A Commonplace Book

Humans simply prefer hope to despair. The theory of the banality of evil is a theory of hope: If evil arises from ignorance, the solution is as easy as a project of enlightenment. If we help people think for themselves, the world will be better. But--and this is an ugly "but"--there is an important difference between an inability to think and an unwillingness to accept thinking as worthwhile. Eichmann could think, and his writings and speeches are evidence of this. Follow the arguments, and you will find the thinker. This difference between "inability to think" and "mistrust of thinking itself" is crucial. Otherwise, we underestimate the real danger of National Socialism and every other ideology that wages war against reason.... But I understand only too well why people, especially intellectuals, refuse to recognize this threat.