Banality of evil

Okay, so you know how there are some things that are really bad? Like hitting someone for no reason or taking something that doesn't belong to you? Well, there was a lady named Hannah Arendt who talked about something called the "banality of evil." It's kind of a big phrase, but what it means is that sometimes really bad things happen not because the people doing them are really mean or evil, but because they don't think about what they're doing.

It's kind of like when you're drawing a picture and you accidentally scribble on it because you're not being careful. You didn't mean to mess up, but now there's a big scribble there. Now imagine that instead of a picture, you're in charge of something really important, like a country. And instead of accidentally scribbling, you do something really harmful to people, like make a rule that says certain groups of people aren't allowed to do things or are treated differently than others.

At the time, you might not think that you're doing something really bad or mean. You might think you're just following the rules, or doing what everyone else is doing. But later, people might look back and say "wow, that was really bad."

So the banality of evil is when something really bad happens because people don't think about what they're doing or don't see how bad it is. Does that make sense?