The New Yorker on Gerry Adams

There is lots to think about here, but this stands out for me

'In a sense, by calling a crime against humanity "banal", she was trying to point to the way in which the crime had become for the criminals accepted, routinised, and implemented without moral revulsion and political indignation and resistance.'

'Indeed, her indictment of Eichmann reached beyond the man to the historical world in which true thinking was vanishing and, as a result, crimes against humanity became increasingly "thinkable". The degradation of thinking worked hand in hand with the systematic destruction of populations.'

'He invoked "duty" in an effort to explain his own version of Kantianism.'

The first and third sentences seem to describe how violence can be normalized and legitimized by duty to the cause, it is the second sentence which for me really asks an important question. Under all circumstances are we expected to think about our actions , because the results if we don't are truly dreadful.

Arendt actually suggests that thinking is dependent on conscience , and that Eichmann's conscience was subverted from 'thou shall not kill ' to 'thou shall kill', it was therefore impossible for him to feel remorse. I'm not sure where this leaves me , I had wondered if there were natural states of detachment (and maybe a high incidence of detachment) , this suggests that even someone like Eichmann is a product of his environment.

Originally posted by crikey63
Arendt actually suggests that thinking is dependent on conscience , and that Eichmann's conscience was subverted from 'thou shall not kill ' to 'thou shall kill', it was therefore impossible for him to feel remorse. I'm not sure where this leaves me , I had wondered if there were natural states of detachment (and maybe a high incidence of detachment) , this suggests that even someone like Eichmann is a product of his environment.

When you refer to "detachment" I suspect you are looking for reassuring evidence that Eichmann or Adams (very different people of course - vastly dissimilar) had a psychological deficiency and, in any case, were quite different to ourselves. All the serious studies of Germany's war crimes found that they were perpetrated by perfectly normal humans. That New Yorker article said the same about the killers in Northern Ireland and I think it applies to both Catholic and Protestant killers:

“One of the most remarkable aspects of the Troubles was that, with a few exceptions, the people that I know who did these terrible things were all perfectly normal people,” Ed Moloney told me. “This wasn’t some band of robbers who were thieving and raping for personal profit. This was war. They were all nice killers. I felt pity for them. They were victims of circumstances beyond their control.”

One of the key tasks of racism, and for a specific example Islamophobia, is to identify the "enemy" as defective and intrinsically less human than, for example, the Americans or the Israeli Defence Force. It is necessary to recognise that that is not the case and that just about every single defect identified in our enemies can be found also on our side of the fence.

Originally posted by finnegan
When you refer to "detachment" I suspect you are looking for reassuring evidence that Eichmann or Adams (very different people of course - vastly dissimilar) had a psychological deficiency and, in any case, were quite different to ourselves. All the serious studies of Germany's war crimes found that they were perpetrated by perfectly normal humans. That Ne ...[text shortened]... about every single defect identified in our enemies can be found also on our side of the fence.

I can understand how violent acts can be normalized , even in whole populations. We can dehumanize others in order to carry out these acts , but conflicts don't last for ever . Arendt's 'thinking' , empathy and conscience returns to some ,there does seem a difference in the emotional responses ,from regret and guilt to complete indifference.

I agree with your example of Islamophobia , if we take Arendt's behavioural view of thinking , the prevailing belief in inferior Islamic characteristics makes it impossible to 'think' in a great many in the west.

Can this be applied to Northen Ireland, have the troubles really ended , a sectarian mind set still seems to exist , if thats the case does Arendt's behavioural philosophy accurately describe the lack of 'thinking' that still seems to exist in Northern Ireland .

Originally posted by crikey63
I can understand how violent acts can be normalized , even in whole populations. We can dehumanize others in order to carry out these acts , but conflicts don't last for ever . Arendt's 'thinking' , empathy and conscience returns to some ,there does seem a difference in the emotional responses ,from regret and guilt to complete indifference.

I agree wit ...[text shortened]... sophy accurately describe the lack of 'thinking' that still seems to exist in Northern Ireland .

Arendt's ideas seem convincing , there are obviously opposing views , I read this ,https://sites.google.com/site/gertrudeezorsky/jews-in-the-holocaust.

'One of Hausner’s articles (Saturday Evening Post, November 3, 1962) contains a most striking piece of evidence concerning Eichmann’s personality. Unlike Miss Arendt, Hausner supplied his readers with the name of the psychiatrist who wrote a report on Eichmann: L. Szondi, inventor of the test bearing his name.

Hausner stated that Eichmann was given the Szondi test in Israel and the material was sent to Szondi for interpretation. The identity of the subject was not revealed to him. In his reply Szondi “started by saying that he never analyzed tests of people who had not been identified for him but then added that when he’d glanced briefly at the results they were so extraordinary that he performed a complete analysis. The person who’d taken the test, he declared, revealed in all phases ‘a man obsessed with a dangerous and insatiable urge to kill, arising out of a desire for power.’” Szondi reported that in twenty-four years of practice as a criminal psychologist, he had never found such uniform results.

Miss Arendt, having read Hausner’s article, knew the facts about the Szondi test. She did not, however, pass this information on to her readers. As an investigator, Miss Arendt had the responsibility of reporting and appraising evidence which challenged her own opinions.'

I realize I'm asking looking for the unanswerable , but as regards the original subject of the thread , if I had to be honest ,I think the way McConville was murdered , whatever the reason , it cannot be explained away by the normalcy of violence in a cruel conflict , something darker exists here.

Originally posted by crikey63
Arendt's ideas seem convincing , there are obviously opposing views , I read this ,https://sites.google.com/site/gertrudeezorsky/jews-in-the-holocaust.

'One of Hausner’s articles (Saturday Evening Post, November 3, 1962) contains a most striking piece of evidence concerning Eichmann’s personality. Unlike Miss Arendt, Hausner supplied his readers with the ...[text shortened]... explained away by the normalcy of violence in a cruel conflict , something darker exists here.

The Szondi Test is a projective personality test, like the Rorschach Inkblot test, inviting subjects to respond to pictures of other people. It is based on the seemingly simple proposition that we are attracted to people who are "genetically similar," whatever that means when it's at home. Everyone enjoys a simple personality test and this one is available as an app for android if you want a change from doing your own horoscope.

For the sake of argument, let's accept the reading obtained from this test in the case of Eichmann and ask what does it mean or imply? Does it mean that a man predisposed to criminality and murder went on to commit crimes and murders, or does it mean that a perfectly normal man who has engaged in crime and murder produces, afterwards, this test result? I don't know but I do not believe this is a mainstream test and I do not see why it has to challenge the way Arendt worked or the conclusions she reached. Someone would have to give a better reason to say why it should alter anything. But it is not really enough to say that everyone has to be impressed by this test.

As you say many people dislike what Arendt said and they have many motives. For example, Arendt argued that it was not appropriate for the state of Israel to take on itself the "right" to conduct this trial. Remember that Israel never was a product of the Holocaust, and a large proportion of survivors of the Holocaust had no desire whatever to join the Zionist project, but may Zionists have been promoting the false claim that it was. This is an ideological project and it is helpful to bear in mind that the state of Israel refuses to submit its own behaviour to scrutiny by the International Criminal court, claiming for itself an exceptional exemption from the standards of humanity it wishes to see imposed on everyone else. It is false to claim as many Zionists do that because Jews were victims of the greatest crime against humanity, then other Jews own a get-out-of-gaol-free card and cannot be subject to scrutiny. When you find Israel adopting racist policies and practices, including an apartheid system, you know that these people have failed to learn the important lessons from an awful moment in history.

So to return to your point, if you are committed to the principle that people have to be / must be inherently defective and different to ordinary humanity in order to perpetrate atrocities, then the onus is on you to give your reasons.

Originally posted by finnegan
The Szondi Test is a projective personality test, like the Rorschach Inkblot test, inviting subjects to respond to pictures of other people. It is based on the seemingly simple proposition that we are attracted to people who are "genetically similar," whatever that means when it's at home. Everyone enjoys a simple personality test and this one is availabl ...[text shortened]... dinary humanity in order to perpetrate atrocities, then the onus is on you to give your reasons.

I am not in a position to evaluate the merits of the Szondi Test . Opposition to her work obviously exists, I used that example with limited reading of her work to illustrate that opposition , I did say however, that I found what I had read about Arendt's work to be convincing.

I'm not saying that in order to commit terrible crimes everyone must be inherently defective. I asked why there was an outward difference in responses from say Price (bitter regret) and Adams (indifference) . Can it be possible for ordinary people to subvert their normal moral compass and commit terrible acts for a cause , and for those with personality disorders to act similarly . Remorse for acts committed during legitimate conflicts , is common , as is complete indifference . I was interested in the difference between emotional responses and if we can take anything more from it .

I can't sit on the fence with regard to the McConville case , there is something horrific about a mother being dragged away from her children .The original article does suggest that some of those involved are outwardly indifferent to what was done while others have shown remorse.

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The Rosenbergs like Sacco and Vanzetti were victims of the Red Scare . I've just finished Bruce Watsons , Sacco and Vanzetti , A judgement on mankind. What amazes me , is how depressed it made me . Nothing changes , nothing is learnt ,variations on The Red Scare are reinvented everyday.

Davydova was lucky in a sense, she was Russian , the outcry was from Russians , they couldn't make her an outsider.

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I do not agree that merely being the mother of children entitles you to special treatment under the law. But in fact if the reports are true, McConville was given such treatment as she was merely warned at first even though she was apparently a blatant informer and spy. That she persisted in such actions is a tragedy for her children, but other people's children would have been deprived of fathers and mothers if the actions of spies and informers was allowed to go unpunished during a war against foreign occupiers and oppressors.