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MARY McCARTHY
pr;liminary terms Kant laid down in formulating the categorical im–
perative: that a virtuous action is one done against inclination. That
an act done against inclination is therefore virtuous was Eichmann's
mistaken understanding or perhaps his rationalization. As Miss Arendt
sums up in a terrible flash of insight, "Evil in the Third Reich had
lost the quality by which most people recognize it-the quality of
temptation." In this passage, it seemed to me, rereading her book, Miss
Arendt's scorn and contempt for Eichmann were mingled with a kind
of pained, wry-mouthed pity. Eichmann at this time--it was at the
end of the war-was pressing for the continuation of the extermination
policy, in obedience to the Fuehrer's will, which he had taken as his
law, long after many of his colleagues and superiors had seen the end
coming and were seeking to save their skins by "saving" Jews. What
she pities then in Eichmann (if I do not misread her) is the extent to
which he could go on doing evil when all careerist motives had dis–
appeared and against his personal desires-to have stopped the transports
to Auschwitz, in his blinkered view, would have been to yield to a tempta–
tion.
If
Abel wants a dramatic parallel for Eichmann, he ought to open
his Ibsen. There he can find "idealists" as pernickety, as literal-minded,
and nearly as dangerous to humanity. Like the simpletons in Ibsen who
talk of the "demands of the ideal," Eichmann was a fool, and what
is
pitiable in the Eichmann Miss Arendt sees is his foolish consistency,
the. way in which his inner mechanism, his "soul," continued to tick
like some trusty middle-class alarm clock, unaware that it had become
an infernal machine and listening only to the sound of its own reliability,
signifying that everything was normal.
And if Miss Arendt, a Jew, found it in her heart to pity Eichmann,
is this a sin? Is this "aesthetics"? To a Christian, it is ethics; can this be
the Gentile "blind spot" ? A Christian is commanded not only to pity
hut to forgive his enemies.
It
is a hard commandment, and
if
the Gentile
reader detected Miss Arendt showing a trace of pity for the clown
that had murdered her own people, he was not shocked but moved to
admiration. Abel no doubt would say that she did not extend pity (or
charity) to the Jewish leaders, but they were not in need of it to the
same degree, any more than they were in need of a great effort of
understanding. We all, including Miss Arendt, pity them in a natural
motion of feeling, but this is not the pity that counts, ethically speaking,
which goes not to those nearest to us (self-pity is scarcely a virtue) but
to those farthest away and seemingly beyond the reach of human
sympathy. Anybody can feel compassion for the Jewish leaders, even
while criticizing their behavior. But "criticizing his behavior" is hardly
