Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt started a philosophical free-for-all with her reportage on the trial of Adolf Eichmann 61 years ago, proposing that he was not such a deep-down evil person, but more a hum-drum bureaucrat—therefore banal—who went along with an evil system. But that he deserved his fate of being put to death by the state of Israel in any case.
Since her book, Eichmann in Jerusalem, came out in 1963, there have been numerous responses, many of them very critical of her seeming to let Eichmann off the hook. I do not want to get in the weeds of that debate, though I will offer this opinion: That Evil can be both/and. Evil is so subtle and smart and insidious that it can operate both out of radical hatred and lies and sadism, and bring along banal accomplices as well. (In Eichmann’s case, there is actually clear evidence from his own writing that he did espouse a radical Aryan philosophy of a pure race.)
In this DM I want to draw attention to the evil—both banal and radical—that lies behind the passage by 50 Republican senators and 218 Republican congress people of the Billionaire Welfare Bill (also known as the “Big Beautiful Bill” or “Big Ugly Bill” or by many other names).
Are the passers of this evil bill purely and radically evil? Or banally evil? And does it really matter, since the consequences are the same in either case? My own guess is that some of the politicians who embraced it are banal, but a good number are also radically evil. (Another name in our western vocabulary for radically evil is antichrist.)
The results are the same in either case. I appreciate the language of minority house leader Hakeem Jeffries who, in his eight-hour talk that delayed the passage of the bill so that it would not be done in the dark at 3:00 AM—which is what speaker Johnson wanted—but in the light of day which is what actually happened. In his talk to delay, he pointed out the difference between praying on Sunday in church (which many who passed the bill profess to doing) to preying on the most vulnerable Americans—which is what they all did by voting on the weekday in congress.
He also called the congressional floor a “crime scene,” and he is correct to anyone with a moral conscience (which excludes 268 Republican congresspeople).
It is true that some of those who voted for this obscene bill are too banal to know—or care—about the pain it will cause and how it contributes to the murder of American democracy. But it is also true that many of those who voted for it do know better. For both camps, it was about pleasing one person: The dear leader so as not to get primaried. AND the CEOs of corporations that will profit from it and will boost the politicians’ futures and fortunes.
To me, it is also a statement of the degradation and new low that capitalism has sunk to in our time. Greed personified, idolized, the new god of America with few guardrails left. SCOTUS’s Citizens United decision has accomplished its purpose.
It seems very little has been learned from the banality of evil 1.0. But it is the opposition’s job to shout that out, shed light on it. And resist, tell the truth, and offer alternatives to the banality of 2.0.
See Matthew Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul & Society.
And Fox, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ.
And Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice.
And Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.
And Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality.
To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video meditation, click HERE.
Banner Image: The five appeal judges of the Israeli Supreme Court who upheld the guilty verdict in the trial of Otto Adolf Eichmann, 1962. Photo from the Government Press Office of Israel. Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
How are you feeling about the passage of the Big, Bad, Budget Bill on behalf of Billionaires at the expense of 16 million ordinary citizens who will lose their health insurance? And 4 million who will lose their food assistance? And citizens and non-citizens alike who will be torn from their families by ICE whose budget is now greater than entire nations’ military budgets? And paying $4 trillion more on America’s increased debt? And what are you choosing to do about it while linking up with others who care?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science. A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.
“I am reading Liberating Gifts for the People of the Earth by Matt Fox. He is one that fills my heart and mind for new life in spite of so much that is violent in our world.” ~ Sister Dorothy Stang.
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story
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7 thoughts on “The Banality of Evil: 2.0”
Banal or Radical? Evil or Antichrist? Does it really matter when the real issue is a collective disconnect from the upcoming bankruptcy of an industrial age based on the fallacious assumption that prosperity can be quantified by GNP algorithms in which the well-being of the geosphere, the hydrosphere, the atmosphere, the biosphere is considered as an irrelevant “externality”? “For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again.” (Matt. 24). Collective denial is the breeding ground of collective addiction to money, property and prestige, as well, of course, to more prosaic drugs.
I’m feeling sad, angry, and determined to publicly resist this sickness in our society. Also to resist by way of music, singing and dance because Joy is Resistance.
As for our Congressional representatives who follow blindly, it reminds me of something I felt during Trump’s first term. I could not understand why so many Republicans were silent and or fell in line with his stupidity and evil policies. Then I concluded that they must be “ in on it” with him. Whatever the root of the corruption was whether it was Russia or money or blackmail, they were complicit. That’s still how I see it.
The indigenous medicine man who said we are in a time of reckoning is correct. Americans have been blind to what their country has done abroad for too long. I just hope that the Americans who now will suffer will wake up since many of them voted for this and I hope that there is still a chance to vote again in the near future. The army needs to be reminded that they have a duty to resist illegal orders and that is currently happening. As a 90 year old who lived through Hitler’s attack on Britain I know how important it is not to cave in this kind of situation. Lisa Murkowski obtained important tax relief for fishermen and others in her state in that bill. In her case it was not greed or power.
Murkowski- perhaps not greed or power motivated her, but something every bit as bad. Her vote to help a few in her state, will facilitate the suffering and death of millions of her fellow Americans in other states. She could have stopped this barbaric, evil bill, she could have been brave like John McCain when he stopped the ending of the ACA, and singlehandedly ended this monstrosity of a bill, but instead she was selfish and gutless. People will suffer, democracy will lunge closer to death, human rights will crumble, and the environment will be shredded because of her cowardice, her banality. Trump, and all his supporters, especially the “Christians” behind Project 2025, are of course ultimately responsible, but fate gave Lisa Murkowski the chance to stop it and she failed spectacularly. Like Mitch McConnell who could have stopped Trump failed, like Kevin McCarthy failed and instead caved and crawled back, she failed. To use Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings story–like Isildur, they failed to cast the ring of power into Mount Doom to be destroyed, and even worse, have put it on the finger of Sauron, orange Sauron.
Banality or stupidity of evil is so true, and you and others have a right to remind us of its’ destructive consequences, like German society and Hitler’s administration that led to World War II and the holocaust. If enough Americans and democratic societal institutions do not wake up and resist, (like Congressman Hakeem Jeffries expressed in his speech to Congress in the enclosed YouTube video), we may continue to experience continued destruction of our own American democracy and freedoms by our own authoritarian president Trump and his banal, ignorant, cowardly, greedy, and enabling administration, capitalist system of oligarchs, Republican congress, and Unsupreme Court.
Each American citizen has to be strengthened/inspired by their Faith to express and act personally and collectively Our Source~Co-Creator’s Spirit of LOVE~TRUTH~PEACE~JUSTICE~HEALING~FORGIVENESS~COMPASSION~LOVING DIVERSE ONENESS… PRESENT with-in and among Us in Our daily lives….
I am furious and sickened but not surprised at this immoral and anti-christian bill. I am directly affected, being old and disabled and poor and dependent on HUD rent subsidies and Medicare. HUD is being cut 44%, mainly in the rent subsidy and homelessness programs. Medicare is automatically cut when the debt gets large enough, which it may be now–the Congress can deny direct accountability since this is automatic. I will continue to contact my unfortunately Republican senators and congressman to hold them accountable to me personally.
Artists are doing their bit, as Matthew says Here is an example: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/07/wall-of-shame-january-6-pardons
As far as the banality of evil, the Republicans in Florida are selling Alligator Alley merchandise, and , even worse, so are Etsy and Amazon.
We are the sheep and goats of Jesus’ parables, we are the Children of God, and we all have free will. I treasure mine, which encourages me to choose the Light and the Joy He provides. We can always choose. We can raise the frequencies, if you will, of our consciousness with Love and the Fruits of the Spirit in action. Matthew is a light for us, and one who cares for His sheep. Let us keep the faith and give thanks.