The story that you tell is a powerful parable and it goes to the heart of human nature and language:
the desire of people to escape conscience and become part of inhumane, virulent, dehumanizing, politically hypnotic movements by seeking to convince themselves of comfortable lies and deny uncomfortable truths.
The Hatred mongering of the Trump movement, whereby he scapegoats immigrants as ' poisoning the blood of America' and further refers to them as criminals, terrorists, rapists , is being said, not because Trump has an ideology but because it is a tactic that promotes hatred and glorifies the haters. It is Fascism pure and simple with or without an ideology.
And it is catchy language for many people because they want their leader to allow them to hate others, scapegoat others and feel they have the right to commit violence against their political opposition. And this violence can come in many forms: conspiracy thinking is a form, accusing others of stealing an election is one, calling political opponents communists is language of violence.
The term Banality of Evil, coined by Hanah Arendt, in her book the Origins of Totalitarianism, is the term used to describe the horror of evil committed by people that are inherently not evil. People happened to wander into the Nazi Party as a nice career path for themselves and family and told themselves convenient lies to minimize the horrors of the inconvenient truth. And before too long a society is complicit in one of the greatest and most evil acts ever committed against humanity.
I think Evil has to be called Evil. Hatred has to be called out by its name. In the end I reject banality of Evil. Hess was evil, no banality about it. Adolphh Eichmann was evil, no banality about it.
Adherents to the nazi party were evil, nothing banal about it. They knew what it stood for and what it was doing, despite the fact that it was an inconvenient truth and a convenient lie.
Americans that overlook the language of Trump and vote for him are on the verge of producing a kind of dictatorship that was virtually impossible to imagine a decade ago. And it would be based on convenient lies. Adherents to an Evil leader participate in that evil, and yes it becomes a banality. But that does not minimize the evil.
These are very troubled times. What is happening in Gaza is man's inhumanity to man. No doubt.
But for these film makers to minimize the evil of Nazi Germany by stating that 'the Holocaust is being hijacked by an occupation", to be ashamed of their Jewishness, to not speak up against an enemy, Hamas, that has stated over and over again--all the while receiving hundreds of millions of dollars from Iran to keep on going--is to commit Moral cowardice. Yes, the world is horrified by what is happening in Gaza, and how could it not be ? However, these filmmakers in their comments have undermined their mission: which is to point out that evil passes for commonly acceptable behavior. Israel has had to confront pure evil and they are fighting against it. The current Israeli government under Netanyahu is to be blamed for a great deal, but they are not responsible for the hatred against Jews, the banality of evil that at its core is true evil. Call hatred by its name. Israel is not a moral scapegoat. The world is complicit in everything going on in Gaza.
This "perpetrator fiction" is an idea worthy of your skills parsing out for/with us. I tried to find other examples that stuck out in my readings and came up only with "Othello" or "King Lear" but they hardly represent the universal experience.
My first reaction on reading Glazer's "refutation" is that he is torn as so many of his heritage, history, faith are, resentful even, of having been backed in a corner re his allegiances, a government which he feels compelled to support (how can one abandon the security and strength which can prevent history from repeating its annihilating cycle especially after Oct. 7) but torn and at a loss how to acknowledge the horrors and inhumanity occurring in Gaza . And certainly to Palestinians but in his mind yes he is thinking of the hostages too. I feel his pain as no doubt others do whose bloodlines are connected as mine are not. Being stretched on that rack of conscience has to be painful and he had no idea when he conceived of this movie of the violent irony which awaited.
Thank you for this thoughtful piece, Leah. I read the Martin Amis book, but did not see the film. I find Holocaust films to be very "triggering" for me, and I try to avoid them. As for the director's statement drawing a moral equivalence between the war in Gaza and the 1.3 million murdered at Auschwitz, I hope he enjoys his new standing among those who believe Israel should not defend itself.
Thank you for this! I’ve been thinking a lot about that acceptance speech and it’s the verb “hijacked” that gets me. Like he’s denying the rights and voice of a Jewish county created in response to the Holocaust to speak to that very issue.
I’m so glad you wrote about this. It’s been bothering me so much. This use of “refute”
Is so off the mark. I even looked up the word to see if it had a different meaning. I don’t want to hypothesize what Glazer meant because the words here are damaging and to give any more substantiation to them feels cheap and even more harmful
Dear Leah,
The story that you tell is a powerful parable and it goes to the heart of human nature and language:
the desire of people to escape conscience and become part of inhumane, virulent, dehumanizing, politically hypnotic movements by seeking to convince themselves of comfortable lies and deny uncomfortable truths.
The Hatred mongering of the Trump movement, whereby he scapegoats immigrants as ' poisoning the blood of America' and further refers to them as criminals, terrorists, rapists , is being said, not because Trump has an ideology but because it is a tactic that promotes hatred and glorifies the haters. It is Fascism pure and simple with or without an ideology.
And it is catchy language for many people because they want their leader to allow them to hate others, scapegoat others and feel they have the right to commit violence against their political opposition. And this violence can come in many forms: conspiracy thinking is a form, accusing others of stealing an election is one, calling political opponents communists is language of violence.
The term Banality of Evil, coined by Hanah Arendt, in her book the Origins of Totalitarianism, is the term used to describe the horror of evil committed by people that are inherently not evil. People happened to wander into the Nazi Party as a nice career path for themselves and family and told themselves convenient lies to minimize the horrors of the inconvenient truth. And before too long a society is complicit in one of the greatest and most evil acts ever committed against humanity.
I think Evil has to be called Evil. Hatred has to be called out by its name. In the end I reject banality of Evil. Hess was evil, no banality about it. Adolphh Eichmann was evil, no banality about it.
Adherents to the nazi party were evil, nothing banal about it. They knew what it stood for and what it was doing, despite the fact that it was an inconvenient truth and a convenient lie.
Americans that overlook the language of Trump and vote for him are on the verge of producing a kind of dictatorship that was virtually impossible to imagine a decade ago. And it would be based on convenient lies. Adherents to an Evil leader participate in that evil, and yes it becomes a banality. But that does not minimize the evil.
These are very troubled times. What is happening in Gaza is man's inhumanity to man. No doubt.
But for these film makers to minimize the evil of Nazi Germany by stating that 'the Holocaust is being hijacked by an occupation", to be ashamed of their Jewishness, to not speak up against an enemy, Hamas, that has stated over and over again--all the while receiving hundreds of millions of dollars from Iran to keep on going--is to commit Moral cowardice. Yes, the world is horrified by what is happening in Gaza, and how could it not be ? However, these filmmakers in their comments have undermined their mission: which is to point out that evil passes for commonly acceptable behavior. Israel has had to confront pure evil and they are fighting against it. The current Israeli government under Netanyahu is to be blamed for a great deal, but they are not responsible for the hatred against Jews, the banality of evil that at its core is true evil. Call hatred by its name. Israel is not a moral scapegoat. The world is complicit in everything going on in Gaza.
Please add "Its intention to destroy Israel" to the line " has stated over and over again". I had left that out.
Bruce
Powerful piece. Thank you.
This "perpetrator fiction" is an idea worthy of your skills parsing out for/with us. I tried to find other examples that stuck out in my readings and came up only with "Othello" or "King Lear" but they hardly represent the universal experience.
My first reaction on reading Glazer's "refutation" is that he is torn as so many of his heritage, history, faith are, resentful even, of having been backed in a corner re his allegiances, a government which he feels compelled to support (how can one abandon the security and strength which can prevent history from repeating its annihilating cycle especially after Oct. 7) but torn and at a loss how to acknowledge the horrors and inhumanity occurring in Gaza . And certainly to Palestinians but in his mind yes he is thinking of the hostages too. I feel his pain as no doubt others do whose bloodlines are connected as mine are not. Being stretched on that rack of conscience has to be painful and he had no idea when he conceived of this movie of the violent irony which awaited.
Thank you for this thoughtful piece, Leah. I read the Martin Amis book, but did not see the film. I find Holocaust films to be very "triggering" for me, and I try to avoid them. As for the director's statement drawing a moral equivalence between the war in Gaza and the 1.3 million murdered at Auschwitz, I hope he enjoys his new standing among those who believe Israel should not defend itself.
Thank you for this! I’ve been thinking a lot about that acceptance speech and it’s the verb “hijacked” that gets me. Like he’s denying the rights and voice of a Jewish county created in response to the Holocaust to speak to that very issue.
I’m so glad you wrote about this. It’s been bothering me so much. This use of “refute”
Is so off the mark. I even looked up the word to see if it had a different meaning. I don’t want to hypothesize what Glazer meant because the words here are damaging and to give any more substantiation to them feels cheap and even more harmful