See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_President's_Cake , which is nominally about cooking.
How to feed a dictator
51–60 of 71 posts
Re: How to feed a dictator
#52> “It goes back to Hannah Arendt’s banality of evil a bit,” says director Andrew Neel. “These everyday things that are beloved to us, like food, can take on an entirely different dimension within the context of a dictatorship.” That’s not at all what Arendt was writing about. She was writing about those who do evil things are rarely the “evil” monsters we imagine but rather bureaucrats motivated by things like promot…
That’s exactly his point about the motivations of the chefs. It’s not identical, but close enough.
Re: How to feed a dictator
#53> “It goes back to Hannah Arendt’s banality of evil a bit,” says director Andrew Neel. “These everyday things that are beloved to us, like food, can take on an entirely different dimension within the context of a dictatorship.” That’s not at all what Arendt was writing about. She was writing about those who do evil things are rarely the “evil” monsters we imagine but rather bureaucrats motivated by things like promot…
This is an interesting article backed by months of hard work. It offers perspectives we probably won't find anywhere else. The quote is pretty tangential. I see this over and over again on HN: pick the weakest sentence, attack it, proclaim the article is rubbish, and move on. Why? There are no internet points awarded for maximum drive-by cynicism.
> Why? There are no internet points awarded for maximum drive-by cynicism.
Clearly there are - the comment is like first or second most upvoted here.
Re: How to feed a dictator
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Later: > By most measures, theirs was a great gig – logic that can excuse almost anything. “Saddam’s chef got a car every year,” Neel says. “That phrase, ‘it was a great gig,’ I think, actually runs the world. Like, ‘It was just business.’” I’d say they understood the meaning.
Perhaps they understand the meaning, but this: > “It goes back to Hannah Arendt’s banality of evil a bit,” says director Andrew Neel. “These everyday things that are beloved to us, like food, can take on an entirely different dimension within the context of a dictatorship.” Is still a misquote/misrepresentation. People can understand a subject but still say wrong things about it.
It seems your misinterpreting the quote, it does never says that
> “These everyday things that are beloved to us, like food, can take on an entirely different dimension within the context of a dictatorship.”
Is the definition of the banality of evil concept. I would argue though that within the concept you will interpret banal things differently. For a more blatant example, the banal act of putting an approval stamp onto a piece of paper will be interpreted quite differently in the context of a administrator in Reichsbahn in Nazi germanycompared to an administrator at the Bundesbahn now.
Re: How to feed a dictator
#55This is one of the most unexpected ecranisations ever. The book is great on its own, but I would never assumed it could become a film. The topic itself is a bit heavy, and I somehow assumed that most of the people pan Szablovski interviewed at one point or another are already dead. This is going to be a fascinating watch.
Re: How to feed a dictator
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see a misrepresentation there - the need to eat and the love of good food is common to most of humanity and points to the fact that even dictators are also just people. Banal humans rather than cartoon villians. > Hard to remain motivated to consume an article after reading this in the opening. I think it's unfortunate to be so dismissive of an article over one quote from one person that you disagree with. Yo…
I really, really want to cite Joe Franks "The Dictator" here, notably the scene where he's eating the vegetables that have grown on himself (if I'm remembering correctly), but...I really doubt anyone will get the reference.
Joe Frank ... some of the best audio out there. I wonder whether one had to grow up at a certain time for his shows to make sense, and whether they'd be lost on newer generations.
Re: How to feed a dictator
#57> “It goes back to Hannah Arendt’s banality of evil a bit,” says director Andrew Neel. “These everyday things that are beloved to us, like food, can take on an entirely different dimension within the context of a dictatorship.” That’s not at all what Arendt was writing about. She was writing about those who do evil things are rarely the “evil” monsters we imagine but rather bureaucrats motivated by things like promot…
Hannah Arendt's 'banality of evil,' as I understand it, refers to human beings who are incapable of thinking. Within a massively bureaucratized and divided system, the immense guilt of killing someone is broken down into tiny, mundane tasks, like stamping a document. Because the system absorbs all individual moral friction, ordinary people can become cogs in a vast machinery of evil without ever questioning it. (In o…
> Hannah Arendt's 'banality of evil,' as I understand it, refers to human beings who are incapable of thinking. Within a massively bureaucratized and divided system, the immense guilt of killing someone is broken down into tiny, mundane tasks, like stamping a document. Because the system absorbs all individual moral friction, ordinary people can become cogs in a vast machinery of evil without ever questioning it.
While I fully accept that "the banality of evil" has become such a well-known aphorism that it's meaning may have shifted, this is not how Hannah Arendt introduced the saying. She was specifically talking about Adolf Eichmann and what motivated him. Eichmann wasn't some low-level cog "numbed by the system" - he was the logistical architect of the Holocaust, and he knew his actions would lead to the deaths of millions of people.
What Arendt meant by "the banality of evil" was that Eichmann wasn't motivated by a rabid hatred of Jews. He just wanted to get his promotion, move ahead, make money, etc. But, again, he knew his actions would murder millions, he just didn't care. He wasn't "broken down by the system", he was the system.
"The banality of evil" really is talking about motivation in Arendt's use of it. Often times we think of "evil" as needing to be motivated by fanatical hatred, but a lot of the time it's just motivated by a desire for a nicer car.
Re: How to feed a dictator
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hannah Arendt's 'banality of evil,' as I understand it, refers to human beings who are incapable of thinking. Within a massively bureaucratized and divided system, the immense guilt of killing someone is broken down into tiny, mundane tasks, like stamping a document. Because the system absorbs all individual moral friction, ordinary people can become cogs in a vast machinery of evil without ever questioning it. (In o…
> Hannah Arendt's 'banality of evil,' as I understand it, refers to human beings who are incapable of thinking. Within a massively bureaucratized and divided system, the immense guilt of killing someone is broken down into tiny, mundane tasks, like stamping a document. Because the system absorbs all individual moral friction, ordinary people can become cogs in a vast machinery of evil without ever questioning it. Whi…
You are probably right. I think the confusion comes from the fact that I remembered it that way because of what Eichmann said in court. (I was confused too, so I looked it up.) I think I must have mixed it up with later concepts like the Stanford prison experiment. Thank you for the correction.
As you know, there has been a lot of talk about the Stanford prison experiment being manipulated. In that sense, I think this experiment also has that aspect to it. Distorting results out of an obsession with fame and ordinariness is fundamentally a violation of research ethics.
As always, I often realize that I misremember concepts as I go through life. Thank you for the correction
Re: How to feed a dictator
#59> “It goes back to Hannah Arendt’s banality of evil a bit,” says director Andrew Neel. “These everyday things that are beloved to us, like food, can take on an entirely different dimension within the context of a dictatorship.” That’s not at all what Arendt was writing about. She was writing about those who do evil things are rarely the “evil” monsters we imagine but rather bureaucrats motivated by things like promot…
This is an interesting article backed by months of hard work. It offers perspectives we probably won't find anywhere else. The quote is pretty tangential. I see this over and over again on HN: pick the weakest sentence, attack it, proclaim the article is rubbish, and move on. Why? There are no internet points awarded for maximum drive-by cynicism.
> I see this over and over again on HN: pick the weakest sentence, attack it, proclaim the article is rubbish, and move on. Why?
It's to heuristically filter content on quality to optimize information consumption, i.e. concluding early: "This is probably not going to be worth my time, because this author seems to make fairly trivial easily avoidable mistakes (or something similar)". I appreciate the signal from other people here, even if it is not always accurate.
There is a lot of content to filter through nowadays.
Re: How to feed a dictator
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is an interesting article backed by months of hard work. It offers perspectives we probably won't find anywhere else. The quote is pretty tangential. I see this over and over again on HN: pick the weakest sentence, attack it, proclaim the article is rubbish, and move on. Why? There are no internet points awarded for maximum drive-by cynicism.
> I see this over and over again on HN: pick the weakest sentence, attack it, proclaim the article is rubbish, and move on. Why? It's to heuristically filter content on quality to optimize information consumption, i.e. concluding early: "This is probably not going to be worth my time, because this author seems to make fairly trivial easily avoidable mistakes (or something similar)". I appreciate the signal from other…
I think it's a useful heuristic, but if you apply it too harshly, you'll deprive yourself of interesting perspectives. It's also hard to correct, because you don't get to know how many false positives it produces. So, it should be used with care.
People may make mistakes in an area they have less expertise in than the reader, and still be able to provide a view from a side the reader knows less about. Also, it's not difficult enough to mistake a deviation from a dearly held belief for a faux-pas in somebody else's thinking.
You can argue that it's still worth it to apply the filter strictly, because there's so much chaff to cut through; but it's not always done with enough appreciation for how much it may tend to reinforce one's own bubble. I also suspect that the more trigger-happy people would not be too understanding or even introspective when having that same filter applied to them.
Having this filter is useful and necessary. It's just that when it can be observed, because the people applying it post about it, it often seems to be the overzealous kind of dismissal.