WHAT ABOUT THE NOTION THAT EVIL IS BANAL?

Religion likes to say evil is banal and its servants uninspiring. That arises from the notion that evil is only a gap not a thing.  The notion is that God makes only good and so evil is a flaw and the good is real and evil is just good that is not good enough.  But that totally contradicts our experience for we find demons, devils, evil people exciting and murder thrillers will always outsell the lives of the saints. It's just a blatant lie. And it obscures any effort to try and reduce or end evil.

Hannah Arendt spoke of the “banality of evil.” She meant how evil emerges for the most useless reasons such as people just wanting to follow through a command or task. An authority must really be needed for authority in itself is gorged with risks and dangers. That is why a religion that is not needed is still evil no matter how harmless it seems.  Let her expound, "Evil comes from a failure to think.  It defies thought for as soon as thought tries to engage itself with evil and examine the premises and principles from which it originates, it is frustrated because it finds nothing there.  That is the banality of evil."

If evil is banal, it will never satisfy for long which is why it will get worse. Christians have a similar idea when they say sin is never satisfied. The trouble is that view requires that you mistrust sinners and battle against them. It gives Christians away who pretend to love sinners and hate sins.

Intending to be evil leads to fear which is why evil leads to more evil for you feel you need it to protect yourself. It will not help you be happy for long.

Anything that exaggerates evil or condemns as evil things that are not in fact evil like religion does makes it worse. It is manipulating people to cause them to think of themselves and their actions as evil. It increases evil intentions.

The banality of evil idea tells us how ordinary evil people are.

Some say it describes how you can do evil without being evil.  But this sees evil in cartoonish fashion.  The person has to be spitting hate and a psychopath.  It confuses ugliness with evil.  That is like confusing snow with sugar.

Even ugly evil gets banal and boring in time.

The main point about evil being banal is tells us how its doers use cliches and superficial arguments to make excuses for what they do. This shows that we don't need people to be clearly villains or obnoxious to know they may be evil. It tells us that if you want to distinguish evil from people then the evil is stupid and banal. The troubling thing about that is how evil then is hard to differentiate in any important way from good for good can be banal and perceived as banal. If good is not banal then the victim is the one accused of being the true conduit of evil. Evil has to make good look dull and then present itself as another legitimate option or a better one.

Religion can be summarised as in, "everything happens for a reason." This is rooted in karma and God. But unpack how evil a statement that is. "I put my baby in the crusher but I have to stop condemning myself and start praising myself for clearly the baby was going to grow up to be a sadistic serial killer or something. Everything happens for a reason and when God permits me to abuse my free will he steps in so even when I sin it happens for a reason despite my worst intentions." As an anti-theist I see faith in God as evil. The evil is hidden in nasty implications which makes it more evil not less.

Equating evil people with cartoon villains then is serving evil. It is evil to do that. Evil is more toxic than any grotesque demonic person!

The interesting thing about evil being banal is that it means you can be ordinary and yet pure evil. If evil is that dull then how do people stay in Hell forever? What is God doing to them to make them think it is fun?