I wish you a better version of yourself in reading
Some time ago, the Afghan issue attracted widespread international attention, and the reason for this was because Afghanistan was located in Central Asia, bridging the Eurasian continent, and had an important strategic position. This kind of war has added a dark cloud to the clear sky of peace around the world, always reminding us of the importance of a community with a shared future in the world.
I don't know if the audience realizes that the era we are living in now, if we look at it in the long river of human history, can be regarded as a happy time without precedent.
For the first time in history, we have emerged from large-scale wars, diseases and poverty, and entered an era when most people can read and hyphenate and achieve intellectual equality, a hundred years ago, the mortality rate of human infants was as high as 15%, and a regional disaster caused by crop yield reductions could cause tens of thousands of people to leave their homes and be separated from their wives and children. And now that we are facing the double whammy of COVID-19 and torrential rains, we can still enjoy the food at home watching movies, and the power and material supply behind this is something that our human ancestors could not have imagined.
This is the power of modernization, which has improved the efficiency of human society, and we human beings have spent tens of thousands of years to help run, and finally sprinted into the era of material abundance.
However, the book I recommend today is not a song of praise for modernization, on the contrary, this book thoroughly writes about the hidden dangers that exist in modernization and deserve our attention.
The book I recommend to you today is the german philosopher Hannah Arendt's book Eichmann in Jerusalem.
"Eichmann in Jerusalem"
The book is a trial notebook of the 1961 Jerusalem court's detailed trial of World War II war criminals, with a focus on the man named Eichmann in the title. Eichmann was a German officer who was primarily responsible for carrying out the slaughter of Jews during World War II, hence the name "executioner of the death penalty.". Eichmann tried to defend himself at trial, but was eventually convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to hanging.
About 6 million Jews were slaughtered in World War II, and you probably think that Eichmann, who was in charge of this kind of horror mission, must be a demonic killer, in fact, Eichmann said in the trial that he was an ordinary, dedicated, loyal little civil servant, and said that the reason for his mistake was too "conformist".
There are so many war criminals, why did Arendt choose Eichmann as the focus of this book? Arendt is actually using this book to remind us that modern forms of organization allow us to work closely with more strangers, thereby improving the efficiency of labor, and a large number of products and services are produced, so that our material desires are greatly satisfied.
But our minds have not kept up with this high-speed growth. Under the constraints of the modern and strict bureaucratic system, we are becoming more and more indifferent and less concerned about others. When the efficiency and indifference of modern people reach a certain tipping point, the genocide of the Jews in World War II is likely to repeat itself.
The biggest obstacle to the ideal democracy of the whole people is not ideology, but whether each of us can participate in social affairs objectively, rationally, fairly and with empathy from the perspective of others.
What kind of people will be created if there is a lack of respect for life and empathy for people, and only focus on improving the efficiency of modernization? Arendt writes in the book:
"Murder" was replaced with "euthanasia allowed".
The interrogator had asked Eichmann if the order to avoid "unnecessary suffering" sounded ironic because the men were doomed to death.
Eichmann simply did not understand the meaning of the question. He was convinced from his bones that killing was nothing; causing unnecessary suffering to others was the real unforgivable sin.
What really drove him out of his anger was not the accusation of killing millions of people, but just one witness accusing him of beating a Jewish boy to death. The allegation has been dismissed by the court.
Arendt argues that Eichmann's behavior is not unique, but rather profoundly representative:
He's not stupid, he's just not thinking – but that's by no means stupid. Not thinking was destined to make him one of the most evil people of that era.
You can't find any cruel demonic depth in Eichmann with all your might; even then, it's far from being called the norm.
When a man faces death, or even stands under the gallows, he thinks of nothing, only the eulogies he has heard at funerals in his lifetime, thinking that these "noble words" will completely obscure the reality that he is about to die——— which certainly cannot be called normal.
This faraway from reality, this inattentiveness, is worse than all the sinful instincts that human beings are born with combined to do — in fact, that's the lesson we really should learn from Jerusalem.
After reading this book, we can properly put aside the narcissism and arrogance of human beings' innate "others are dead or alive about my birds", and occasionally emerge from the entertainment ocean of games, short videos and variety shows and gossip, and begin to pay attention to the situation of society and others.
If we are fish, society is the ocean, and if the marine environment deteriorates, no fish can survive.
The evil of mediocrity
Let's talk about this today, do you start to like this book? Go read it and hope you fall in love with it too.
In the future, I will find an opportunity to share other good books with you, I am the owner of Zhihui Pavilion, and we will see you next time.