The Banality of the Absolute

Banality or Banality of Evil and Absolute are distinctly formulated concepts of Hannah Arendt. Absolute was formulated by Arendt in the context of the American and French Revolutions and also in regard to totalitarianism, whereas Banality was formulated by her in the context of the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem. Arendt never sought to analyze the possibilities of these two concepts being related to each other. However, the endeavor of this article is to emphasize that Banality and Absolute, far from being distinct from each other in actuality, presuppose each other. The said argument would be further explained by dividing the article into three sections. The first section analyzes the historical moment of absolute, which was witnessed in Nazi Germany, where the intrinsic relation between banality and absolute was experienced. The second section engages with the philosophical moment of the Absolute, wherein Kierkegaard’s text Fear and Trembling is used as an instance to emphasize how the evocation of absolute presupposed banality in this philosophical moment. The third section would engage with Mario Vargas Llosa’s novel The Feast of the Goat, which narrates another instance of how Absolute and Banality interpenetrate each other. The article would conclude with an emphasis on how a conception of ethics, which could be termed “grounded immanence”, needs to be imagined to weaken the hold of Banality on modern humans.