We have more to fear from stupid people than evil ones

[SNOWFLAKE]

Does the title make sense?

Well. Let's consider the following:

Bonhoeffer’s “theory of stupidity”​

• When we know something or someone is evil, we can take steps to fight it. With stupidity, it is much more difficult.
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer argues that stupidity is worse than evil because stupidity can be manipulated and used by evil.
• 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.

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.

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.

Bonhoeffer's "theory of stupidity": We have more to fear from stupid people than evil ones

Bonhoeffer's "theory of stupidity" posits that we have more to fear from stupidity than evil. The latter is easier to defeat than the former.

bigthink.com

That last paragraph quoted sure is telling, don't you think?

 

[Loulit01]

This is true but it's old news.

Against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain.
Friedrich Schiller

 

[aociswundumho]

Because evil people find it hard to take power, they need stupid people to do their work.

Except they don't find it hard to take power. History is full of evil politicians.

 

[soylentgreen]

Does explain america where stupidity is considered a god given right.

 

[phoenix2020]

As said by Karl Kraus, stupidity is an elemental force for which no earthquake is a match.

 

[Logicman]

Does the title make sense?

Well. Let's consider the following:

Bonhoeffer's "theory of stupidity": We have more to fear from stupid people than evil ones

Bonhoeffer's "theory of stupidity" posits that we have more to fear from stupidity than evil. The latter is easier to defeat than the former.

bigthink.com

That last paragraph quoted sure is telling, don't you think?

The truly ignorant and dangerous people these days are liberal Democrats.

Liberal Democrats 2023: Now advancing the perverse, the profane, the unnatural, the slaughter of the innocents, open borders with illegal aliens, fentanyl, and terrorists pouring through; pornography, drag parties for children, confiscating firearms from lawful citizens; disrespect for law enforcement and defunding the police, legalization of illicit drugs, inventing new genders, reverse racism, social divisions, the abolition of traditional American values and beliefs, antisemitism, godlessness, anti-constitutionalism, the quest for socialism, forced redistribution of wealth, a weakened national defense, massive government growth, raising taxes, pushing unworkable single payer healthcare by the government, sanctuary cities for criminals, a massive, plantation-style, government welfare system, regressive progressivism, attacks on religious free speech and Christianity, vitriolic intolerance of conservative beliefs, dogmatism, nihilism, and anti-intellectualism, to name a few.

 

[SNOWFLAKE]

The truly ignorant and dangerous people these days are liberal Democrats.

Liberal Democrats 2023: Now advancing the perverse, the profane, the unnatural, the slaughter of the innocents, open borders with illegal aliens, fentanyl, and terrorists pouring through; pornography, drag parties for children, confiscating firearms from lawful citizens; disrespect for law enforcement and defunding the police, legalization of illicit drugs, inventing new genders, reverse racism, social divisions, the abolition of traditional American values and beliefs, antisemitism, godlessness, anti-constitutionalism, the quest for socialism, forced redistribution of wealth, a weakened national defense, massive government growth, raising taxes, pushing unworkable single payer healthcare by the government, sanctuary cities for criminals, a massive, plantation-style, government welfare system, regressive progressivism, attacks on religious free speech and Christianity, vitriolic intolerance of conservative beliefs, dogmatism, nihilism, and anti-intellectualism, to name a few.

Quite a rant, apropos of nothing, but I am sure it was satisfying.

 

[Goshin]

Does the title make sense?

Well. Let's consider the following:

Bonhoeffer's "theory of stupidity": We have more to fear from stupid people than evil ones

Bonhoeffer's "theory of stupidity" posits that we have more to fear from stupidity than evil. The latter is easier to defeat than the former.

bigthink.com

That last paragraph quoted sure is telling, don't you think?

I am familiar with this and think it has considerable merit.

Boondocks had its own version... I'll leave you to look it up.

 

[lemmiwinx]

Quite a rant, apropos of nothing, but I am sure it was satisfying.

Quite a rant indeed. But all you have to do is call it stupid and it's off you go. Well done sir.

 

[SNOWFLAKE]

Quite a rant indeed. But all you have to do is call it stupid and it's off you go. Well done sir.

 

[DrewPaul]

Does the title make sense?

Well. Let's consider the following:

Bonhoeffer's "theory of stupidity": We have more to fear from stupid people than evil ones

Bonhoeffer's "theory of stupidity" posits that we have more to fear from stupidity than evil. The latter is easier to defeat than the former.

bigthink.com

That last paragraph quoted sure is telling, don't you think?

Its called useful idiots...

 

[DrewPaul]

People who invariably believe left wing ideology is always right and conservative ideology is always wrong are useful idiots to the left. People who invariably think right wing ideology is always correct an left wing ideology always wrong are useful idiots on the right.

The thinking person realizes both parties are flawed and extreme ideas are usually wrong.

 

[Logicman]

Quite a rant, apropos of nothing, but I am sure it was satisfying.

Looks like you're still in the dark about how badly liberalism sucks.

Here's another example of the trouble that liberals cause:

Mom sues after discovering school district identified daughter as male, counseled her on breast binding

Aurora Regino said the Chico Unified School District is "keeping parents in the dark" about children's gender identity. The district, however, said it doesn't have a "parental secrecy" policy.

www.foxnews.com

Liberals are too cowardly to keep parents informed of the evil they perpetrate on innocent children.

 

[DrewPaul]

Looks like you're still in the dark about how badly liberalism sucks.

Here's another example of the trouble that liberals cause:

Mom sues after discovering school district identified daughter as male, counseled her on breast binding

Aurora Regino said the Chico Unified School District is "keeping parents in the dark" about children's gender identity. The district, however, said it doesn't have a "parental secrecy" policy.

www.foxnews.com

Liberals are too cowardly to keep parents informed of the evil they perpetrate on innocent children.

I can only hope even most liberals don't want secrets between parents and their children regardless of the secret. It undermines parental authority to hirelings.

 

[SNOWFLAKE]

Looks like you're still in the dark about how badly liberalism sucks.

Here's another example of the trouble that liberals cause:

Mom sues after discovering school district identified daughter as male, counseled her on breast binding

Aurora Regino said the Chico Unified School District is "keeping parents in the dark" about children's gender identity. The district, however, said it doesn't have a "parental secrecy" policy.

www.foxnews.com

Liberals are too cowardly to keep parents informed of the evil they perpetrate on innocent children.

 

[Mithrae]

Does the title make sense?

No. Not unless you're also going to say that we have even more to fear from democracy and technology than from stupid people. Democracy and technology are the enablers/amplifiers of the risk from stupid people (and virtually other people, for that matter), just as stupid people can be of evil people.

 

[ashurbanipal]

Except they don't find it hard to take power. History is full of evil politicians.

I think the point is that evil people find it hard to take power without first finding ways to harness and control the stupid people. An evil person who tries to appeal to smart people with their evil values won't get very far. The evil person must first disguise their evil and use that guise to appeal to the stupid--since the smart will see right through it.

 

[SNOWFLAKE]

I think the point is that evil people find it hard to take power without first finding ways to harness and control the stupid people. An evil person who tries to appeal to smart people with their evil values won't get very far. The evil person must first disguise their evil and use that guise to appeal to the stupid--since the smart will see right through it.

Which is why Trumpers are stupid and non-Trumpers aren't

 

[Mithrae]

I think the point is that evil people find it hard to take power without first finding ways to harness and control the stupid people. An evil person who tries to appeal to smart people with their evil values won't get very far.

That depends very much on the type and threshold of evil. Or 'smart people,' I suppose. Weighing impact and likelihood I'd say that what we have the most to fear in this century are the mass extinctions, resource depletion and disruption to climate and earth-systems which are undermining the conditions on which our global civilization is built... the overwhelming majority of which is a consequence of consumer capitalism, the fantasty of infinite growth on a finite planet. Innumerable smart people have bought into and wholeheartedly defend the people and policies which keep this full-spectrum assault on our planetary environment going - usually because they're smart enough to be doing pretty well for themselves out of it.

Meanwhile innumerable 'stupid people' are still plenty bright enough to realize that it's not doing them or their children any favours: Even some of those so desperate for change that they accepted the misdiagnoses, simplistic answers, misdirection and lies of populist nationalism; as in the 1930s, fascist tendencies don't gain momentum in a vacuum.

The evil person must first disguise their evil and use that guise to appeal to the stupid--since the smart will see right through it.

Plutocrats and fascists would certainly love to promote the ideas that the problem is with the people, that people are stupid... that they can't be trusted to govern themselves wisely.

I think a more sensible way to look at it is that even the 'stupid' people of today are less stupid, less ignorant and less inclined to malice or visciousness than at any prior point in human history; that in all likelihood we've only scratched the surface of what good nutrition, stimulating environments, public education and social wellbeing can accomplish (some countries even less so than others of course); and that even from the modest progress of where we stand, it is still likely the case that many of our worst problems and risks have been caused or exacerbated by a shortage of genuine democratic representation, even of the 'stupid' people, rather than by them having too much influence.

One can sympathize with Bonhoeffer's sentiment, in the midst of Nazi Germany as he was, but I'm not sure it was true even then, and damn near certain it's not true now.

 

[ashurbanipal]

That depends very much on the type and threshold of evil. Or 'smart people,' I suppose. Weighing impact and likelihood I'd say that what we have the most to fear in this century are the mass extinctions, resource depletion and disruption to climate and earth-systems which are undermining the conditions on which our global civilization is built... the overwhelming majority of which is a consequence of consumer capitalism, the fantasty of infinite growth on a finite planet. Innumerable smart people have bought into and wholeheartedly defend the people and policies which keep this full-spectrum assault on our planetary environment going - usually because they're smart enough to be doing pretty well for themselves out of it.

Meanwhile innumerable 'stupid people' are still plenty bright enough to realize that it's not doing them or their children any favours: Even some of those so desperate for change that they accepted the misdiagnoses, simplistic answers, misdirection and lies of populist nationalism; as in the 1930s, fascist tendencies don't gain momentum in a vacuum.


Plutocrats and fascists would certainly love to promote the ideas that the problem is with the people, that people are stupid... that they can't be trusted to govern themselves wisely.

I think a more sensible way to look at it is that even the 'stupid' people of today are less stupid, less ignorant and less inclined to malice or visciousness than at any prior point in human history; that in all likelihood we've only scratched the surface of what good nutrition, stimulating environments, public education and social wellbeing can accomplish (some countries even less so than others of course); and that even from the modest progress of where we stand, it is still likely the case that many of our worst problems and risks have been caused or exacerbated by a shortage of genuine democratic representation, even of the 'stupid' people, rather than by them having too much influence.

One can sympathize with Bonhoeffer's sentiment, in the midst of Nazi Germany as he was, but I'm not sure it was true even then, and damn near certain it's not true now.

OK, but I was merely trying to interpret Bonhoeffer's statement in light of AOC's comment--I was neither supporting nor attacking it.