Heidegger infamously joined the Nazi party in the years leading up to World War Two. Ordinary people - going about their everyday lives - become complicit actors in systems that perpetuate evil.Įarly on in her academic life, Arendt was a student of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger, with whom she had a two-year love affair. Evil becomes commonplace it becomes the everyday. Rather, evil is perpetuated when immoral principles become normalized over time by unthinking people. As we explore in our short explainer piece on the ‘banality of evil’, Arendt argues that evil does not have the Satan-like, villainous appearance we might typically associate it with. Her many books and articles have had a lasting influence on political theory and philosophy.Īrendt is perhaps most famous for her coining of the phrase, the ‘banality of evil’. Born in 1906, German-born American philosopher Hannah Arendt is widely considered to be one of the most important political thinkers of the 20th century.
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