B for Banality
what everyday life can teach us about ourselves and others
The term banality entered my orbit through Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), a text that explores how ordinary individuals become complicit in extraordinary acts of violence. Arendt offers the idea that agents of violence are often unremarkable and not the sensational figures portrayed in mainstream discourses about terror.
Media representations of war often gravitate toward the spectacular: bombs, collapsing buildings, mass graves. Yes, these are critical events to document and honor and witness, but sometimes a focus on the unquestionably horrific can eclipse the less dramatic elements that can be equally revealing. Where do people defecate when every available toilet has been destroyed? How do young people fill the hours between raids and attacks when there is no electricity, no internet, no food, and only boredom? What do menstruating women do in war zones when there are no painkillers to ease their cramps and no way to access the supplies they need? Questions like these have helped/help me anchor the experience of war in details that are specific, visceral, and resistant to oversimplified binaries.
Reflecting on the banalities of our own everyday lives can be equally illuminating. When I pause enough to observe myself, I realize that my performance of household chores reveal my (problematic) obsession with toilets. When I stop a bit to think about my fitness regimen, I cannot help but see how the workouts expose the way I feel about my body; how I wish I felt about it. When I take a breath and pay attention, I cannot deny how the steps involved in my cooking of dinner illuminate my evolving relationship with gender roles in my marriage. Seemingly mundane acts of daily living can become in-between spaces that complicate and enrich our understanding of ourselves.
From wars to ourselves, the lens of banality can become a way to foster nuanced understanding, and I’ve spent time over the years trying to codify what it might mean to cultivate this approach as a practice especially when trying to consider those who are different from us; those we disagree with; those we dislike.
Throughout this week, I intend to share exercises and examples of how exploring the banalities of others’ lives — in methodical, intentional ways — can help cultivate a practice of nuanced engagement.
An approach to empathy that is rooted in banalities.
Should you choose to engage with these invitations, I’d love to hear about what you discover: about yourself, and about the many others that inhabit your universe.