Friday, February 17, 2017

Banality of evil.

" In our age of complex bureaucracies, so much cruelty is simply the result of normal, everyday, “real” people doing what they think is most pragmatic. As the philosopher Bernard Williams said, “the modern world…has made evil, like other things, a collective enterprise.” Eichmann was not the personification of hatred. His motives were banal. Evil is often the result of small, procedural things. It is people doing their jobs and remaining loyal to their parties, regardless of evidence, arguments, or troubling historical parallels." From https://qz.com/906101/modern-philosophy-shows-that-most-atrocities-are-committed-by-normal-people-not-evil-ones/? , an idea discussed in https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eichmann_in_Jerusalem
This seems more plausible than the invisible hand attributed to Adam Smith. Perhaps self interest acts more as a centrifugal force increasing inequality.

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