In December of 1942, Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer sent a Christmas letter [1] to fellow members of the anti-Nazi resistance. The 80th anniversary of that letter must not go unacknowledged.
Bonhoeffer noted the extreme thoughtlessness — the stupidity — then characteristic of far too many Germans. He cited stupidity as “a more dangerous enemy…than malice.” Malice is readily identified and combatted. Stupidity, a pervasive socio-psychological disease, is far more elusive. When conventionally good people are infected by the virus, their actions can result in diabolical consequences “that … once and for all destroy human beings.”
The symptoms are readily evident. When conversing with an infected person you encounter “slogans, catchwords and the like that have taken possession of him.” You confront a “mindless tool” capable of evil but incapable of acknowledging its presence.
The disease arises when “those in power expect more from people’s stupidity than from their inner independence and wisdom.” 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 the disease. Stupidity in turn further empowers those authorities who fostered it. Action and reaction are repeated and reinforced. Trust and social cohesion are undermined and authoritarianism becomes entrenched.
Unfortunately the feedback loop wherein the empowered, by mendacious propaganda, take advantage of the people’s stupidity and the people, in their turn, further empower mendacious propagandists, is not unique to the Germany of the thirties and forties.
Andrew G. Bjelland, Salt Lake City
from The Salt Lake Tribune https://ift.tt/N5MVdXs
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