Why did Hannah Arendt's ‘Eichmann in Jerusalem’ shock readers? A psychological analysis of moral perception and the banality of evil

This paper examines the controversy surrounding Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem through a psychological analysis of evil perception. Drawing on Govrin's four-feature theory, it demonstrates how Arendt's portrayal of Eichmann as an ordinary bureaucrat challenged fundamental psychological prototypes for understanding perpetrator-victim relationships. By analyzing how Arendt's work violated four key psychological features of evil—extreme power asymmetry, perpetrator indifference, incomprehensibility, and refusal of responsibility—the paper explains readers' profound emotional distress. The analysis of reactions from intellectuals like Scholem, Howe, and Syrkin offers a methodological model for understanding resistance to morally complex historical narratives.