"Margin Call" and the Banality of Evil

Writing for ThinkChristian.net, Josh Larsen, reviews the movie Margin Call.  He viewed the movie as a failure but in the midst of his review had this poignant quote that may speak to all the #OWS mania, the recession of 2008, and other challenges or atrocities we face.

It dawned on me after the movie was over, however, that although the dullness of “Margin Call” was an artistic failure, it may have been thematically appropriate. In its very triteness, the film suggests how the Great Recession is yet another example of what Hannah Arendt termed the “banality of evil.” 

Arendt’s 1963 thesis held that many of the atrocities committed throughout history, particularly those of the Holocaust, have not been the deeds of a single sociopath. Rather, catastrophic evil requires an acceptance by ordinary people in order to have full impact. Evil, then, isn’t always the work of a dramatic villain. It’s often unremarkable, relying on those who look the other way or fail to acknowledge their complicity in the awfulness at hand. 

We’re starting to see this now in the wake of 2008. It wasn’t only the investment firms who knowingly sold worthless financial packages; it wasn’t only the banks who signed off on risky home loans; it wasn’t only the federal government’s failure to regulate Wall Street. It was also you and I coveting a lifestyle that perhaps we couldn’t – or shouldn’t – afford. Homes, yes, but also cars, clothes and whatever else it is that we put on those ubiquitous credit cards.

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