Theory of Stupidity

In the haziest part of German history, during when impelled crowds tossed stones into the windows of honest retailers and ladies and youngsters were mercilessly embarrassed in the open; Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a youthful minister, started to talk freely against the monstrosities.

Bonhoeffer's father had to tell him when he got home one evening that two men were waiting in his room to take him away after years of trying to change people's minds.

In jail, Bonhoeffer started to ponder how his nation of writers and scholars had transformed into an aggregate of defeatists, evildoers and lawbreakers. He eventually came to the conclusion that stupidity was the problem's root, not malice.

Bonhoeffer argued in his well-known letters from prison that while "one may protest against evil; "stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. We are defenseless against stupidity, but force can reveal it and stop it.

Neither fights nor the utilization of power achieve anything here.

Rebuttals are ignored. Facts that contradict a stupid person's preconceived notions are simply not to be believed, and even if they are unquestionable, they are simply ignored as insignificant or incidental.

In this the bonehead, is vain and, being effortlessly bothered, becomes perilous by going on the assault. Thus, more prominent mindfulness is called for while managing a moron than with a malignant one.

If we have any desire to know how to get the better of idiocy, we should try to grasp its nature. Stupidity is, without a doubt, a moral rather than an intellectual flaw.

There are people who are intellectually dull but not stupid, and there are others who are intellectually remarkably agile but not stupid. One gets the impression that people are made stupid or, more accurately, allow stupidity to happen to them under certain circumstances, rather than that stupidity is a birth defect.

This defect occurs less frequently in individuals who live alone than in groups. Therefore, it would appear that stupidity is more likely a social than a psychological issue.

It becomes clear that a significant portion of humanity is infected with stupidity by any significant rise in power, whether political or religious.

It's almost as though this is a sociological-psychological law in which one person's power depends on the other's stupidity.

This process does not involve the sudden loss of particular human capacities like intelligence. Instead, it appears that humans give up an autonomous position more or less unconsciously as a result of the overwhelming influence of rising power.

We should not let the fact that the stupid person is frequently stubborn obscure the fact that he lacks independence.

One almost has the impression that one is conversing not with him as a person but rather with slogans, catchphrases, and the like that have taken control of him. He is ensnared, blinded, mistreated, and physically abused.

The stupid person will also be capable of any evil, but they won't be able to recognize it because they have become a mindless tool.

Stupidity can only be overcome through liberation, not through instruction. In this instance, we must accept the fact that, in most instances, genuine internal liberation can only occur after external liberation. We must give up all attempts to persuade the stupid person until then.

One time, Bonhoeffer said.

“A readiness for responsibility, not thought, is the driving force behind action. A definitive trial of an ethical society is the sort of world that it passes on to its kids."