A thinker claimed a form of this concept was unknown to Western tradition after a letter from Karl Jaspers cryptically noted “Hasn’t Yahweh faded too far out of sight?” An essay in The Jew as Pariah compares this concept to fungus on the world’s surface because it lacks depth. The final pages of a book note that only Kant had even conceived of a form of this concept that emerged alongside political systems which make men superfluous. A book purporting to be a “Report” on an aspect of this concept describes a “clown” defendant speaking clichés because he lacks the ability to think. The Origins of Totalitarianism hypothesizes about the “radical” form of this concept, which the author reformulated after observing the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. For 10 points, Hannah Arendt described the “banality” of what moral concept? ■END■
ANSWER: evil [accept radical evil; accept banality of evil or banal evil; prompt on banality until read]
<Ohio State C, Philosophy>
= Average correct buzz position