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by Jonny Thomson
January 26,
2023
from
BigThink Website
Credit:
Giovanni Battista Recco,
Annelisa Leinbach
Key
Takeaways
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When
we know something or someone is evil, we can take steps
to fight it. With stupidity, it is much more difficult.
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer argues that stupidity is worse than
evil because stupidity can be manipulated and used by
evil.
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He
also argues that stupidity tends to go hand-in-hand with
acquiring power - that is, being in power means we
surrender our individual critical faculties.
Evil is easy to
identify and fight against;
not so with
stupidity...
There's an Internet adage that goes,
"Debating an idiot is
like trying to play chess with a pigeon - it knocks the pieces
over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim
victory."
It's funny and astute.
It's also deeply, depressingly worrying.
Although we'd never say
so, we all have people in our lives we think of as a bit dim - not
necessarily about everything, but certainly about some things.
Most of the time, we
laugh this off.
After all, stupidity
can be pretty funny.
When my friend asked a
group of us recently what Hitler's last name was, we laughed.
When my brother learned
only last month that reindeer are real animals - well, that's funny.
Good-natured ribbing
about a person's ignorance is an everyday part of life.
Stupidity, though, has its dark side...
For theologian and
philosopher
Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
the stupid person is
often more dangerous than the evil one...!
The enemy
within
In comic books and action movies, we know who the villain is.
They wear dark
clothes, kill on a whim, and cackle madly at their diabolical
scheme.
In life, too, we have
obvious villains - the dictators who violate human rights or serial
killers and violent criminals.
As evil as these people
are, they are not the biggest threat, since they are known. Once
something is a known evil, the good of the world can rally to defend
and fight against it.
As Bonhoeffer
puts it,
"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."
Stupidity,
though, is a different problem altogether.
We cannot so easily fight
stupidity for two reasons.
First, we are
collectively much more tolerant of it. Unlike evil, stupidity is
not a vice most of us take seriously. We do not lambast others
for ignorance. We do not scream down people for not knowing
things.
Second, the stupid
person is a slippery opponent. They will not be beaten by debate
or open to reason.
What's more, when the
stupid person has their back against the wall - when they're
confronted with facts that cannot be refuted - they snap and lash
out.
Bonhoeffer puts it like
this:
"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."
With great
power comes great stupidity
Stupidity, like evil, is no threat as
long as it hasn't got power...
We laugh at things
when they are harmless - such as my brother's ignorance of
reindeer.
This won't cause me
any pain.
Therefore it's funny.
The problem with
stupidity, though, is that it often goes hand-in-hand with
power.
Bonhoeffer writes,
"Upon closer
observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of
power in the public sphere, be it of a political or of a
religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with
stupidity."
This works in two ways.
The first is that
stupidity does not disbar you from holding office or authority.
History and politics
are swimming with examples of when the stupid have risen to the
top (and where the smart are excluded or killed).
Second, the nature of
power requires that people surrender certain faculties necessary
for intelligent thought - faculties like independence, critical
thinking, and reflection.
Bonhoeffer's argument is
that the more someone becomes part of the establishment, the
less an individual they become.
A charismatic, exciting
outsider, bursting with intelligence and sensible policies,
becomes imbecilic the
moment he takes office...!
It's as if,
"slogans, catchwords
and the like... have taken possession of him. He is under a
spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being."
Power turns
people into automatons.
Intelligent, critical
thinkers now have a script to read.
They'll engage their
smiles rather than their brains.
When people join a
political party, it seems like most choose to follow suit rather
than think things through.
Power
drains the intelligence from a person, leaving them akin to an
animated mannequin.
Theory of
stupidity
Bonhoeffer's argument, then, is that stupidity should be viewed as
worse than evil.
Stupidity has far
greater potential to damage our lives.
More harm is done by
one powerful idiot than a gang of Machiavellian schemers.
We know when there's
evil, and we can deny it power.
With the corrupt,
oppressive, and sadistic, we know where we stand.
You know how to take
a stand.
But stupidity is much
harder to weed out.
That's why it's a
dangerous weapon:
Because evil people
find it hard to take power, they need stupid people to do their
work.
Like sheep in a field, a
stupid person can be guided, steered, and manipulated to do any
number of things.
Evil is a puppet master,
and it loves nothing so much as the mindless puppets who enable it -
be they in the general public or inside the corridors of power.
The lesson from Bonhoeffer is to laugh at those daft, silly moments
when in close company.
But, we should get angry
and scared when stupidity takes reign...!
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