After viewing German concentration camp killer Adolf Eichmann in the witness box in Israel in 1961, political philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote about "the banality of evil". Arsonists are no less banal, writes Rowan Callick The Australian, 14/2.
A study of Eichmann’s life and crimes has suggested that Arendt’s analysis was at best naive, and at worst incorrect. Ms Arendt had attended only the beginning of Eichmann's trial. Up to Arendt's departure from the court room, Eichmann had tried very hard to undermine the charge that he was a dangerous fanatic by presenting himself as just another pen-pusher.
Had Hannah Arendt stayed for the whole of the proceedings, it would have become obvious to her that Adolf Eichmann was a person who had identified strongly with anti-Semitism and Nazi ideology. Obviously, he had been much more than someone who had dutifully subscribed to the Befehl ist Befehl culture.
Eichmann did much more than just follow orders: he introduced a range of new extermination policies. At the height of his career, he always stood by, and was proud of, his murderous achievements on behalf of the Third Reich. Eichmann's evil acts were overwhelming in nature - the antithesis of banal. Since we know nothing about Victoria's apprehended arsonists, we should refrain from 'doing a Hannah Arendt'.

We have heard a lot about the obviously deranged Catholic bishop who denies that the Holocaust, the genocidal murder of Jews by the Nazis, did happen. Even 12-year-olds in post-World War II Europe would have been aware of the horrors that had taken place in Nazi Germany's death camps.

Would it not be better to ignore statements uttered by those who border on being insane? Why all the publicity? Unless, of course, the silly Bishop is seen as yet another stick to beat the Catholic church with.

The mass killing of unborn children in the US - around 48 million since the Roe versus Wade decision in 1973 - has been termed a "holocaust". Presumably, abortionists, those who are unequivocally in favour of the practice, and perhaps most women who have undergone terminations, will distance themselves from the term.

Is it not reasonable to refer to the mass killing in America of about 48,000,000 unborn human beings, albeit very small ones, as a "holocaust"?