The “Banality of Evil” Reframed: The Social Construction of the “Final Solution” to the “Jewish Problem”

Abstract

Research on the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews has arguably been dominated by historians. Yet many historians remain confounded by the Holocaust's major paradox: the “banality of evil” that occurred during the Nazi regime. In this article I argue that understanding of the “banality of evil” paradox can be advanced by reframing previously unsynthesized research in terms of a constructionist theory of social problems. I view the “Jewish problem” and its “final solution” as having a “natural history” that is characterized by the development and unfolding of claims about problems and the formulation and implementation of solutions to problems. I trace the construction of the “Jew” throughout history and as it was identified, acknowledged, and applied in a particular sociocultural and political context. By providing the first application of constructionism to a genocidal event, I show that the social processes that construct genocide parallel those that construct other social problems, and that it is precisely this correspondence that makes the construction of the “Jewish problem” and its “final solution” banal.