This is a good read for fans of the the show. I don’t think the central premise of redefined evil holds up, but it’s a fun read and the analysis of their characters is spot on.
I place it in the category of “cringe humor,” and by that standard it’s more cringey than Seinfeld and curb - especially because of the first person shots. It is a great show! Well worth a watch.
I always refer to it as cringe humour too but for the reason that it makes me physically cringe seeing how they humiliate themselves in social situations - Like NO MARK PLEASE DONT DO THAT! DONT ACT ON THAT IMPULSE PLEASE! kinda thing.
I was completely sold when I think it's in the first episode Mark is walking past some lads who accuse him of being a "paedo" and he hurries off thinking to himself "You're not a paedo. You're definitely not a paedo." as they've finally said something bad that doesn't apply to him.
The article refers to the banality of evil in realation to Eichmann. There's actually been quite a bit of historical push back on this assertion, which in some ways has been used to rehabilitate Eichmann's image as a bureaucrat. Eichmann while not the chief architect, was definitely partly responsible for the Holocaust's "success" and actively climbed the nazi hierarchy by finding a niche to fill - exterminating jewish people.
And people just ignore a number of very convincing anecdotes told to Lanzmann from Benjamin Murmelstein, someone who would know, including one with Eichmann personally helping trash the inside of a Vienna synagogue on Kristallnacht.
I always thought "the banality of evil" wasn't about minimizing the horror of his actions. It's not saying "what he did wasn't so bad," but "these horrible actions were done not by an obvious villain, but by someone personally unremarkable."
In addition to the push back there's the fact that Hannah Arendt -- who coined the phrase "banality of evil" -- was also a lover of Martin Heidegger.
Heidegger was an enthusiastic Nazi and Arendt also defended him. Some people see the "banality of evil" book as essentially being a defense of Eichmann.
If you haven't heard of Peep Show but you enjoyed Succession you should know that Jessie Armstrong, the creator and showrunner of Succession, was previously one half of the Jessie Armstrong and Sam Bain pair responsible for Peep Show.
I find the similarities between the two shows fascinating: in particular the way they both revel in how flawed their central characters are.
I think back on my past and all the evil actions I have taken have all been fed by very low self-worth and insecurity.
When you think of yourself as below everyone else, trying to bring them down to your level with malicious acts can feel like quite reasonable. You're "punching up" so you can feel a sense of righteous justification.
It's only looking back that I realize I wasn't nearly as weak as I thought.
> nor in the exaggerated cartoony manner of other comedic anti-heroes
I'm not sure I understand the focus on realism here.
I mean, there's absolutely nothing in any scene of The Thick of It that looks at all realistic to me. But it captures the essence of incompetence, corruption, and opportunism so completely that reading actual news stories inescapably brings to mind scenes from that series.
Kaczynski called out low self-esteem as one of several foundational components in the psychology of his hated enemies (“leftists”), whom he believed to be the primary scourge of society (ironic, coming from a mass murderer). Modern analysis of incel culture also places low self-esteem at the center of the problem.
“Evil” is not a medical diagnosis but the classical understanding of evil does overlap quite strongly with the so-called “dark triad” of personality disorders of antisocial personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder and machiavellianism.
It’s quite startling how often characters in sitcoms tend to demonstrate traits of these three disorders and for a long while I wondered why.
Then I realized the answer is very simple: it’s really funny (when it’s not happening to you).
Is much added with this talk of evil? Peep Show seems largely the same sort of tragicomic tale of hubris and human frailty that we see in Shakespeare or even all the way back in Ancient Greece.
Would love to have a look at that show based on that description. Alas, as is the way in 2025, no streaming services here have it, looking for it on Amazon was not helpful either (and offered some embarrassing suggestions instead).
> To Arendt, that was the scariest thing of all – that such evil could be perpetrated by so banal an individual.
My takeaway from Eichmann was not that Eichmann _wasn't_ a horrible person. It's very clear that he is horrible, that he had full knowledge of what he was doing. Her characterization of him was actually comical. Totally irreverent of the man. (and, made the book quite a fun read)
But I think Eichmann made a deeper point. "Banality" described his self-conception. The way his place in society was created for him, and the way he used it, not even to justify and rationalize his actions, but to simply allow himself to work without thinking towards the evil that transpired. The way that Nazi society created a mechanism by which he could, by default and without effort, continue working, in spite of obvious evidence of cruelty. In fact, seeing the gas vans up close was disturbing to Eichmann, as it would be to anyone.
She generalized the mechanism beyond the Nazis (the controversy of the book was that it pointed out how closely the Jews of Europe assisted Eichmann with his work).
It is these "default", "without effort" positions that we take, in all of our daily lives, that ultimately are evil. Although Eichmann was a particularly stupid and egregious example, we all have little sayings that we say to ourselves that allow us to ignore the cruelty and evil that happens in front of our face as a result of the structures we find ourselves in.
And therefore: that it is our moral duty to see what's in front of us and reject wherever possible the "default" or "passive" position. Eichmann was notable because of his utter inability to do that. Nothing more. So, I think I disagree with the author, the root of evil is cowardice.
I'd prefer to have "evil" as a word removed from language as an archaic symbolic reference to bad things that some people think that other other people do under the influence of malevolent supernatural beings. Redefining evil as something else is still clinging to the religious connotations like a baby to their nappy - for a reason: it's because it elevates my/our value systems from a mere subjective one to that a presumed spiritual realm, and therefore objective of sorts.
But the hard truth is that value systems are objectively subjective, and people can be confused, ignorant, frustrated, angry, insane, devoid of empathy, people we don't like, or our enemies - but not evil. It's time to let that term into the dustbin of history.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 56.3 ms ] threadHeidegger was an enthusiastic Nazi and Arendt also defended him. Some people see the "banality of evil" book as essentially being a defense of Eichmann.
Well that was clearly never Arendt's intent. Have people actually tried to interpret her work to rehabilitate Eichmann?
I find the similarities between the two shows fascinating: in particular the way they both revel in how flawed their central characters are.
Are we the baddies?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKcmnrE5oY
Every villain is the hero in their own story, after all.
I think back on my past and all the evil actions I have taken have all been fed by very low self-worth and insecurity.
When you think of yourself as below everyone else, trying to bring them down to your level with malicious acts can feel like quite reasonable. You're "punching up" so you can feel a sense of righteous justification.
It's only looking back that I realize I wasn't nearly as weak as I thought.
I'm not sure I understand the focus on realism here.
I mean, there's absolutely nothing in any scene of The Thick of It that looks at all realistic to me. But it captures the essence of incompetence, corruption, and opportunism so completely that reading actual news stories inescapably brings to mind scenes from that series.
Interestingly this is a similar conclusion that the Unabomber came to in Industrial Society and its Future:
https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/materials/In...
Kaczynski called out low self-esteem as one of several foundational components in the psychology of his hated enemies (“leftists”), whom he believed to be the primary scourge of society (ironic, coming from a mass murderer). Modern analysis of incel culture also places low self-esteem at the center of the problem.
This is a much longer (and well worth the read) development of basically that.
It’s quite startling how often characters in sitcoms tend to demonstrate traits of these three disorders and for a long while I wondered why.
Then I realized the answer is very simple: it’s really funny (when it’s not happening to you).
My takeaway from Eichmann was not that Eichmann _wasn't_ a horrible person. It's very clear that he is horrible, that he had full knowledge of what he was doing. Her characterization of him was actually comical. Totally irreverent of the man. (and, made the book quite a fun read)
But I think Eichmann made a deeper point. "Banality" described his self-conception. The way his place in society was created for him, and the way he used it, not even to justify and rationalize his actions, but to simply allow himself to work without thinking towards the evil that transpired. The way that Nazi society created a mechanism by which he could, by default and without effort, continue working, in spite of obvious evidence of cruelty. In fact, seeing the gas vans up close was disturbing to Eichmann, as it would be to anyone.
She generalized the mechanism beyond the Nazis (the controversy of the book was that it pointed out how closely the Jews of Europe assisted Eichmann with his work).
It is these "default", "without effort" positions that we take, in all of our daily lives, that ultimately are evil. Although Eichmann was a particularly stupid and egregious example, we all have little sayings that we say to ourselves that allow us to ignore the cruelty and evil that happens in front of our face as a result of the structures we find ourselves in.
And therefore: that it is our moral duty to see what's in front of us and reject wherever possible the "default" or "passive" position. Eichmann was notable because of his utter inability to do that. Nothing more. So, I think I disagree with the author, the root of evil is cowardice.
But the hard truth is that value systems are objectively subjective, and people can be confused, ignorant, frustrated, angry, insane, devoid of empathy, people we don't like, or our enemies - but not evil. It's time to let that term into the dustbin of history.