How Evil Can Recruit and Drive Group Actions

04/17/25 • 58 min

On this podcast episode of Global Stuff, host Jimmy Durchslag talks
with Elizabeth Minnick about the expanded reissue edition of her book:
The Evil of Banality, On the Life and Death Importance of Thinking,originally published in 2017. Her scholarship is founded in her early work as an assistant to Hannah Arendt, a transformational philosopher on the nature of evil. Jimmy and Elizabeth have an in depth, engaging discussion of how intensive evil, the abhorrent actions of one or a few individuals, differs from extensive evil, the extreme actions by a large group of people, basically the actions of a mass shooter compared to the holocaust or Rwandan genocides. The conversation covers how “normal” people and communities become involved in mass killings or other acts of violence. Elizabeth’s book also considers intensive and extensive good, how people can overcome the push to commit horrendous acts and do what’s right. This is an especially relevant conversation considering the forces at play in the country and the world today.
Elizabeth Minnick Elizabeth Minnich received her doctorate from the
New School under the direction of Hannah Arendt. Following twenty-
five years as a Core Professor in the Graduate School of
Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the Union Institute she was a
professor of moral philosophy at Queens University. Minnick is a
Distinguished Fellow at the Association of American Colleges and
Universities in Washington, DC. She is also the author of Transforming Knowledge (Temple University Press, 1990, 2005) and co-author of The
Fox in the Henhouse: How Privatization Threatens Democracy (Berrett-
Koehler, 2005). She continues to work on issues of justice, equality,
democracy, and education, with particular focus on inclusive, engaged
scholarship, curricula, teaching, and institutional practices.

Jimmy Durchslag has been the host of “Global Stuff”, a monthly guest
driven talk show for over 20 years. He has interviewed many prominent
scholars and leaders who clarify complex issues and provide
suggestions for positive change. He has a long experience as a manager
of several for profit and non-profit organizations. He is one of the
founders of Redwood Community Radio, the parent organization for
KMUD. He recently served as the Director of the Mainstream Media
Project, a nonprofit organization that scheduled expert guests for
interviews on talk shows both nationally and internationally.

Previous Episode

Israeli Destruction of Gaza and the US supply of Weapons

On this podcast episode of Global Stuff, host Jimmy Durchslag talks with Jennifer Lowenstein who lived with her parents in Israel as a child. Loewenstein is a member of the USA board of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and founder of the Madison-Rafah Sister City Project. Jennifer clearly describes the devastation of Gaza and the determination of its residents in the midst of the rubble. She gives a perspective on the prospects for a continuing ceasefire and a possible path to the end of the war. The discussion also covers the support that the US gives to the Netanyahu government and how this perpetuates the conflict.

Jennifer Loewenstein is a journalist and activist, a member of the USA board of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and founder of the Madison-Rafah Sister City Project. She lived in Israel in 1963 as a child when her father played first trumpet in the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. She returned in 1981 as a junior in college, and later as an adult. Loewenstein has lived in Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut and traveled in the Palestinian Territories, where she worked for five months in 2002 at the Mezan Center for Human Rights in Gaza City. She has returned to Gaza several times since then.

As a local political activist, Lowenstein has helped organize demonstrations in Madison. On the day after Ariel Sharon's election as Prime Minister of Israel, she was among the organizers of an anti-Likud demonstration. She helped organize protests against the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, and she occasionally makes arrangements for political activists or journalists to speak at American universities.

Jimmy Durchslag has been the host of “Global Stuff”, a monthly guest driven talk show for over 20 years. He has interviewed many prominent scholars and leaders who clarify complex issues and provide suggestions for positive change. He has a long experience as a manager of several for profit and non-profit organizations. He is one of the founders of Redwood Community Radio, the parent organization for KMUD. He recently served as the Director of the Mainstream Media Project, a nonprofit organization that scheduled expert guests for interviews on talk shows both nationally and internationally.