“Against stupidity (Dummheit) we are defenseless.” So wrote Dietrich Bonhoeffer after living under the power of Hitler and his followers for ten years. “Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.” A friend wrote me, “You can’t fix stupid.” Bonhoeffer’s letter goes on to explain how stupidity arises in people. Please, read slowly.
“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. It would even seem that this is virtually a sociological-psychological law. The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other. The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence, and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances.
“The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like, that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.”
Being an insightful theologian, you would expect Bonhoeffer to offer a religious insight. That tomorrow.