In the words of Hannah Arendt, the nazis caused the “moral collapse” of the European society through the banality of evil. By the banality of evil, the author means the evil perpetrated by people who refuse to be people, who renounce the ability to think and distinguish good from evil.
The memory of the consequences of the banality of evil was the source for the European project aiming for peace, unity, solidarity, democracy, and the respect of human rights. Through integration, the intention was of avoiding war, totalitarianism, and radicalism, all compromising of a person’s dignity. Six decades on, Europe is in crisis: financial, economic, humanitarian, securitarian, and above all, a crisis of the European project’s founding values. In this context, we assist the resurgence of populism and radicalism, which mainly attract young Europeans. To avoid the expansion of these phenomenons it is essential to be able to think, to critically analyse simplifying and messages of destruction of human dignity.
We consider that it is important to retrieve the memory, which was lost, denied, or even unacknowledged by many (we are the fourth generation since the II World War) to keep young Europeans from accepting “isms” consisting of the denial of the human person.
