Thoughts have no criminals

Bryana 2022-04-23 07:04:05

Hannah Arendt mentioned the crimes committed by the Jews during the Holocaust, and is not blaming the Jews. The accusations of past events are meaningless—just hurt feelings. But Hannah Arendt did not hesitate to hurt the so-called national feelings, and the reason why she wanted to describe it in this way was that she believed that compared with the so-called patriotism or feelings (of course, she only loves specific people, not vague concepts). The discovery of the banality of evil caused by individuals in the collective is far higher than the so-called "feelings", and this reflection on this new type of "evil" is far more important to human beings than other everything is gone.

It's not that she doesn't love people, or doesn't care about anyone's feelings. She is just used to loving the concrete people around her, rather than abstract concepts like "country" and "nation".

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Extended Reading

Hannah Arendt quotes

  • Heinrich Blücher: Dearest. Don't cry.

    Hannah Arendt: I spoke to the doctor. He said you only have a fifty percent chance.

    Heinrich Blücher: Don't forget the other fifty percent.

  • Hans Jonas: But Eichmann is a monster. And when I say monster, I don't mean Satan. You don't need to be smart or powerful to behave like a monster.

    Hannah Arendt: You're being too simplistic. What's new about the Eichmann phenomenon is that there are so many just like him. He's a terrifyingly normal human being.