ROGER SHATTUCK
445
The trials of Billy and of Meursault take place at a great moral dis–
tance from any potential "greatness in evil" as contemplated by La
Rochefoucauld, Pascal, and Goethe. These two lowly men have not been
infected with presumption and pleonexia. Their opposite fault lies in lack
of imagination about themselves and others - in Meursault's case, extreme
affectlessness. And now we have arrived unexpectedly at a highly disputed
crossroads called "the banality of evil." Like Eichmann on trial for mass
murder, Meursault serves to illustrate that challenging phrase dropped in
the last sentence of Hannah Arendt's book on Eichmann. Over and over
again afterwards she had to explain what she meant by the words:
.. . this new type of criminal commits his crime under circumstances that make it
well-nigh impossible for
him
to know or feel that he is doing wrong.
. . . when I speak of the banality of evil, I do so on a strictly factual level ...
Eichmann was not Iago and not Macbeth.. .. He merely, to put the matter col-
loquially, never realized what he was doing ... this lack of imagination . .. this
sheer thoughtlessness ... can wreak more havoc than
all
the evil instincts taken
together.
[The purpose of the Eichmann book was] to destroy the legend of the greatness
of evil, of the demonic force.
Billy did not intend to kill Claggart; the simple sailor did not know
his own strength. If there is any greatness in Melville's novel, it resides in
Captain Vere's struggle. Meursault appears to have no intentions at all; he
lets himself be carried to catastrophe by a wave of circumstances. I find no
greatness of mind or action in
The Stranger.
Camus's two powerful cres–
cendos of narrative-descriptive style depict a man indifferent to good and
evil losing control of himself because of the banality of his imagination. I
believe that "the banality of evil" and Meursault's story afford an illumi–
nation of one of Plato's troubling notions in Book II of The
Republic:
"the
true lie." "The lie in words," like deceiving an enemy or inventing a fa–
ble, may be useful. "The true lie" designates an "ignorance about the
highest realities" in the soul of him who believes sincerely that he is act–
ing rightly. "The true lie is not useful; it is hatefuL" Not knowing any
better excuses nothing, even though it may explain much. Plato grants no
standing to the sincerity plea, as behooves a philosopher who often attrib–
utes all virtues to knowledge.
A more substantial novel than the two we are discussing also explores
this literary and moral question of dealing with a crime seen from inside.
