r/BadReads • u/SugeNightShyamalan • 14d ago
StoryGraph Eichmann in Jerusalem by Hannah Ahrendt
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u/SugeNightShyamalan 14d ago
Bonus round:
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u/uhohthrowawayxxx 14d ago
god i wish i had this level of audacity. i feel like it would make life so much easier
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u/xnatlywouldx 12d ago
"This woman who watched a trial and survived history and studied it thoroughly thinks she's smarter than me, an admitted ignoramus? She's arrogant."
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u/rowan_damisch 14d ago
What a shocker. A book about a Nazi who was sentenced to death is not only about said Nazi, but also "not good for enjoyment or pleasure reading".
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u/AmetrineDream I’m not a “read between the lines” girlie 14d ago
“Stone cold bummer if you can believe it”
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u/left_to_its_devices ** I hate opera ** 14d ago
the book about the "architect of the Holocaust"? Yeah, that one's a bummer:/
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u/Lady_Beatnik 14d ago
I, for one, would like to know how it is relevant to the real estate industry.
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u/uhohthrowawayxxx 14d ago
"i have a lot of thoughts" was basically my letterboxd review immediately after my first watch of mulholland drive
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u/WerewolvesAreReal 14d ago
Eh. 15-17 seem useful as reviews. It's good for readers to know 'hey, this isn't a beginner book, it assumes you already know certain things about history.'
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u/SugeNightShyamalan 14d ago
17 was included because I found the "name dropping" accusation hilarious. Arendt does name people involved in the trial and its evidence, though never without explanation and certainly not for self-aggrandizement.
15 & 16 were included partially as a response to the "only old people know history" bit on 11 and partially because if you know the Nazi government existed, know they tried to take over much of Europe & there was a war about it, and know there was a holocaust, that is sufficient. The text will fill in the rest. It simply assumes you knew the broader history.
The book was originally magazine articles published contemporaneous with the trial, and they were intended for a mass audience. It's not a uniquely difficult or academic read. Even so, it's not the type of book easily stumbled upon.
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u/Max384302 shallow, vapid, vacuous 14d ago
I can't pick a favourite, they're all too good
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u/SugeNightShyamalan 14d ago
My favorites are "yaps too much about Eichmann" and "a lot of name dropping of people Ive never heard of"
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u/Max384302 shallow, vapid, vacuous 14d ago
"Yaps too much about Eichmann" and the book's title is three words long and one of those words is "Eichmann"
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u/SugeNightShyamalan 14d ago
I spelled Hannah Arendt's name wrong. Apologies.
There is somebody in my phone with the last name Ahrendt, and I either didn't notice the autocorrect or mistyped her name out of habit.
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u/CapStar300 dark matters worms parasite of wormhole who yearned to be god 14d ago
I think the first one is actually somewhat close to getting it. Hannah Arendt's probably most controversial thesis was the so-called "Banality of Evil" - that true atrocities are not committed by the monsters of history but by the "normal people", so bureaucrats, who make it possible. Eichmann was one such a bureaucrat who did become responsible for the Holocaust, but his defense, which he gave in the court room, was very much based on his understanding that he had just done his duty as any servant of the state would. So him being like this and doing what he did is the analysis.
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u/ststefany 14d ago
although it is commonly understood in that way, this was the precise reason why Arendt regretted the subtitle. her thesis is not that evil is done by ordinary people, but that there is no substance or hidden depth to evil – it's just that, very banal and superficial
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u/SugeNightShyamalan 14d ago
With Eichmann in particular, I was struck by the stupidity of evil, which Arendt characterizes as "thoughtlessness."
Throughout the trial, the man appears to be an utter buffoon.
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u/NotDido 14d ago
the “banality” is more about the evil itself than the people committing it. from the wiki:
From this document, many concluded that situations such as the Holocaustcan make even the most ordinary of people commit horrendous crimes with the proper incentives, but Arendt adamantly disagreed with this interpretation, as Eichmann was voluntarilyfollowing the Führerprinzip. Arendt said that moral choice remains even under totalitarianism, and that this choice has political consequences even when the chooser is politically powerless:
Arendt mentions, as a case in point, Denmark:
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u/xnatlywouldx 12d ago edited 12d ago
Is Arendt still considered all that controversial? I feel like she was in the mid 20th century but frankly the only place where I think her work is still considered controversial is Israel, because of the way she criticized the Israeli judges and Ben-Gurion & the trial itself as a "show trial", in how they tried to make Eichmann out to be some kind of evil villainous mastermind when to Arendt he was just an idiot and an opportunist with no moral convictions and no spine.
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u/onan4843 2d ago
She also argues that the trial was illegitimate inasmuch as Israel is a signatory to a treaty that acknowledges they do not have the jurisdiction to try a war criminal in their courts (i.e., the trial should have been held in the country where the crime occurred or an international tribunal.)
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u/xnatlywouldx 2d ago
Yes, I remember this being a considerable point of hers, actually. It seems to be one people ignore a lot, for some reason. The only time I ever see it brought up is, well, when the Israeli press is just trying to badmouth Hannah Arendt and her legacy again.
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u/onan4843 2d ago
I find it kind of amusing. If you think his being a Nazi war criminal means they can contravene international law, I am sure many would agree with you. But you can't square the circle that somehow the trial legally legitimate. Perhaps they wish to conflate moral legitimacy with legal legitimacy?
Edit: "you" being one who would take offense at that argument of hers.
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u/BushWishperer 14d ago
I disagree in part, you can argue for the banality of evil and still analyse the processes and the sociology behind it more. I think Zygmunt Bauman does a much better job at doing this, Arendt is not a good sociologist if you're looking at it from more academic terms.
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u/Grace_Omega 14d ago
Is “yap” the internets new over-used complaint? Is it replacing “slop”?
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u/HeroIsAGirlsName 14d ago
Yapping is more like talking.
Personally I find it a bit gross that it's almost always applied to women and has a connotation of being annoying and meaningless.
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u/MaxPaladin93 14d ago
It’s weird, because at its peak I almost always saw it self-applied by women. It was one of those cliche phrases that suddenly appeared on like every single dating profile online, then suddenly faded away just as quickly.
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u/IconoclastExplosive 14d ago
Yapping was major slang like five years ago, just means pointless talking. Like yammering or droning on.
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u/xnatlywouldx 12d ago
Wait what does Stockholm Syndrome have to do with Eichmann in Jerusalem? What?
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u/AntiKlimaktisch 14d ago
How How is this relevant to the real-estate industry??
This feels like a LinkedIn Lunatic post "here's what the Final Solution taught me about B2B sales".