The Theory of Stupidity Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a young German theologian
and pastor who lived during the Nazi period and was considered a leading figure in the
resistance to the Nazis. Bonhoeffer was imprisoned in 1943 and executed in 1945, a few weeks
before the fall of Berlin, on charges of having participated in a plot against Hitler.
During his imprisonment Bonhoeffer wrote a collection of letters in which he reflected
on the fact that his country of poets and thinkers had turned into a collective of cowards
and criminals, and came to the conclusion that the root of the problem was not the wickedness
of people, but their stupidity. As usual, you can find the sources used for
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According to Bonhoeffer stupidity is an enemy of good much more dangerous than wickedness
because while one can protest against evil, can unmask it and can fight it with force
if necessary, because evil always contains the seeds of its own destruction, there is
no defense against stupidity and madness. Neither protests nor force are of any use
against stupidity, since it is never available to reason.
If irrefutable facts contradict a fool's personal prejudices, he will consider them merely accidental
and will ignore and set them aside, regarding them as exceptions.
Thus, the fool, compared with the scoundrel, will inevitably be satisfied and self-satisfied
with himself. The fool, according to Bonhoeffer, can easily become dangerous, for it does not
take much to make him aggressive. The result is that madness and stupidity require a much
more cautious handling than evil does. We should never try to reason with the fool,
because it is useless and dangerous. If we want to know how to get the better of
stupidity we must try to understand its nature. Stupidity is not essentially an intellectual
defect, but a moral one. There are men with great intellect but fundamentally stupid and
others who are intellectually limited but far from being stupid.
The impression we get from this is that stupidity is acquired rather than congenital; it is
acquired under certain circumstances in which men make fools of themselves or allow others
to make fools of themselves. We further observe that stupidity is less common in asocials
or loners than in individuals or groups who are inclined or condemned to sociability.
From this it would seem that stupidity is a sociological rather than a psychological
problem. According to Bonhoeffer, every violent revolution,
whether political or religious, produces an explosion of stupidity in a large segment
of the population. The power of one needs the stupidity of the
other. And it is not that particular human capacities such as intellect suddenly fail,
but it seems that under the crushing impact of growing power man is deprived of that inner
independence and more or less consciously gives up an autonomous position in which to
evaluate for himself, with his own brain, the new state of things.
The fool may often be stubborn, but this should not lead us to think that he is independent.
In conversations with a stupid individual we often feel that it is almost impossible
to talk to the man in front of us, to talk to him personally. Instead we are confronted
with a series of slogans, buzzwords and the like, which have gained power over him. He
is under a curse, he is blinded, his very humanity is being prostituted and exploited.
Once he has surrendered his will and become a mere tool, there is no limit to the evil
the fool will go to, but all will happen while he will be unable to see that he is doing
evil. And herein lies the danger of a diabolical exploitation of human stupidity, which can
do irreparable damage. According to Bonhoeffer only an act of internal redemption can free
a person from his own stupidity. Until this happens any attempt to educate them would
be futile. If you liked the video I suggest you to have
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