CASE STUDY
In Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), Hannah Arendt observed the Nazi bureaucrat Adolf Eichmann, who helped organize the logistics of the Holocaust. What shocked her was:
He didn’t seem monstrous.
He wasn’t especially ideological, sadistic, or even fanatical.
Instead, he was ordinary, obedient, and unreflective.
She concluded that his failure to think deeply — to stop and morally judge his actions — was a key part of how he was able to do such evil things. He followed rules and orders without ever really confronting what they meant.
POINT
That Arendt and not Jesus, not Mother Teresa, is associated with that view that not thinking leads to evil and sustains it, is telling.
With the vast influence of Christianity, Buddhism etc, why did we need her to popularise it? She is virtually the discoverer. If she is right, that is a discovery of monumental importance.
Everybody only did harm by not realising. The irony is that Christianity in particular emphasises being a hospital for sinners.
But was she right?
DID SHE DIMINISH THE HORROR OF EVIL?
If some mass murderer in a terrorist organisation is “just a bureaucrat,” their participation in the torture and death of innocents should be seen as a moral catastrophe, not a mundane failure in relation to thinking.
She denied that not thinking means:
That evil is less serious, or that perpetrators like Eichmann should be excused.
That evil becomes less evil if it’s done thoughtlessly.
That does not seem very persuasive. So she told us that evil can be committed without deep hatred or sadism — just through conformity, obedience, and a lack of moral imagination. And that thoughtlessness can be lethal — and maybe even more dangerous because it makes evil seem “normal.”
So for her evil isn't just about bad intentions — it's also about refusing to engage morally with the world. But there is an error there. Refusing is based on a bad intention.
She claimed her view made evil more frightening. Really? We fear malice above all.
Also, excusing is on a spectrum. Is her argument implying that if Eichmann should not be excused fully, he could be partly excused?
THINKING IS RELATIVE
The argument that evil people are not thinking can be challenged.
Many intelligent, philosophically trained, or deeply thoughtful people have committed or supported horrific acts. The Nazi leadership included highly educated individuals. ISIS recruits sometimes include engineers, doctors, and even philosophers. Arendt’s own mentor, Martin Heidegger, was a Nazi sympathizer and one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century.
Evil isn't always from lack of thought — sometimes it's from distorted or perverted thinking.
Moral relativism may lead to persons thinking genocidal actions are permissible or even occasions for celebration.
NOT THINKING MAKES A VOID FOR EVIL TO FILL
If not thinking lets evil in, is this like how nature abhors a vacuum? Does emptiness appear and does evil have to occupy it? How fast does it rush in?
Does the evil come from outside you - from nature, a demon, something magical, from community?
Does it come from inside you meaning you already are evil and are using the lack of thought to give it a voice and power?
Or both?
If you assert that a person naturally becomes evil if they do not think, you are saying evil is just a word for what we do not like in nature. It is natural.
Many evildoers see evil as natural and that is its appeal. They even think they need an evil streak to avert attacks from evil persons.
Also, if evil needs to be already there for the lack of thought to implement it, then its presence, not its fruits, is the real horror. Intuition however will not allow us to think of a person as a demon before they start unleashing harm. If the person thinks we should worry more about evil being present than the death and harm it leads to they are not going to take us seriously if we moralise at them. Our religions and our ethics look then like hypocrisy and foolishness.
If evil rushes in where there is a lack of thinking, then it is no exception but a default state. It is what happens when nothing else is actively in place.
If it is a default then, then what else is it a default in that we do not know about?
Also, if people are passive they are not just weak but allowing danger in.
The evil person who lets evil in by a lack of thought, risks feeling controlled by it. Their grip on their sense of moral responsibility will lessen.
SOLUTION
Consider: Could faith, sacraments, scripture study or prayer offer a solution to the thoughtlessness that (supposedly) leads to evil? If God is the supreme good and the supreme moral authority then yes. They would be the only necessary solution. Psychiatrists and therapists would be only trinkets. Incidentally, not thinking of God first and foremost would be the biggest cause of evil.
My reply is:
Saying a rosary is not going to help you think about your evil. It is not even the subject.
Do believers mean that those things only help by letting God personally in with his gifts of grace? The idea is that God intervenes to help you be a better person with his gift of grace. He becomes present to you and heals. It is very personal and relational. Many people engaging in those activities do a lot of harm. Many believers will be shocked at what harm they have done despite depending on spiritual techniques to change. The religious outlook for many is the problem.
If not thinking gives rise to evil and potential evil, then relevant educational challenge is what is needed. It is not prayers, not sacraments, not exorcisms, not Jesuses. It is not God or religion.
It is significant that followers of Arendt stress awareness and contemplation not religion.
Believers in free will may hold that they cannot make a person going down an evil path think. But they also hold that if they could, they should. They hold that it is because people are free beings that they should be compelled. God then is to blame for evil for he can force people to think and does not. He does not even try.
THE TWIST
Saying the evil person is not thinking about the right things, could be a projection. You may think, "I am wonderful. I would not do such things unless I stopped thinking. Malice and sadism will never appear in me. Oh how wise and intelligent I am!" Your attitude is boastful and riddled with pride. And yet you say pride is evil and the root of most evils.
You are the one not doing the thinking. You are part of the problem. And you cannot force anybody to think. So you are going to feel helpless. So thinking that not-thinking is behind evil could be worse than what the person is actually doing. You are leaving them on their own with their emptiness.
Thoughtlessness leads to more thoughtlessness. What is the point of combatting evil then?
Why not admit that hatred and thoughtlessness are compatible? A person can have a malicious motive and also one to be lazy.
THE COMMUNITY
The person may be the one not thinking. Or the community. If the community won't think and evil is happening, if you cannot convert it then do you destroy it?
Conclusion:
Arendt’s claim that evil can arise not from hatred but from thoughtlessness is both unsettling and groundbreaking. It reframes evil not as a monstrous anomaly, but as a dangerously ordinary possibility — one that can flourish wherever moral reflection is absent. Yet this diagnosis raises troubling questions. Can the refusal to think really be separated from intent? Does describing evil as “banal” risk diminishing its horror or excusing its perpetrators? And if not-thinking is the problem, what actually compels someone to begin thinking — or to care enough to try?
While Arendt’s insight exposes a chilling truth about human conformity and moral disengagement, it also invites projection, helplessness, and even self-congratulation. Evil is not always born of emptiness; it can emerge from calculated, intelligent, even ideologically “justified” reasoning. Religion and ritual may comfort or motivate some, but they are no guarantee against harm — and can sometimes obscure it.
If thoughtlessness opens the door to evil, then education, self-awareness, and the courage to confront uncomfortable truths may be our best defences. But even that is no simple remedy. For if we cannot force people to think — or to care — then perhaps Arendt’s warning is not just about others, but about us. The banality of evil is not that it is dull, but that it is always possible — and disturbingly close.