Customer Reviews

The Banality of Good and Evil: Moral Lessons from the Shoah and Jewish Tradition (Moral Traditions and Moral Arguments)

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This book seeks to do a variety of things: to explain and define what Blumenthal calls "the banality of good and evil", to describe a few Jewish texts that address prosocial deeds and character traits, and to suggest a plan of action. By "banal", Blumenthal means evil (or good) that is "normal, prosaic, matter-of-fact, and rationalized as a greater good." A Nazi bureaucrat who regularly kills as a matter of procedure is acting in a "banal" way; killing in a fit of rage is not. Similarly, one who protects others from that bureaucrat, and thinks of this act as reflexive and normal, is acting in a "banal" way; one who agonizes over a once-in-a-lifetime good deed, less so.

How do people (and in particular, Nazis) come to act banally? Blumenthal summarizes a variety of studies, and suggests that a variety of factors are relevant: peer support/pressure, childhood upbringing (German fathers tended to be angry and authoritarian), practice in doing good or evil, and a strong desire to submit to authority.

Blumenthal's description of Jewish ethical norms is excellent; he cites a variety of sources and addresses a wide variety of issues. However, Blumenthal does not seem to believe that religion is especially likely to promote good behavior. For example, he writes, without citing any basis for this conclusion, that "Jewish ethical preaching has not worked to make ordinary Jews significantly more caring people." This statement, if not wrong, seems to be to be at best unverifiable. (He makes similar statements about Christians, pointing out that even though a few rescuers acted out of religious conviction during the Holocaust, many did not).

His sets of guidelines for encouraging prosocial conduct is a bit weaker; he sets forth some guidelines, but it is not always clear who these guidelines are addressed to (employers? schools?)

Blumenthal also has (or had, at the time of the book) a strong ideological bias towards the political Left. In complaining about the organized Jewish community, he wrote that "The Israeli peace movement, for example, has not been led, or even well-populated, by people who identify as `religious.'" - implying that supporting the peace movement is ethical behavior in the same way that charity is ethical behavior. Of course, this book was written in the 1990s, before Israel gave away territory to the Palestinian Authority and Hamas and got war in exchange; my suspicion is that today, Blumenthal's position might be different.