This from Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the Prologue to Letters and Papers from Prison, translated by Lisa E. Cahill, et al. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015, Kindle edition, page 9). By stupidity, Bonhoeffer means a sort of willed ignorance. Stupid people can be, often are, intellectually capable. It requires no other comment.
On Stupidity
Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed—in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical—and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack.
8 responses to “Bonhoeffer on Stupidity”
If I may venture a comment anyway, I find the following claim especially interesting: “[F]acts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed—in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical.” I take him to be using the term “critical” in a quasi-academic sense, suggesting a willingness to question the authority of our sources of knowledge. People who reject scientific consensus on, say, vaccines or climate change, often justify their skepticism by positing a conspiracy of scientists with dark forces (Big Pharma or Internationalists). “Doing your own research on the Internet” involves looking for sources that confirm your pre-existing biases. But it can appear, superficially, as if they are advocating for independent, “critical” thinking.
Thanks, David. I looked up the German text. It’s kritisch, sogar kritisch, which I think means “critical” in the popular sense. When a fool (German Dumme) is confronted by facts, he (it’s often a he) doubles down on his vorurteil, his prejudgment. We daily see this play out at the highest levels of government.
But if kritisch simply means contentious, why the sogar (‘even”), which implies an element of surprise? We expect the stupid person to double down on his prejudgment, but not necessarily to disguise that doubling down as independent “critical thinking.” Not a lot hinges on this quibble, of course; but I think DB was recognizing in his context a phenomenon that is all too visible in our own.
Stupidity. Where does it come from? It’s not a lack of education, but it could help.
Is it a deficit in upbringing? Though that could bring up some challenging point for parents.
Or is it the culture? A culture that in a broad sense promotes the things and experiences that serves self. The goals shaped by acquisition, consumerism, pleasure and hedonistic excitement and self-promotion.
Even if the source or cause of stupidity is elusive, it does much to undermine a properly functioning democracy.
True. Thanks Jasper.
Keen minds run in the same channels: the same day I read this brief evocation of Bonhoeffer’s diagnosis of the nature and effects of stupidity I read a more extended reflection on the very same comment, one that had not caught my attention when reading the Letters and Papers from Prison. “The war in Iran is the crowning stupidity of our stupid age,” writes columnist Matt Loftin in the July issue of The Christian Century. (Link below.) Loftin begins with Bonhoeffer and then invokes Tolstoy’s indictment of the folly of war in War and Peace. (Possibly you read that piece, too, Clay, and it sent you to the source.)
Both pieces brought to my mind a vignette from Garrison Keillor’s morning program on Minnesota Public Radio in the late 1970s, before his Saturday variety show went national. He spoke of a gathering of Christians who ignore science and reason and simply believe everything they find in the Bible, calling themselves “The Church of the Blessed Stupidity.” Their weekly ritual was to come forward to the altar rail not to receive bread and wine but to drop large rocks on their feet. Garrison has probably long forgotten this little band of the faithful but for some reason it’s stuck in my memory. Perhaps they still gather each Sunday in a quiet corner of Lake Wobegon.
Yet I’m not sure stupidity, in Bonhoeffer’s nuanced sense, is as much a factor in US policy today as other factors (such as narcissism, greed, cruelty, and vengeance).
Lnk to the CC piece:
http://www.christiancentury.org/online-columnists/war-iran-crowning-stupidity-our-stupid-age
As said by one modern and well known unintentional philosopher, stupid is as stupid does
We of the Reformed Faith persuasion need look no further for examples of Bonhoeffer’s kind of stupid than the recent completion of the CRCNA Synod with its delegates’ decisions.
Intelligent people can be forgiven for their stupidity, but intelligent people are not forgiven for their willful uninformed ignorance.
Intelligence does not confer honor. Wisdom is not a natural byproduct of Intelligence. Honor is earned through positive action that combines intellect and wisdom. Derrick Bonhoeffer embodied both under a mantle of Christian faith lived in the Nazi death camps.
You just described Trump, Vance and the Trump administration with Bonhoeffer’s words on what a stupid person does. The claim to have won the 2020 presidential election is based on willful ignorance since all the facts refute Trump’s claim of fraud.