{"id":25545,"date":"2022-01-08T12:00:54","date_gmt":"2022-01-08T16:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/freelancechristianity\/?p=25545"},"modified":"2023-03-17T12:51:11","modified_gmt":"2023-03-17T16:51:11","slug":"against-stupidity-we-are-defenseless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/freelancechristianity\/against-stupidity-we-are-defenseless\/","title":{"rendered":"Against Stupidity, We Are Defenseless"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Among the many striking images that we have all seen in the year that has passed since the January 6th insurrection are numerous Christian symbols (crosses, flags, signs, banners) interspersed with all manner of conservative political and social symbols carried and worn by people bent on violence, chaos, and mayhem. A few days after the the insurrection, the New York Times published an article by Elizabeth Dias and Ruth Graham entitled \u201cHow White Evangelical Christians Fused With Trump Extremism.\u201d Here\u2019s how the lengthy article begins:<\/p>\n

Before self-proclaimed members of the far-right group the Proud Boys marched toward the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, they stopped to kneel in the street and prayed in the name of Jesus.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

After praying for \u201creformation and revival\u201d and giving thanks for \u201cthe wonderful nation we\u2019ve all been blessed to be in,\u201d they asked for the \u201ccourage and strength to both represent you and represent our culture well,\u201d seeking divine protection for what was to follow.<\/p>\n

Then they rose. Their leader declared into a bullhorn that the media must \u201cget the hell out of my way.\u201d And then they moved toward the Capitol<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

How could this happen? Regular readers of this blog know that I have frequently asked that question in various essays over the past few years. How have the most extreme elements of support for Donald Trump and the Big lie become inextricable from some parts of white Christian evangelical power in America? In order to get a fresh perspective on a difficult problem, sometimes it is helpful to seek out historical parallels. Why do intelligent people believe lies that are easily exposed as lies? Why do intelligent people treat facts as disposable opinions? It happened in 1930s and 40s Germany in one of the most cultured, civilized, and educated nations in Europe.<\/p>\n

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is on the syllabus in two of the team-taught classes that I will be leading this coming semesjter. \u201cTen Years After\u201d is an essay that Bonhoeffer wrote for colleagues and friends in 1942; in it, he reflects on various aspects of the past decade in Germany as he and others had, in various ways, resisted the rise and entrenchment of the Nazis.<\/p>\n

Less than year after writing this essay, Bonhoeffer was arrested by the Nazis for his involvement in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, for which he was executed in 1945, just weeks before the end of World War Two. \u201cTen Years After\u201d is comparable to Martin Luther King, Jr.\u2019s \u201cLetter from Birmingham Jail\u201d as a document addressing the specific challenges of their times by speaking to greater issues, including the human capacity for decency, courage, and engagement in the midst of political cultures that fail to honor integrity and these values. How is one to think beyond self-interest and toward the common good in challenging times?<\/p>\n

In \u201cTen Years After,\u201d Bonhoeffer observes how easily human beings are swayed and seduced by peer pressure and crowd behaviors. Although his context was Nazi Germany, his observations about what happens to human decency and courage when a political culture begins to disintegrate and a social atmosphere becomes toxic read as if they were written this morning. Bonhoeffer wrestles with what happens to good people, what to the soul, and to the human sense of morality and responsibility, when evil becomes so embedded in a political culture that it is part of the very fabric of daily life, and it becomes impossible for good people to remain untouched by it.<\/p>\n

One of the most written about and discussed portions of Bonhoeffer\u2019s essay is \u201cOn Stupidity,\u201d a stupidity that Bonhoeffer claims \u201cis a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice.\u201d By \u201cstupidity,\u201d Bonhoeffer does not mean low IQ or lack of intelligence; indeed, \u201cthere are human beings who are of remarkably agile intellect yet stupid, and others who are intellectually quite dull, yet anything but stupid.\u201d By \u201cstupid,\u201d Bonhoeffer means something that contemporary Americans encounter every day, from the White House to the local coffee shop.<\/p>\n

Against stupidity, we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one\u2019s prejudgment simply need not be believed\u2014in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical\u2014and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential.<\/strong><\/p>\n

We have all experienced more examples of this dynamic in the past several years than could possibly be documented.. When millions of citizens are uninterested in fact-checking lies or changing their minds in the face of new evidence, stupidity reigns. And as Bonhoeffer notes, we misjudge the situation when we dismiss such believing persons with condescending pejoratives\u2014persons with PhDs and people with no formal education are equally susceptible to stupidity as Bonhoeffer defines it. How can this be?<\/p>\n

According to Bonhoeffer, people either consciously choose to become stupid or allow it to happen because their defenses are down.<\/p>\n

The impression one gains is not so much that stupidity is a congenital defect but that, under certain circumstances, people are\u00a0<\/strong>made<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0stupid or that they allow this to happen to them . . . Every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity . . . The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In our current political climate, stupidity ranges across the spectrum from the most obsessed MAGA-hat-wearing rioter to the most avid Squad supporter. Whether in support of or in opposition to any particular agenda or political figure, stupidity always dehumanizes, replacing thought and deliberation with soundbites and memes. Bonhoeffer\u2019s diagnosis seventy-five years ago could have been written this morning.<\/p>\n

One virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him . . . 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.<\/strong><\/p>\n

So, what is to be done? Bonhoeffer expresses his prescription for stupidity in religious terms: \u201cThe internal liberation of human beings to live the responsible life before God is the only genuine way to overcome stupidity.\u201d This is not a call for everyone to become a person of faith, though; from a prison cell a couple of years later, Bonhoeffer will write that God wants people of faith to live as if God does not exist. Bonhoeffer\u2019s call is for people to take responsibility for who and what they are, rather than turning this responsibility over to others in exchange for perceived power or solidarity.<\/p>\n

Albert Camus\u2019\u00a0The Plague\u00a0<\/em>is a\u00a01947 novel that he began writing as World War Two was raging. It can be read, on one level, as a parable of the Holocaust. The narrator of\u00a0The Plague<\/em>\u00a0has the following to say about human nature:<\/p>\n

On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn\u2019t the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance that fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. The soul of the murderer is blind; and there can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clearsightedness.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Goodness requires, first and foremost, that we do not give up our ability to think, decide, and act freely\u2014even when the attractions of power, group think, and solidarity tempt us to become stupid. Stupidity knows no party, doctrine, or dogma\u2014and it is deadly.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Among the many striking images that we have all seen in the year that has passed since the January 6th insurrection are numerous Christian symbols (crosses, flags, signs, banners) interspersed with all manner of conservative political and social symbols carried and worn by people bent on violence, chaos, and mayhem. A few days after the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2938,"featured_media":15085,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,30,35,40,923,48,49,59,60,73,75,76,94,96,101],"tags":[112,169,194,203,221,242,383,388,463],"class_list":["post-25545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christianity","category-ethics","category-faith","category-god","category-goodness","category-human-nature","category-humility","category-justice","category-listen","category-philosophy","category-politics","category-power","category-teaching","category-theology","category-truth","tag-adolf-hitler","tag-christianity","tag-dietrich-bonhoeffer","tag-dr-martin-luther-king","tag-faith","tag-god","tag-philosophy","tag-politics","tag-teaching"],"yoast_head":"\nAgainst Stupidity, We Are Defenseless<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"How have the most extreme elements of support for Donald Trump and the Big lie become inextricable from some parts of white Christian evangelical power in America? 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