Great harm is more often done by unremarkable people executing procedures than by monsters acting from evident malice.
Arendt's phrase from her 1963 Eichmann reporting. Later archival work showed Eichmann was considerably more ideologically committed than she judged, so the specific reading is weakened while the general observation about procedural complicity is not.
In practice
- A compliance officer signs off a transaction she finds uncomfortable because the form was complete and the approvals were in order.
- A council's eviction notices are issued correctly, on time, by people who have never met a tenant.
- Standing
- Arendt's specific reading of Eichmann has been undermined by later archival work; the general observation about bureaucratic complicity is better supported.
- Subject
- Psychology & Behavior
- Essay
- Theories of the mind, from the lab to the bookshop