Grief and remembrance are main themes in this unit and show up throughout the films. Arendt describes how people are becoming desensitized to violence in the world and how Americans are eager to forget about death as soon as they can. The last point stayed with me because what happens to grief at that point? It cannot disappear, but people try to act like it does, or at least they do in public. Maybe it is different in public and private spheres with grief in public being frowned upon in America and only private grief is left. She also describes the banality of evil and how this is the inability to imagine the world from another’s perspective. I understand where this statement comes from, but I believe there has to be more than this. How do inhumane, evil acts come from this inability? Is it from selfishness, or is it another aspect which makes a person capable of evil?
