian regimes, first developed in The Origins of Totalitarianism. Building upon contemporary interpretations that trace a common theoretical foundation underlying both books, and through concrete examples related to both Eichmann’s character and the behavior of the Jewish leadership in the Holocaust, this article establishes the theoretical link between Eichmann and Origins, underscoring their common message and the contemporary thinking problem, which constitutes one of the hallmarks of our present time. I further argue that such analysis provides a better understanding of the new legal category of the modern mass murderer, which Arendt identified. This theoretical type – that conflates victim and victimizer – is more dangerous than all the murderers of the past, since it commits crimes out of routine motives without being aware of their radical immorality.