Sympathy for the Devil: Evil, Social Process, and Intelligibility

Abstract

Adolph Eichmann's deceptions and crimes are emblematic of an attempted disguise of evil and the consequences of the absence of empathy (i.e., Arendt's “thoughtlessness”), for understanding the world and constructing “reality.” Both relativistic and absolutist approaches to evil are rejected in recognition that the themes that define evil are not only ambiguous and contradictory, but also entangled with each other. Eichmann's crimes are viewed in different contexts which, when contrasted, clarify evil as reciprocally located in individual and social processes. “Evil” emerges as a conceptual framework for making the world intelligible and a source of meaning. It involves both a construction of and assault on reality. Evil acts become comprehensible only within the web of beliefs in which they occur. The imbrication of ideology and deception as cause and effects of evil become evident as the “banality of evil” is contrasted with “radical evil.”

Keywords:

• banality of evil
• deception
• Eichmann
• intelligibility
• Nazi conscience
• radical evil
• social process

Notes

² In German, the word Volk may mean folk (simple people), people in the ethnic sense and nation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volk_[German_word].

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Robert Prince

Robert Prince, Ph.D., holds a Diplomate in Psychoanalysis from the American Board of Professional Psychology and is a fellow of the Academy of Psychoanalysis. He is past president of Psychologist-Psychoanalyst Clinicians, Section V of the Division of Psychoanalysis of the American Psychological Association and formerly on the Board of Directors of the Division of Psychoanalysis of APA and of the Academy of Psychoanalysis. He received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Columbia University and his Certificate in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy from the NYU Postdoctoral Program, where he is past co-chair of the interpersonal track and one of the founding members of the trauma studies specialization. Among his over 35 publications are The Legacy of the Holocaust: The Death of Psychoanalysis, Trauma and Culture, and What is Effective in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy: A Historical Reprise.