Eichmann: about the laughter and the knife

"Oh, Germany!
Who only hear the speeches
 that we receive from you will laugh.
But who sees what you do,
will draw the knife".
Bertold Brecht.

What is trivial?, Was the question that came to mind at first instance. I searched and found a sense that I found interesting, namely, trivial, common, pointless. Those were the key words for reading the text of the political theorist Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem. Does the evil has become trivial, banal? Arendt says yes, and the question we ask is why?

The mechanics of the book is an account of the judgment with philosophical and historical remarks that are intended to further understanding of the explicit words of Eichmann during his trial. However, the initial section of the book, which is the same as I've used for this text-reflects what can be read throughout the book, that is, the game between laughter and the knife. Indeed, laughter and the knife are Eichmann and Arendt is insistent in saying that during the trial, Eichmann was laughing or statements, to speak with precision, while the witnesses, the jury and the general public, had evidence did not laugh at all. On the one hand, Eichmann laugh by his speeches (who hears the speeches that we hear you laugh), but who knew what he had done and how he did it (who see what you do) wanted to kill him[1].

It was difficult to know whether he could be taken seriously Eichmann, and this constant dichotomy by whatever name, is reflected by Arendt all the time. I selected two passages that I consider essential: "For all this, it was essential to take him seriously, and this was difficult, unless taking the easy way to resolve the dilemma between the unspeakable horror of the undeniable facts and insignificance of man who had committed, he had a smart, calculating liar, which certainly was not. " And then on the same page: "Despite the efforts of the prosecutor, any could tell that this man was not a" monster ", but in reality it was difficult not to suspect that he was a clown" (P. 85).

Actually, it was expected to see a monster, evil made flesh in the person of Eichmann ... but it did not happen. What does this personification of evil? Arendt mentions that after the war, the Nazis began to judge each other: it was not me, that was it, nobody wanted to take things as far as it transpired in the Final Solution, but nobody blamed Hitler. And, seeing Hitler, I do not see the devil in person. What is happening? What was it that happened? And with much pain, with a lot of guilt in the conscience, Hannah Arendt concludes: "The German people were indifferent, but apparently cared that the country was infested with mass murderers, as none of them commit new murders on their own initiative, but if world opinion-or, rather, what the Germans call "das Ausland", which fall into one denomination all realities outside Germany insisted on that those persons are punished, the Germans were willing to please, at least to some extent". What happened was accustomed to the horror and evil, and Hannah Arendt questioned -as all the jews did- the thought to justify the very bad for a blind obedience to an "ideal".

Now, as we may be happening in Colombia about false positives. Is that everywhere in the world there will be an Auschwitz? And if this is true, why exactly compare with our false positives? What does the tragedy and the macabre with the mockery? Is laughter the middle of getting used to the horrors of existence? And I would argue yes, that consideration of whether Eichmann would not be a clown is so fundamental, because how can one laugh at a slaughter? Is not Colombia a country accustomed to horror, to the point that we laugh of our dead? The relationship between the tragic, the grotesque and the desire to laugh (for example the hippies and the response to the Vietnam War) is much deeper than you think, and takes root in the depths of human consciousness. We undertake to laugh, but ... why? ...

However, there is a call on this that Hannah Arendt on the subject when he wrote the following sentence, spoken by someone during the trial: "We want to make clear to all nations that millions of people, by the mere fact of being Jewish, and millions of children, by the mere fact of being Jewish children were murdered by the Nazis. " What does this mean? And the answer later Arendt puts it: "let us use again the words of Ben Gurion: "We want every nation know...to be ashamed". Indeed, we should be ashamed of what happened in World War II (because we can not exclude us with excuses like "I had nothing to do" and the like), and our false positives, but mainly be ashamed to laugh at these events to bear to live: "Who cares fight monsters to become turn into a monster. When you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you." Nietzsche.
 

Literature
Eichmann en Jerusalén. Segunda Edición en DeBOLS!LLO: diciembre, 2006

[1] If death is a punishment. What was wanted was justice, and should not forget what Arendt writes in one chapter: "Like all citizens of Israel, the prosecutor Hausner was convinced that only a Jewish court could do justice to the Jews and that these competing judge their enemies."