Glenn Beck's Rally & the Banality of Goodness

WASHNGTON, August 28, 2010 - Watching the Glenn Beck rally on the Mall, Mr. Beck has proven true to his word. The rally is not political if by political one means partisan. Every moment, every speech, every song has a feel good, I Love America, quality to it. A phrase, slightly modified from the original, fills my mind: The Banality of Goodness.

Who doesn’t honor our troops? Who doesn’t admire Albert Pujols and his work with Down Syndrome children? Who doesn’t think honor is better than dishonor? Who doesn’t think family is important? Who is opposed to charity? The only thing missing as far as I can tell is the tribute to apple pie.

By Michael Sean Winters, NCR Staff, The National Catholic Reporter

Editor's Note: For those of you who don't understand where the title of this statment from the National Catholic Reporter comes from. It comes form a book of similar title.

Banality of evil is a phrase coined by Hannah Arendt and incorporated in the title of her 1963 work Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.[1] It describes the thesis that the great evils in history generally, and the Holocaust in particular, were not executed by fanatics or sociopaths, but rather by ordinary people who accepted the premises of their state and therefore participated with the view that their actions were normal.

Some men and women may or may not have ethical or moral principles but they will never allow such principles to undermine their ability to prosper. Loyalty to the party or institution, deference to superiors, the ability to swim with the tide — these are the values that determine the behaviour of the true careerist and of the banality of evil. On the pre-ethical assumption that the good is to advance in the career, everything else is subordinated. This undertaking can have little or great consequences but it always follows the same procedure of giving up the conscience for the career. [2]