Lent and how we approach the Banality of Evil

I am writing this at a time when our world and our place in it seems more precarious than ever. The news is full of misery from across the globe and to be frank nothing seems secure anymore. In reality nothing ever was truly secure, but it is easy to convince ourselves, because our lives are tranquil that we are safe.

We  are now in the season of Lent, a time traditionally for fasting, prayer and penitence. 

I think penitence is a very good place to start,  I guess most of us regret some perhaps many of our actions and wish we could make amends, but I cannot help wondering how many people begin with good intentions,  but let the affairs of the day, expediency, politics and simply life get in the way of true ‘penitence’ which means really turning life around and changing ones direction and actions. Its no good being penitent if it does not change anything.

But changing ourselves is the most difficult thing to do at any time especially when we are afraid and there is much to be afraid of, the stae of the world, an impending pandemic, isn't it so much easier to pretend that all is well,  that goverments are in control of the Corona Virus,with the climate, with the economy and the country and that the forces of evil  and destruction are quiet and subdued.

Hannah Arendt in her study of the case, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil when she reported for The New Yorker in 1961 on the war crimes trial of Adolph Eichmann, the Nazi operative responsible for organising the transportation of millions of Jews and others to various concentration camps wrote:

“he was not inherently evil, but merely shallow and clueless, a ‘joiner’” in the words of one contemporary interpreter of Arendt’s thesis:” he was a man who drifted into the Nazi Party, in search of purpose and direction, not out of deep ideological belief”

In other words when we see things that are wrong most people comply because, people who consider themselves decent and good, can slowly through a steady drip feed of many unnumbered concessions, lose sight of their native moral compasses.They succumb to the banality of evil, in other words evil becomes boring or ordinary and therefore is over looked.

Perhaps in these weeks of Lent we can look at ourselves, how we have allowed to be sucked into inot that stream of destruction, that seems like ordinary life but brings us nothing but death.

This poem by one of my favourite poets Wendell Berry sums it up starkly

“Questionnaire” (a poem by Wendell Berry)

1. How much poison are you willing

to eat for the success of the free

market and global trade? Please

name your preferred poisons.

2. For the sake of goodness, how much

evil are you willing to do?

Fill in the following blanks

with the names of your favourite

evils and acts of hatred.

3. What sacrifices are you prepared

to make for culture and civilization?

Please list the monuments, shrines,

and works of art you would

most willingly destroy.

4. In the name of patriotism and

the flag, how much of our beloved

land are you willing to desecrate?

List in the following spaces

the mountains, rivers, towns, farms

you could most readily do without.

5. State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes,

the energy sources, the kinds of security,

for which you would kill a child.

Name, please, the children whom

you would be willing to kill.

You see every one of us is capable of falling into the trap placed for us by the ‘banality of evil’ and it is good for us to remember this during the Lenten season, also to remember the humanity of all people  and to understand that although we are all capable of both good and evil, what we need to do to change is to follow in the steps of our Lord Jesus Christ, to turn our lives around and with open and penitent hearts seek true repentance.