Banality of Evil, The Evil of Banality‪.‬

The modern world has been dominated by two related discourses of political emancipation, both deployed in the context of human rights: the language of individualism (each of us matters) and the language of universalism (that mattering has no boundaries). But too often these twin triumphs of modernity conflict; moreover, their realization has been, in the event, haphazard, jagged and frequently violent. This essay examines two kinds of obstacle to universal human rights: 1) the bland bureaucratization of power, up to and including torture;