Eichmann, far from being a monster, is described by H. Arendt as an ordinary man ; and the genocide is all the more atrocious because it is “ banal “. But was she not deceived by the accused’s defense, presenting him as a simple executioner? ? Isabelle Delpla invites us to reassess our judgment on extreme evil.
We can better appreciate today the exceptionality of the Eichmann trial, and the exhibition presented last year in Paris, as well as the reasoned work of historical interpretation proposed in its catalog, make it possible to recapture its density — notably thanks to the mobilized archives — as well as its impact on the perception of the Shoah. Isabelle Delpla’s book corresponds in some way to the philosophical side of this work of recontextualization, by making possible a fresh discussion of Hannah Arendt’s famous analysis of the trial, often summarized by the expression “ the banality of evil “. Placing the trial itself as a discursive operation at the heart of the reflection, I. Delpla thus proposes to renew the philosophical approach to extreme evil as it appeared in the mass crimes of the XXe century.
Recontextualizing the Eichmann Trial
An essential contribution of the book is to place the Eichmann described by Arendt in the very temporality of the Jerusalem trial, in particular by comparing it with other testimonies and judicial chronicles published on this occasion: some famous like those of Kessel or Poliakov, others less known, such as those of Gouri whose fine analysis I. Delpla highlights. It highlights the proximity of Arendt’s account with those of other commentators (including criticizing the prosecutor Hausner or tackling the problem of the role of Jewish councils), but also its dependence on the moments of the trial that the philosopher was able to observe, since she was only partially present. The attested banality of Eichmann’s person is explained by I. Delpla by the convergence of two phenomena: on the one hand the fact, classic but always a renewed source of comments in judicial chronicles, according to which whatever his crime “ the man put in the dock rarely looks like a monster » (p.112), and on the other hand the legal strategy adopted by Eichmann’s lawyer. Partially contradicting a number of elements recounted in Eichmann’s last biography relating to his real commitment, Eichmann’s defense chooses to present him as a “ unfortunate naive person falling through misfortune, inadvertence and virtue into compromising situations, toy and not actor of events » (p. 67). The figure “ of erasure of the self behind orders » (p. 67) who gradually, through Arendt’s portrait of Eichmann, ended up defining the very essence of the office criminal in XXe century, is thus recontextualized in the space and temporality of the Jerusalem trial. In addition to its explanatory power on Arendt’s work, this contextualization in the form of a rupture is also a strong indicator according to the author of the need to grasp the discursive form specific to the trial in its internal logics, too widely neglected, including from the point of view of its effects on its witnesses or its analysts. It is therefore also a detailed critique of the sources that this book invites, providing on this point not only to philosophers but also to historians, sociologists, jurists.
The book by I. Delpla can therefore be read as an important critique of Arendt’s analysis, reduced to the limits of her intermittent attention to the trial and in particular to her dependence – paradoxical – on the form of defense adopted by Eichmann’s lawyer. Beyond this conjunctural explanation, the portrait of the accused is also explained by the philosophical desire to avoid really thinking about the possibility of wanting evil for evil’s sake, a common thread in Arendt’s thought thus reconstructed from her work on Saint Augustine, until The life of the spirit. I. Delpla resituates Eichmann in Jerusalem in what she calls “ the gesture of theodicies » (p. 161), this philosophical questioning about the compatibility between the existence of God and the existence of evil in this world. H. Arendt in this perspective is located on the side of the affect felt (especially during a trial) during the confrontation with criminals, their mediocrity, their attempts at justification, their recognition of crimes always expected or always disappointing. It is similar to those that Kant makes fun of in his pamphlet On the failure of any attempt in matters of Theodicy, who seek consolation in the face of evil “ by convincing oneself that injustice, as the triumph of the unpunished villain, does not exist » (p. 165). Still according to Delpla “ Arendt updated (through her portrait of Eichmann) a Platonic and Augustinian gesture which makes evil a non-being, a lack of being or a failure to be. » (p. 170).
The figure of Eichmann proposed by Arendt is in this perspective less the faithful portrait of the man Eichmann than an image of a non-being. It embodies what man becomes in a situation of totalitarian regime, regimes whose common essence the philosopher sought to think in the way in which they shape men devoid of thought, cogs of an anonymous machine of which Eichmann in his banal mediocrity seems to be the ideal type incarnate.
Confronting the thought of evil
Beyond the criticism of Arendt’s Eichmann, it is the capacity to think about evil and to judge it which is re-discussed by I. Delpla in the light of historiographical debates, social sciences, law and philosophy. On the social sciences side, it is the controversies on ordinary executioners that I. Delpla remobilizes, in particular by confronting the work of Arendt with one of her main sources of inspiration (little and poorly cited by her), The destruction of the Jews of Europe, by Raoul Hilberg, and one of the works it inspired, Ordinary men by Christopher Browning. Being less interested in the debates on obedience to rules which have continued to continue in the social sciences than in the question of the scope of the term “ banality », I. Delpla shows how much Hilberg like Browning insist on the “ ordinary » more than on the banality of evil. They thus allow us to understand how the perpetuation of crimes can be anchored in everyday life and a routinization of practices, without concluding that this violence would be “ banal ”, that is to say meaningless. Arendtian analysis is thus gradually deconstructed, from the point of view of its internal logic as well as the relevance of its concepts, to result in a second step in a theoretical return towards the process form analyzed in its philosophical dimension, as a means of going beyond the renunciation of thinking about the reality of evil. The author then returns in this way to the trials of the International Criminal Court on the former Yugoslavia which she studied and previously analyzed.
It is in an original way characteristic of her philosophical style that Isabelle Delpla thus links the past to the present and philosophy to the contemporary world in her last chapter. In too few pages, it illuminates how the double movement of re-contextualization in the judicial form, and avoidance of the aporias of theodicy – in that it seeks to justify the presence of evil without agreeing to think it -, allows us to better understand what is at stake in these contemporary judgments. First of all, understanding how Arendt’s Eichmann is the reflection of a historically situated mode of defense also allows us, by contrast, to understand how this type of excuse is rendered ineffective in international criminal courts and tribunals by the new criminalization of joint criminal enterprise (theECC), precisely thought of in reference to the trials of Nazi dignitaries. On the other hand, updating the trial form as a means of accessing the judgment of mass crimes leads, according to I. Delpla, not to morally evaluating these crimes as good or bad, which would have no meaning, but to taking seriousness of the judicial process from a moral point of view. In this perspective, she refers in particular to Mark Osiel, who saw in this form of trial a political moment of updating common values, made necessary by a moment of political transition, in a “ deliberative dissensus » associated with the contradictory form. Doubting this social power of the trial, I. Delpla places greater emphasis on the judicial procedure as a source of investigation and proof, and points out the risk of dichotomous antagonism of the interpretations generated by the judicial space in its relations with the social sciences. The philosophical interest of the trial form therefore lies rather in the possibility of thinking about the situated modalities of justification present, embodied by the different parties in the judicial space. The trial form allows us to overcome the impotence to think about extreme evil and mass massacres, by placing moral criticism in the second degree, “ about other people’s points of view » (p. 216).
In a conclusion that is perhaps too hasty given the importance of the questions raised, I. Delpla suggests extending this reflection by comparing law and philosophy. If the difficulty in thinking about moral responsibility, including when the subject does not act alone, is undoubtedly a question common to philosophy and law, what does the final proposition mean that “ in this regard, moral philosophy should follow the path opened by international criminal justice » (p. 218) ? It is indeed important to understand that obedience, like resistance, is not necessarily individual, but most often part of a collective movement, even if it is hidden and underlying as the work has shown by James C. Scott on forms of resistance. This desire to seize the collective corresponds well to the path adopted by criminal law by developing new specific incriminations such asECC. However, if the normative dimension can bring together law and philosophy, unlike the historical and social sciences, the meaning of this future common path remains relatively vague, particularly in contrast with the rest of this clear, fluid and fascinating book.