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late night thoughts or whatever...

on the "banality of evil"... i understand the concept of "evil people" being banal as in H*tler was in no way shape or form a genius, he was a racist piece of shit with literally no real talent. he wasn't even an specially good orator because there was no subtlety or real *art* in his speech, so him and people who attached/still attach themselves to his ideology i think of as banal. people are banal. most people even when well intentioned can be banal at times.
I do strongly disagree with the idea that *evil* itself can be viewed as banal because what banal, ill intentioned people, *evil* people can do, when they have power over any part of society, it has concequences and i do not believe said consequences can be seen as "banal" because it doesn't matter how stupid and "simple" the doer is, the victims of their "evil" will always be affected more deeply than anyone can imagine, and their suffering is not banal.
so evil in itself, in my opinion, cannot be categorized as banal.
tyrants, dictators, politicians, any figure exercising power over others in evil ways, are banal.
but what they do, however evil, will always have particular, concequences in other individuals that no matter the amount of times they tell their stories during/after the same evil will never be banal because personal experience as a consequence of the evil of others is never a banality.
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therighttothink50 · 56-60, M
The greatest evil is the ignorance, passivity and acceptance of evil as something normal.

“In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousandfold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers . . . we are ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.”

-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn-

“If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”

-Winston S. Churchill-

“You ask me what forces me to speak? a strange thing; my conscience.”

Victor Hugo

“Being good is easy, what is difficult is being just.”

Victor Hugo

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

-Edmund Burke-

"Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer-

"To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That’s what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul – would you understand why that’s much harder?"

-Ayn Rand-