The Hindu editorial [May 17, 2013] invokes Hannah Arendt’s famous phrase, ‘the banality of evil,’ in order to underscore the corruption that has infiltrated Indian cricket, particularly the IPL. In simple words what Arendt meant by the phrase was that monstrous evils are not usually perpetrated by fanatics or psychopaths but by ordinary people who fail to think deeply or seriously enough. Failure to think seriously enough is a very common trait of our contemporary civilisation. Ours is a civilisation which has nearly killed philosophy and serious literature. It is a civilisation built up on the single premise of materialism and propagated assiduously by the United States of America using institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank. It is a civilisation which encourages consumerism and superficial pleasures of life. It is a civilisation whose singular password is commerce. Trade greases the wheels of our civilisation. And everything is a commodity which can
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