Boenhoffer On Stupidity

What was learned from resisting the Fascists of Nazi Germany

Some folk would say (you know who you are) that I’m an anti-theist and am blinded by my religious trauma to such an extreme that I can’t see the good in the religion. You’re not entirely wrong. That said, I am perfectly capable of acknowledging that individual believers are often incredible people and that select congregations do perform necessary acts of grace, kindness, and charity that demonstrably improve the lives of people in our world. I just don’t think that any of the good stuff requires a god belief. Good people do good, whether god is involved or not.

Anyway, I came across a short essay by Dietrich Boenhoffer which I’m sharing in full (see below) because it’s ludicrously germane to our current political predicament and is incredibly insightful and helpful for framing the work that we will all, in our own way, be engaged over the next 4+ years.

For a little context, Dietrich Boenhoffer was a German theologian who was active in the resistance against the Nazi government in Germany. He was executed by hanging by the Nazi regime in 1945 for his affiliation with the resistance movement within the Abwehr, a German intelligence service. He wrote a collection of essays in 1942, collected under the title After Ten Years, which detailed his learnings after ten years of resisting the Nazification of his country. So without further ado I bring you Boenhoffer’s “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.

For that reason, greater caution is called for than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.

If we want to know how to get the better of stupidity, we must seek to understand its nature. This much is certain, that it is in essence not an intellectual defect but a human one. There are human beings who are of remarkably agile intellect yet stupid, and others who are intellectually quite dull yet anything but stupid.

We discover this to our surprise in particular situations. The impression one gains is not so much that stupidity is a congenital defect, but that, under certain circumstances, people are made stupid or that they allow this to happen to them.

We note further that people who have isolated themselves from others or who live in solitude manifest this defect less frequently than individuals or groups of people inclined or condemned to sociability. And so it would seem that stupidity is perhaps less a psychological than a sociological problem.

It is a particular form of the impact of historical circumstances on human beings, a psychological concomitant of certain external conditions. 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.

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.

Yet at this very point it becomes quite clear that only an act of liberation, not instruction, can overcome stupidity.

Here we must come to terms with the fact that in most cases a genuine internal liberation becomes possible only when external liberation has preceded it. Until then we must abandon all attempts to convince the stupid person.

This state of affairs explains why in such circumstances our attempts to know what ‘the people’ really think are in vain and why, under these circumstances, this question is so irrelevant for the person who is thinking and acting responsibly. The word of the Bible that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom declares that the internal liberation of human beings to live the responsible life before God is the only genuine way to overcome stupidity.

But these thoughts about stupidity also offer consolation in that they utterly forbid us to consider the majority of people to be stupid in every circumstance. It really will depend on whether those in power expect more from people’s stupidity than from their inner independence and wisdom.

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So, obviously, I’m not won over by the argument that the fear of God is the only way to find personal liberation. I mean…c’mon. In fact, this form of sociological stupidity is rife within most religions. Group think brings a far greater sense of belonging and shared purpose than critical thinking within religious congregations.

But the greater point that we can’t fight sociological stupidity with facts has been very clear in our modern political world.

[Side Note #1: And before we get all smug about it, remember that sociological stupidity is not merely a rightwing problem. The Left is just as susceptible to sloganeering and logical fallacy as the Right and it’s all of our jobs to combat our own blind faith.]

Boenhoffer’s notion of personal epiphany, I think, is on point. We tend to wake up from sociological stupidity in a flash. The spell simply breaks. Usually, this is preceded by some form of cognitive dissonance, a seed of distrust that the Truth is verifiably true. So it is important to share facts and perform rational thinking with those who are spellbound. But we cannot do so in a combative sense. Which is, of course, difficult because stupidity is maddening.

I would suggest, if you have the opportunity, that the best methodology for planting seeds of cognitive dissonance (which will hopefully bloom into epiphany) is to practice the Socratic Method. When people believe falsehoods, those falsehoods are necessarily built on rickety scaffolds. If we rattle those scaffolds, people will try to stop us. But if we simply ask them to examine the strength of their own scaffolds, they will discover the weak joints on their own and one day they will refuse to climb on it for fear of its collapse.

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Internets of the Day

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– Quotes of the Week:

“The Bible is America’s spiritual hotdog. Nobody knows what’s in it, they just eat it on faith.” – Internet Anon

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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The Good

– I’m a Real Boy: I’m on a podcast; I finally matter!!!! If you want to hear me talking about tween girl psychology, the emotional pain of sleep-away camp, and farting, check out Stoneybrook Reunion: The Babysitter’s Club Book Club.

– Quiet heroism: My sister-in-law gave me a little Irish novella for christmas called “Small Things Like These.” It’s short, unflashy, and deeply moving. Concerns a man trying to understand what’s right when what’s right is confounded by social mores and etiquette. How do we do the right thing when our community tells us it’s the wrong thing to do? Good book and readable in two-ish sittings.

The Bad:

– Fire: My love and support goes out to everyone in the greater LA area and especially those who’ve lost homes. Not to elide the lost lives and livelihoods, but the last thing LA needs, amidst a homelessness crisis, is the loss of housing. I pray the leaders of LA rebuild with an eye towards housing more people than were housed previously. I’m sure that’s not what property owners want to hear. But it strikes me that this could be an opportunity to build back smarter, creating neighborhoods built to thrive and foster community. Anyway, it’s horrifying to watch the footage and my heart breaks for all the folk affected. Stay safe LA peeps.

The Ugly:

– MAGA Wars: Not sure if any of you followed this over the past two weeks or so, but MAGA is having a little civil war. The TL/DR is that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, projected leaders of the Department of Government Efficiency, came out in favor of H1-B visas which allow companies to bring in foreign workers with high skills. The nativist wing of MAGA, including Steve Bannon and Laura Loomer, pushed back with their “all immigrants = bad” rhetoric. Then Ramaswamy basically claimed that Americans are too dumb for high skilled labor and have a culture of mediocrity and Musk came back with his 3D chess retort of “go fuck yourself in your face.” Gonna be fun to watch Trump try to appease the billionaire class while not alienating the riled up MAGA masses who hate the billionaire class.

Quick side note on H1-B visas: I broadly support them (because the American dream is fueled by hard working immigrants), but make no mistake that employers LOVE them because the worker has to keep their job in order to keep their legal immigrant status which gives the employer way more power to exploit H1-B employees over natural born American employees. It’s basic quid pro quo and it’s abusive. I worked for a guy who routinely hired foreign workers for just this purpose – they were cheaper, could be worked harder, and were terrified of being fired. An employer’s wet dream which is to say an invitation to abusive exploitation.

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Finally: