Little Eichmanns

Little Eichmanns

Little Eichmanns is a phrase coined by anarcho-primitivist John Zerzan [http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines05/0201-05.htm Ward Churchill Statement] , "Daily Camera", February 1 2005] to describe the complicity of those who participate in destructive and immoral systems in a way that, although on an individual scale may seem indirect, when taken collectively have an effect comparable to Nazi official Adolf Eichmann's role in The Holocaust. Zerzan used the phrase in his essay "Whose Unabomber?" in 1995.

Ward Churchill used the phrase in his essay "Some People Push Back" to describe the technocrats working in the Twin Towers on the morning of the September 11th attacks, because in his opinion their status as drivers of the American empire, participating in sweatshop exploitation, the devastating Iraq sanctions, US support for dictators and attacks against other countries etc. shared similarities with Adolf Eichmann's bureaucratic participation in the Nazi system. [cite web
url=http://www.politicalgateway.com/news/read.html?id=2739
title=Ward Churchill's Essay and Statement]

Eichmann as a stand-in comes from Hannah Arendt's notion of the banality of evil. Arendt wrote in her 1963 book "" that aside from a desire for improving his career, Eichmann showed no trace of anti-Semitism or psychological damage. She called him the embodiment of the "banality of evil" as he appeared at his trial to have an ordinary and common personality and displayed neither guilt nor hatred. She suggested that this most strikingly discredits the idea that the Nazi criminals were manifestly psychopathic and fundamentally different from ordinary people.

ee also

*Ward Churchill 9/11 essay controversy
*Milgram experiment

References

* Hannah Arendt, "Eichmann in Jerusalem," NY: Penguin Books, 1994.

External links

* [http://www.insurgentdesire.org.uk/whoseunabomber.htm Whose Unabomber?] by John Zerzan (first recorded use of term)
* [http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/WC091201.html Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens] by Ward Churchill (notable use of term)


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