The Banality of Evil

Arendt never argues that Eichmann was not driven by malice, hatred, and racism. She also never argues that he wasn't fully aware of what he was doing or that he was simply a mindless bureaucrat following orders. In fact, she rather explicitly gives examples and argues in favor of both those descriptions of Eichmann.

What Arendt does argue, is that Eichmann's evil comes from having been a "joiner." In a search for some higher meaning, he gave himself to a cause so completely that he was unable to think outside of it's cliche's, standard lines... or from the point of view of other people. By adopting a cause Eichmann created a intellectual fence around himself and relieved himself of having to think critically or examine his convictions. Eichmann rejected the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, didn't believe in Blood libel, in other words, his antisemitism wasn't based on religious beliefs, or a conspiratorial belief in Jewish world domination, he justified it because it was his part of his "fatherland morality." 

Antisemitism was a function of his ardent belief in Nazism. Eichmann, and those like him, didn't seek a rational, coherent world view full of intellectual integrity in Nazism, they sought (and gave themselves fully to Nazism because they received) a sense of brotherhood, righteousness, pride, social capital, and historical importance. To question the fundamental tenants tenets of Nazism was to threaten all that mattered in their lives.

There is pleasure in understanding the world around us and meaning in the unending work of developing and refining a coherent world view. Adopting an ideology, short circuits that effort, providing pleasure and meaning with an unwarranted (and unquestioned) degree of certainty. 

Consequently, fully adopting an ideology, whether it's Nazism or Feminism, is fundamentally not a benign act. People do this on a regular basis: unquestioned, mild, allegiance to their church, to their political party, to traditional values, to their social causes, etc. This is the essence of "the banality of evil" that Arendt talks about. There is a strong intellectual resemblance between the unquestioned beliefs and unexamined assumptions that allow a man to ship millions of people to extermination camps, and the unquestioned assumptions and beliefs that we all operate on, on a daily basis. Psychopathic cruelty and blood-thirst are not required.

So when people claim that Arendt is wrong about Eichmann, they don't need to demonstrate that he was a willing and dedicated mass murderer. Arendt does a good job demonstrating that in her own book. They need to show that he was actively questioning Nazism's tenets not simply rearranging the "cliches" of Nazism to justify his actions.

This article seems to really have it out for Arendt without actually engaging with her thesis in the slightest. They describe her suggestion that Eichmann had "no criminal motives" as "shocking," as if Arendt was soft or forgiving of Eichmann. What Arendt is actually arguing in that quote is that Eichmann was a fanatic who saw nothing criminal or wrong with what he did. I attribute this flagrant misrepresentation of her work to Arendt's controversial position in the Jewish community. Her historically accurate critique of the Jewish response to the holocaust has offended many people. Some would like to believe that the Jews were above the fray, that they didn't react to the horror around them with the mix of heroism and smallness that one would expect of any group of people.

SOURCE