Bonhoffer’s theory: the root of all problems

Young pastor Dietrich Bonhoffer lived in dark times. Times when incited mobs threw rocks at the windows of innocent shop owners, and women and children were cruelly humilliated in the open. And he had to bear the mental trauma of watching his own elderly father being taken away by Nazi officials. After years of trying and failing to create a mental revolution, one he saw as necessary, Boenhoffer began reflecting on how his great nation, a nation of poets, intellectuals, and thinkers, had been derided and turned into a collective of cowards, crooks, and criminals. He eventually concluded that the root of the problem was not malice, but stupidity.

Bonhoffer developed his theory while imprisoned; his conclusion is that stupidity is a more dangerous ailment than evil. For evil can be exposed and prevented by the use of force. We can protest against evil, build barriers to protect ourselves and others from it, and even defeat it. But against stupidity, we are defenseless. No protest, barriers or use of force can stop it. When dealing with stupid people, all reasons fall on deaf ears, they are always right and we are made to be the ones in the wrong for challenging their preconceived judgments. Nothing can be accomplished here. The stupid individual is smug and self-righteous, and becomes dangerous when contradicted. Therefore, says Boenhoffer, stupidity calls for greater caution than malice.

We often associate stupidity with an intellectual deficiency, when it is, in fact, a moral one. Indeed, psychology has proven that there are some individuals who are intellectually agile yet still stupid. The opposite is also true: some people, while being intellectually dull, are anything but stupid. While we are all born with a certain intellectual level (and also with the capacity of being evil), we allow ourselves to become stupid under certain circumstances.

Stupidity is often taken as a trait, but it should be thought of more as a condition or state of being. And studies have shown that people who prefer solitude are less likely to become stupid than people who live in groups. Thus, it appears that stupidity is less of a psychological problem than a sociological one.

So what happened here? It's not that individual intellect or other qualities of the like suddenly fail. It's more of a question that the appearance of certain influence causes a person to lose its inner independence and renounce an autonomous position, hence leaving stupidity as the only possible path to embrace.

The fact that a stupid person is stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he's not independent. Indeed, while dealing with this kind of people, it's easy to notice that we are not interacting with the person as he is. It's more like dealing with a puppet than a human being, with catchphrases, slogans, a pitch, or a script which the person has been exposed to for a serious amount of time and have taken a hold of him. The stupid person is brainwashed and blind; he's been misused, oppressed, and controlled by a certain influence; an influence which, as long as it remains there, will drive the person to be evil in one or various ways--without realizing he's being evil.

The only thing that can overcome stupidity is liberation, not instruction. The only thing left for us here is trust that an external liberation will arrive and then lead to an internal liberation of the stupid person. Until then, we must stray away from stupid people, forsake all attempts to reason with them.

Bonhoffer died due to his involvement in a conspiracy plot against Adolf Hitler on April 9, 1945, at Flossenbürg concentration camp, just two weeks before the U.S. soldiers arrived and liberated the camp. He once said, "action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility. The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children."