Bonhoeffer‘s Theory of Stupidity

Suggested extracurricular viewing for most members of SCOTUS, all top health officials, all White House staff, and most members of Congress. I doubt our Resident and Vice Resident will be able to understand any of it, so no reason to suggest it to them. ABN

UPDATE: If we are heading toward totalitarianism in the West, as many rightly fear, a difference today from all other totalitarian regimes of the past 100+ years is there is no strongman leader. We are being subdued by the stupidity of many weak figures—Fauci, Colllins, Birx, Biden, Harris, Trudeau, Macron, Johnson, Arden, etc—all of whom are easily replaceable by almost anyone on the left’s very deep bench of stupid people who all think alike.

This new form of totalitarianism, or proto-totalitarianism if that is what it is, relies on many stupid voices ordering roughly similar stupid policies. Stupid legacy media amplifies their voices, providing volume in place of reason or intelligence. Today’s West is marked by a grubby, messy chaos that is almost childish. It is backed up by the sinister probability that included in that mess will be more mandates, vax passports, detentions, vax by legal force, an economic crash.

So far, there has been very little violence. But few would doubt the grubby hands of our stupid leaders would refrain from it if they saw an advantage. All other forms of totalitarianism in the past 100+ years have arisen out of chaos, when a strongman leader took control and then used decisive military force to cement control which then allowed for mass killing to remove even the possibility of a counter-uprising. Does anyone see that possibility today? I don’t, not yet.

It looks more like we are being overwhelmed by gradual corrosion of everything that is reasonable while at the same time being gradually forced to accept the fait accompli of clearly inferior leaders who genuinely appear to be stupid. Bonhoeffer’s Theory of Stupidity resembles Desmet’s Theory of Mass Formation Psychosis and is probably a forerunner of it.

Both theories suggest that the way to stop this march of stupidity is to communicate our disagreement openly, widely and often and reasonably. Desmet says we should be polite with friends and family, a point I agree with. Beyond that, I think we should also target our stupid leaders very often with mockery, refutation, humor, irony, and rich sarcasm. There is no reason to spare their pride or dignity as clearly they posses neither. In daily life I never mock or attack anyone verbally, but stupid leaders are different. They are symbols as well as architects of extremely dangerous, violent, and deathly policies. Many deserve jail and some probably execution. We need to degrade their images as much as we can and with a fervor marked by reasoned understanding of how dangerous they are and how vulnerable the West now is. ABN