The concept of good and evil has perpetuated mankind for centuries. It has provided numerous philosophical doctrines and principles in which to live by. The idea has also created foundational principles which are embedding all factors of life including religion, government, law, and psychology. Although definitions can vary wildly depending on the individual religion, the common concept of kindness and morality has many common traits. Likewise, the concept of evil has many different definitions but can be identified by society in general terms. For example, many view the actions of Adolf Hitler during the holocaust as evil irrespective of how varied their definitions may be. The holocaust is almost universally regarded as evil throughout the world. The question then is, If evil is so universally known, how then could an entire nation participate in such evil deeds in the holocaust? Can someone commit an evil act without necessarily being evil themselves? The answer lies with political theorist Hannah Arendt who reported on the criminal trial of Adolph Eichmann.

To begin, Eichmann participated in what many regards as one of the evilest acts ever conducted by mankind. Eichmann, like many of his contemporaries, escorted millions of Jews to concentration, where many would eventually die. Eichmann, however, was not the sadistic, perverted, or terrifying Nazi that we often read and hear about. Instead, Eichmann was more akin to your standard, run-of-the-mill employee. Hannah Arendt in her now famous study explained that Eichmann never realized what he was doing due to an inability to think from the standpoint of somebody else. Eichmann lacked empathy while on the surface is difficult to believe when dealing act such as the holocaust. However, his lack of empathy was a cognitive condition for him to feel as though he was doing wrong. Here Arendt, explains two characteristics that caused Eichmann to behave in the way he did. First, Eichmann, was both shallow and clueless. From a cognitive perspective he chose not to concern himself with issues that he believes were not his own. Next, he was a man who was in search for a purpose in life which he found in the Nazi party. As such Arendt believed that Eichmann was a part of an evil organization but was not an evil person himself (Adelman, 2016).

Further, as with many individuals in society, they attempt to present a false or fake side of themselves to obtain approval. Eichmann is not unique to this approach. Our society overall welcomes this kind of fake perception. Here a person will attempt to show a side of themselves that they believe will be accepted by the public at large while mitigating the elements of their personality that society will find repulsive. This occurs heavily in the social media space as heavily users of various platforms attempt to pander to certain crowd to receive adulation. This adulation often proves fleeting as it is often reviewed that the life the individual portrays on social media is far from the actual life they are living. The same concept applies to Eichmann where the personality he is attempted to portray in a limited setting in court is far from the personality and behavior we saw when he was facilitating the deaths of millions of Jews. In her book Arendt describes Eichmann saying, no sign in him of firm ideological convictions or of specific evil motives. How can she determine this simply from observations of a case without considering his actual actions? Here, Eichmann is presenting a falser personality to illicit the exact reaction that Arendt seems to be providing (Feger, 2016).

I do not believe that Arendts thesis...

…his activities may have been motivated by survival. As such, he simply ignored the lives of other Jews as a both a coping mechanism and to ensure the safety of his family. Here, Eichmann may not have agreed with the activity, but once he was in the Nazi system, he maintained the status quo to survive. Using Deweys theory, the environment dictated his behavior as he could stay is the relative comfort of the party or risk death by assisting Jews or challenging the Nazi party. Weighing these alternatives, Eichmann elected to continue his work and essentially assist in the murder of millions of other individuals. I believe this explanation is much more plausible than Arendts.

As it relates to Herbert Marcuse is not as applicable but does offer some insight into Eichmann behavior. Here, Marcuse believed that affluent society represses those in the lower social class. Here this class of people cultivate a culture of complacency by blocking critical understanding. Here this psychology approach is applicable, I believe Deweys theory is much more practical. Although the Nazi elite did a masterful job of manipulating the masses of follows to believe their lies. We have also seen this in recent society through Donald Trump as his ability to get millions of individuals to beliee his lies. Coincidentally, Trump was able to even use his lies to inspire thousands of people to attack the capital of the United States which has never been done since the founding of the country. As such, it is highly possible that the Nazi elite used similar tactics to inspire an entire generation of individuals to follow them. They then lulled this community of level social status individuals with further lies which contributed to their complacency. Ultimately, I believe this is a possibility, but Deweys theory is much…