13 ms·

Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

141 points by NalNezumi 5y ago

Ceyarrecks 5y ago
as is well known currently: "the effects of Incompetence and Malice are indistinguishable." And as further consolation, just look around and see that: "No Child Left Behind & Ebonics are working as intended."
deleted 5y ago
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chmod600 5y ago
I'm not sure if the meaning of "stupid" has drifted over time, but it feels like this essay plays too much with language. It sounds like he's trying to redefine stupidity rather than clarify it. And why? He has some interesting points about unreasonableness as a social (rather than intellectual) phenomenon.
Animats 5y ago
It's energetic stupidity that leads to serious problems. Passive stupidity just leads to inaction.
preach 5y ago
> 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. Do you agree?
- baxuz 5y ago
  The author contradicts himself: > 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. > 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.
  - AlbertCory 5y ago
    There is no contradiction, except that maybe you don't like the word "God."
    - hprotagonist 5y ago
      or conflate god and religion. (which prophetic voices through the ages, bonhoeffer included, have consistently reminded us is wrong)
  - karaterobot 5y ago
    There is no contradiction here. An upsurge of religious power in the public sphere is not equivalent to an upsurge in the fear of God.
- api 5y ago
  I have a secular hypothesis about stupidity that echoes this: that it’s root is narcissism. A person becomes stupid when they come to believe that they could not be wrong. This could be why profoundly accomplished people sometimes become stupid. Their accomplishment convinces them that they are intellectually superior, at which point they proceed to stop thinking critically.
  - brighton36 5y ago
    Just replace the word 'God' with 'The community', and religious theories tend to make a lot more sense.
  - baremetal 5y ago
    your secular hypothesis and theistic views on this are in agreement. self-worship.
- NalNezumi 5y ago
  To me that just seems like a theistic wording of "be humble because you are not perfect, and there's always a potential that you're wrong" An atheistic wording could come from a moral perspective or appealing to virtuous characteristic. A more scientific/ modern observation based re-wording of that is just the dunning kruger effect. (specifically the middle plateau of it)
  - mistermann 5y ago
    I think sometimes religion comes with more reverence or a genuine deep respect for the idea.
  - User23 5y ago
    What is virtuous and what is moral for the atheist? Is it more than the bits of the religious morality his ancestors believed that doesn't contradict his present desires? That question seriously troubled me for some time. Ethics cannot be deduced from logic and aesthetics. To give an example, why exactly is rape wrong? Logically, evolutionary science lets us conclude that it increases individual fitness by increasing mating opportunities and group fitness by spreading alleles that are good at reproducing themselves. Judging by the popularity of the subject in fine art, aesthetics can't condemn it either. So what makes it wrong? Is it anything more than a bald assertion? On what basis and by whose authority? Is ethics merely the science of discerning whatever it is that the strongest secular power one is subject to will permit? I find that proposition philosophically unsatisfying. Meanwhile, while there is plenty of room for elaboration, a theist can rest on the moral foundation that Mankind was created with inherent dignity in the image of the Creator and thus rape, murder, theft, and various other offenses against that dignity are objectively immoral, regardless of what whoever holds the local monopoly on violence thinks. Additionally, to aid those who may not be capable of drawing those inferences, the sacred scriptures literally spell out the most obvious dos and don'ts.
    - mbrodersen 5y ago
      There is clear evidence that morality originated with the evolution of societal thinking and human collaboration. Morality is evolutionary useful because it improves in-group trust and collaboration. In other words, there is clear evidence that morality existed thousands of years before religion. Experiments also show that even 2 year old humans and a number of animal species have clear moral thinking.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  Tolkein said that it didn't pay to leave a dragon out of your calculations, if you happened to live near one. In the same way, it's a good idea to think very carefully about how God affects you, if you happen to live in a universe where He exists. So the first question is, do you live in such a universe? Is He there, or not? Not "would you prefer Him to exist, or not?" Not "Does your culture say He exists?" But does He actually exist? Is He really there? If He exists, this is a very different universe than if He doesn't. And it would be wisdom to live in a manner that fits the universe you are in...
  - paulryanrogers 5y ago
    > So the first question is, do you live in such a universe? Is He there, or not? If one cannot falsify a god's existence then can it be proven to exist?
- throw7 5y ago
  I think understanding/explaining what "fear of God" means is kind of hard to explain in the postmodern world. It's partly recognizing that to know God is to fear God, but that also is not that great of an explanation. There's another verse about walking humbly with thy God. That may be a better more modern verse to pick I'd say.
  - UncleOxidant 5y ago
    Micah 6:8? He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
hprotagonist 5y ago
"Stupidity" is a mistranslation. "Folly" is the term that Boenhoeffer used in his letter from the concentration camp in which he would be martyred: don’t confuse intelligence and wisdom. https://bpa.st/5DJQ https://bpa.st/5DJQ is the version of the excerpt of the letter i'm familiar with.
- mudita 5y ago
  The term Bonhoeffer used is "Dummheit". As a German "stupidity" seems to be a more accurate translation to me.
  - ladon86 5y ago
    It is, but I would say that on an axis of: Stupidity <——> Silliness …Dummheit leans slightly more towards silliness than pure stupidity does in English. I think Dummheit can be both an adjective and a noun, right? The latter, “eine Dummheit”, sounds more like a silly mistake to me (like “I did a stupid” in internet-speak). A word like “nonsense” might be a good parallel? In English that word can cover serious, trivial, and silly cases.
    - _hl_ 5y ago
      I think it's folly to try and grasp the nuances of "Dummheit" as Bonhoeffer used it 80 years ago from our modern usage of the word. It depends on how the word was used at the time. Even today it depends on context, although generally you are right that it leans a little bit towards silly.
      - guyomes 5y ago
        This reminds me of a visualisation tool [0] for the distance between the meaning of words in french, based on databases of texts. I wonder if that would help to grasp the nuances in older times. [0]: https://www.cnrtl.fr/proxemie/sottise https://www.cnrtl.fr/proxemie/sottise
    - groby_b 5y ago
greenail 5y ago
What do you do when you have close to 50/50 power dynamic and both sides think the other is stupid?
- InTheArena 5y ago
  Bonhoeffer's day shows the answer. The fascists and the communists were at war in Germany. The communists tried to take over the government in the 1910s, and early 1920s. The Nazis succeeded in the 1930s. Given the history of soviet communist regimes - I suspect the communists would have done what the fascists did - put people opposed to them to death.
- evolve2k 5y ago
  Both are likely infected, each full with slogans and jargon.
  - teddyh 5y ago
    Yes, but what do you do?
    - achenet 5y ago
      Try to help them understand each other.
      - greenail 5y ago
        But the premise of Bonhoeffer's theory predicts this will fall on deaf ears.
    - hirako2000 5y ago
      You tell both sides to at least leave you in peace, and you watch out since they will likely not agree with you.
    - 13415 5y ago
      As an Epicurean, nothing. Avoid all of this like the plague, interact only with close friends and do not engage in politics and "power play." Spent your time on what matters to you.
AlbertCory 5y ago
"The responsible life before God" -- I don't think any modern person is capable of understanding what that meant in the 1940s. We just don't think that way anymore. However, none of the comments so far have really grasped his point, which is that stupidity is a group phenomenon. Maybe a modern equivalent would be "tribe." Of course you can't convince someone of the other tribe to come over and join yours on any one particular issue; that would be betrayal of everything they think they stand for. So logic is pointless. That representative of the other tribe cannot think and form his or her own opinion because that would mean expulsion from their tribe.
- oblak 5y ago
  First thing I thought when reading your comment was Men in Black Kay : A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.
  - belter 5y ago
    "Most of them are just trying to make a living..." https://youtu.be/w2ppyMUlXfM https://youtu.be/w2ppyMUlXfM
- teddyh 5y ago
  What you write is perfectly true, but both tribes read that and think “Yes, that’s how it is for people in the other tribe. We in this tribe, of course, are much better than that.”.
  - AlbertCory 5y ago
    Very true. And of course, no member can admit that their tribe is that way, too, without risking expulsion.
  - BobbyJo 5y ago
    Is there a pattern of thought that makes one immune to this? Like, if I reject every tribe, I become part of the 'everyone is dumb tribe', if I accept the views of every authority, I become part of the 'sheep' tribe, but maybe if one were to employ some pattern of acceptance and contrarianism in the face of other's arguments, then, on average, one's own tribalism would dissolve.
karaterobot 5y ago
Thanks for posting this, it rings very true.
plutonorm 5y ago
Peak irony. He calls out stupid people for being merely vessels for ideologies. Then immediately proceeds to declare - with effortless stupidity - that god is the source of liberation from stupidity. It's peak irony. And it effortlessly describes the real state of the world; we are all bound by the ideas that flow through us. There is no escape into critical reasoning or any other ideology, precisely because these are all ideologies. They are merely information structures flowing through the network. You are always going to be 'stupid' by his definition unless you personally verify all the information you receive and conduct well designed experiments that you personally see the results of. Otherwise you are choosing a side and trusting one cluster of information structures over another. The world is a hall of mirrors - get used to it and design your world view to accept this state of affairs.
- InTheArena 5y ago
  I don't understand who Bohnhoeffer was, what he was fighting on - who he was leading - and what he paid his life for. Bonhoeffer did, in fact, reject the poplar ideas that "flowed though" his community. His sin was was rejecting the Nazi attempt to co-opt Christianity via the German Christian movement. His "confessing church" was one of the very very few organized responses to Hitler-ism in Germany.
  - plutonorm 5y ago
    You entirely missed my point that this idea of good ideology and bad ideology is a hall of mirrors. We are all embedded in the same network of information and we are carried by their tides. In using one ideology to escape another he is merely choosing a different tide.
    - InTheArena 5y ago
      He used his ideology to break away from the group and to found a group in opposition to the first.
      - CamperBob2 5y ago
intrepidhero 5y ago
>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. >It really will depend on whether those in power expect more from people’s stupidity than from their inner independence and wisdom. Pretty radical. I'm still digesting. On the one hand, I do think that people, free in the external and internal sense tend to make better decisions than otherwise. But on the other hand I feel there is a missing necessary condition here. But I'm not sure what it is
abecedarius 5y ago
Similar thoughts from Orwell from around the same time: https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/notes-on-nationalism/ https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel... It's curious how these both name a phenomenon with words that seem off-target, "stupidity" or "nationalism"; they seem to mean something like reducing yourself to a soldier for an egregore. Anyone have a better word for the general pattern?
- avitous 5y ago
  Erich Fromm's "Escape From Freedom", written around the same time, also touches on similar ideas centered around why and in what situations people can be steered toward totalitarianism.
- deleted 5y ago
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- pugio 5y ago
  In The Scout Mindset, Julia Galef calls a very related state "the soldier mindset" - this is similar enough to the term you proposed but I think you would enjoy reading the book.
  - abecedarius 5y ago
    It's very good. I'd say she focuses more on people in a more reachable state; I can imagine the eaten-by-egregores reading the book going "Yeah! This is what's wrong with the outgroup!" or just angrily rejecting it all, but it's mainly about how/why to improve in this regard on the margin. She sees the soldier mindset as having its place. Orwell acknowledges we all have these tendencies but focuses on the people he sees as too far gone (I have no idea about all those 1940s folks).
- robocat 5y ago
  > nationalism Tribal is my best guess at his meaning, but ingroup is related, or perhaps partisanship when applied to American politics. Nationalism feels incorrect, especially when he chooses examples of beliefs that are against their own nation (skip to the heading “negative nationalism”), or examples that are not much to do with nationality (political Catholicism, Antisemitism, Pacifism). Another theme is blind loyalty (authority figures) versus freethinking. As a geek I try to avoid succumbing to geek groupthink, although HN doesn’t always help that goal.
justin_oaks 5y ago
Malicious people's lies can be debunked, but the stupid people who believe the lies can't be corrected through debunking. We see this a lot today. Although it's nothing new, social media and the internet has made it easier for people to find those lies, and find others to help reinforce the lies in each other's minds.
- iratewizard 5y ago
  People who belive malicious lies aren't necessarily stupid. Tens of millions of people today will turn on their TV in America. They're not all stupid.
  - jbotz 5y ago
    Yes they are. By the definition of "stupid" in this article, they are. Like Bonhoeffer says, "there are people of remarkably agile intellect yet stupid".
    - iratewizard 5y ago
      Can't argue with that
DrStormyDaniels 5y ago
Bonheoffer was a Lutheran pastor. Nietzsche, the son of a Lutheran pastor: 'In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.' Also cf. Cipolla: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiprtD3v8_zAhUHecAKHXToDUwQFnoECAQQAQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fharmful.cat-v.org%2Fpeople%2Fbasic-laws-of-human-stupidity%2F&usg=AOvVaw1E0_baWU87osmk_fiXO4Cw https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...
- poulsbohemian 5y ago
  I'm not completely sure the point you are intending to make, but yes - there is a reason why so many great German thinkers were Lutheran or had Lutheran ties. It is exemplified by Luther's Table Talks at the pfarrhaus. Basically, it was a regular activity to gather at the pastor's house and debate / discuss / philosophize. Thus this became part of the culture.
  - DrStormyDaniels 5y ago
    Interesting, thanks. I want to know more about Lutherism, if you have any suggestions? As for my point, I'm not 100% sure there was one, except that it's nice to observe a theologian having common ground with the antichrist himself.
    - isityouyesitsme 5y ago
      bookofconcord.org
bitwize 5y ago
I've heard it observed that there are a class of people too thick to be stupid and I now have a point of anecdata in support: my girlfriend's beloved Uncle Geri, who had Down's Syndrome and was also the only of her maternal uncles not to be a blatant racist. It seems the folly of racism required mental faculties he just couldn't bring to bear. I think a lot of stupidity is like that, it requires a certain threshold of intelligence to look at a set of options or perspectives and choose the wrong one for a dumb reason.
UncleOxidant 5y ago
I wonder if we would "foolishness" would be a better translation than "stupidity"? Foolishness as in a lack of wisdom.
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richardatlarge 5y ago
There is individual stupidity but there is also species stupidity. I’ve always felt that humans, living according to culture instead of nature (to oversimplify), are intelligent as individuals but moronic as a society. Ants and bees, etc, just the opposite
mbrodersen 5y ago
He is just describing mass psychosis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09maaUaRT4M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09maaUaRT4M
- mbrodersen 5y ago
  Any argument why that is not the case? I am honestly interested in hearing any arguments against.
mindless_solips 5y ago
I hope the asutute reader is recognizing the classical Western European thinker mentality of "in going through this particular contextual situation where a variety of forces have conspired to create a situation. From my limited view and biasing heavily on observations from a limited sample pool, I derive conclusions broadly applicable to all of humanity across all time." This is not to say Bonhoeffer was a fool nor to completely disregard his words, but to derive essentially that" all humans are stupid in groups " because you're living through the rise of Nazism is one frame, and is not necessarily self-evidently valid. Until culture became the cesspool of the mid-10s, we had a lot of good analytical evidence for Wisdom of the Crowds, I. E. Wikipedia, PageRank, etc.
HackOfAllTrades 5y ago
@pugio (Interpreting Bonhoeffer) "If you put your fear of God (in other words, some power higher than, and distinctly external to, any social group) you begin to liberate yourself from caring too much about what other people think." And as such he is making exactly the same mistake, because he is assuming that his God is a higher power, when in fact his God is defined by his community. Where did he learn what it means to live "The responsible life before God"? From the community he grew up in of course. (My assumption is that God did not appear and teach him in person.) When stripped of the appeal to the authority of God, his argument becomes "My community values independent thought over group conformity." I totally agree with him. I just don't find it a solid argument.

141 points by NalNezumi 5y ago

as is well known currently: "the effects of Incompetence and Malice are indistinguishable." And as further consolation, just look around and see that: "No Child Left Behind & Ebonics are working as intended."

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chmod600 5y ago

I'm not sure if the meaning of "stupid" has drifted over time, but it feels like this essay plays too much with language. It sounds like he's trying to redefine stupidity rather than clarify it. And why? He has some interesting points about unreasonableness as a social (rather than intellectual) phenomenon.

Animats 5y ago

It's energetic stupidity that leads to serious problems. Passive stupidity just leads to inaction.

preach 5y ago

> 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. Do you agree?

baxuz 5y ago
The author contradicts himself: > 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. > 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.
- AlbertCory 5y ago
  There is no contradiction, except that maybe you don't like the word "God."
  - hprotagonist 5y ago
    or conflate god and religion. (which prophetic voices through the ages, bonhoeffer included, have consistently reminded us is wrong)
- karaterobot 5y ago
  There is no contradiction here. An upsurge of religious power in the public sphere is not equivalent to an upsurge in the fear of God.
api 5y ago
I have a secular hypothesis about stupidity that echoes this: that it’s root is narcissism. A person becomes stupid when they come to believe that they could not be wrong. This could be why profoundly accomplished people sometimes become stupid. Their accomplishment convinces them that they are intellectually superior, at which point they proceed to stop thinking critically.
- brighton36 5y ago
  Just replace the word 'God' with 'The community', and religious theories tend to make a lot more sense.
- baremetal 5y ago
  your secular hypothesis and theistic views on this are in agreement. self-worship.
NalNezumi 5y ago
To me that just seems like a theistic wording of "be humble because you are not perfect, and there's always a potential that you're wrong" An atheistic wording could come from a moral perspective or appealing to virtuous characteristic. A more scientific/ modern observation based re-wording of that is just the dunning kruger effect. (specifically the middle plateau of it)
- mistermann 5y ago
  I think sometimes religion comes with more reverence or a genuine deep respect for the idea.
- User23 5y ago
  What is virtuous and what is moral for the atheist? Is it more than the bits of the religious morality his ancestors believed that doesn't contradict his present desires? That question seriously troubled me for some time. Ethics cannot be deduced from logic and aesthetics. To give an example, why exactly is rape wrong? Logically, evolutionary science lets us conclude that it increases individual fitness by increasing mating opportunities and group fitness by spreading alleles that are good at reproducing themselves. Judging by the popularity of the subject in fine art, aesthetics can't condemn it either. So what makes it wrong? Is it anything more than a bald assertion? On what basis and by whose authority? Is ethics merely the science of discerning whatever it is that the strongest secular power one is subject to will permit? I find that proposition philosophically unsatisfying. Meanwhile, while there is plenty of room for elaboration, a theist can rest on the moral foundation that Mankind was created with inherent dignity in the image of the Creator and thus rape, murder, theft, and various other offenses against that dignity are objectively immoral, regardless of what whoever holds the local monopoly on violence thinks. Additionally, to aid those who may not be capable of drawing those inferences, the sacred scriptures literally spell out the most obvious dos and don'ts.
  - mbrodersen 5y ago
    There is clear evidence that morality originated with the evolution of societal thinking and human collaboration. Morality is evolutionary useful because it improves in-group trust and collaboration. In other words, there is clear evidence that morality existed thousands of years before religion. Experiments also show that even 2 year old humans and a number of animal species have clear moral thinking.
AnimalMuppet 5y ago
Tolkein said that it didn't pay to leave a dragon out of your calculations, if you happened to live near one. In the same way, it's a good idea to think very carefully about how God affects you, if you happen to live in a universe where He exists. So the first question is, do you live in such a universe? Is He there, or not? Not "would you prefer Him to exist, or not?" Not "Does your culture say He exists?" But does He actually exist? Is He really there? If He exists, this is a very different universe than if He doesn't. And it would be wisdom to live in a manner that fits the universe you are in...
- paulryanrogers 5y ago
  > So the first question is, do you live in such a universe? Is He there, or not? If one cannot falsify a god's existence then can it be proven to exist?
throw7 5y ago
I think understanding/explaining what "fear of God" means is kind of hard to explain in the postmodern world. It's partly recognizing that to know God is to fear God, but that also is not that great of an explanation. There's another verse about walking humbly with thy God. That may be a better more modern verse to pick I'd say.
- UncleOxidant 5y ago
  Micah 6:8? He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

hprotagonist 5y ago

"Stupidity" is a mistranslation. "Folly" is the term that Boenhoeffer used in his letter from the concentration camp in which he would be martyred: don’t confuse intelligence and wisdom. https://bpa.st/5DJQ https://bpa.st/5DJQ is the version of the excerpt of the letter i'm familiar with.

mudita 5y ago
The term Bonhoeffer used is "Dummheit". As a German "stupidity" seems to be a more accurate translation to me.
- ladon86 5y ago
  It is, but I would say that on an axis of: Stupidity <——> Silliness …Dummheit leans slightly more towards silliness than pure stupidity does in English. I think Dummheit can be both an adjective and a noun, right? The latter, “eine Dummheit”, sounds more like a silly mistake to me (like “I did a stupid” in internet-speak). A word like “nonsense” might be a good parallel? In English that word can cover serious, trivial, and silly cases.
  - _hl_ 5y ago
    I think it's folly to try and grasp the nuances of "Dummheit" as Bonhoeffer used it 80 years ago from our modern usage of the word. It depends on how the word was used at the time. Even today it depends on context, although generally you are right that it leans a little bit towards silly.
    - guyomes 5y ago
      This reminds me of a visualisation tool [0] for the distance between the meaning of words in french, based on databases of texts. I wonder if that would help to grasp the nuances in older times. [0]: https://www.cnrtl.fr/proxemie/sottise https://www.cnrtl.fr/proxemie/sottise
  - groby_b 5y ago

greenail 5y ago

What do you do when you have close to 50/50 power dynamic and both sides think the other is stupid?

InTheArena 5y ago
Bonhoeffer's day shows the answer. The fascists and the communists were at war in Germany. The communists tried to take over the government in the 1910s, and early 1920s. The Nazis succeeded in the 1930s. Given the history of soviet communist regimes - I suspect the communists would have done what the fascists did - put people opposed to them to death.
evolve2k 5y ago
Both are likely infected, each full with slogans and jargon.
- teddyh 5y ago
  Yes, but what do you do?
  - achenet 5y ago
    Try to help them understand each other.
    - greenail 5y ago
      But the premise of Bonhoeffer's theory predicts this will fall on deaf ears.
  - hirako2000 5y ago
    You tell both sides to at least leave you in peace, and you watch out since they will likely not agree with you.
  - 13415 5y ago
    As an Epicurean, nothing. Avoid all of this like the plague, interact only with close friends and do not engage in politics and "power play." Spent your time on what matters to you.

AlbertCory 5y ago

"The responsible life before God" -- I don't think any modern person is capable of understanding what that meant in the 1940s. We just don't think that way anymore. However, none of the comments so far have really grasped his point, which is that stupidity is a group phenomenon. Maybe a modern equivalent would be "tribe." Of course you can't convince someone of the other tribe to come over and join yours on any one particular issue; that would be betrayal of everything they think they stand for. So logic is pointless. That representative of the other tribe cannot think and form his or her own opinion because that would mean expulsion from their tribe.

oblak 5y ago
First thing I thought when reading your comment was Men in Black Kay : A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.
- belter 5y ago
  "Most of them are just trying to make a living..." https://youtu.be/w2ppyMUlXfM https://youtu.be/w2ppyMUlXfM
teddyh 5y ago
What you write is perfectly true, but both tribes read that and think “Yes, that’s how it is for people in the other tribe. We in this tribe, of course, are much better than that.”.
- AlbertCory 5y ago
  Very true. And of course, no member can admit that their tribe is that way, too, without risking expulsion.
- BobbyJo 5y ago
  Is there a pattern of thought that makes one immune to this? Like, if I reject every tribe, I become part of the 'everyone is dumb tribe', if I accept the views of every authority, I become part of the 'sheep' tribe, but maybe if one were to employ some pattern of acceptance and contrarianism in the face of other's arguments, then, on average, one's own tribalism would dissolve.

karaterobot 5y ago

Thanks for posting this, it rings very true.

plutonorm 5y ago

Peak irony. He calls out stupid people for being merely vessels for ideologies. Then immediately proceeds to declare - with effortless stupidity - that god is the source of liberation from stupidity. It's peak irony. And it effortlessly describes the real state of the world; we are all bound by the ideas that flow through us. There is no escape into critical reasoning or any other ideology, precisely because these are all ideologies. They are merely information structures flowing through the network. You are always going to be 'stupid' by his definition unless you personally verify all the information you receive and conduct well designed experiments that you personally see the results of. Otherwise you are choosing a side and trusting one cluster of information structures over another. The world is a hall of mirrors - get used to it and design your world view to accept this state of affairs.

InTheArena 5y ago
I don't understand who Bohnhoeffer was, what he was fighting on - who he was leading - and what he paid his life for. Bonhoeffer did, in fact, reject the poplar ideas that "flowed though" his community. His sin was was rejecting the Nazi attempt to co-opt Christianity via the German Christian movement. His "confessing church" was one of the very very few organized responses to Hitler-ism in Germany.
- plutonorm 5y ago
  You entirely missed my point that this idea of good ideology and bad ideology is a hall of mirrors. We are all embedded in the same network of information and we are carried by their tides. In using one ideology to escape another he is merely choosing a different tide.
  - InTheArena 5y ago
    He used his ideology to break away from the group and to found a group in opposition to the first.
    - CamperBob2 5y ago

intrepidhero 5y ago

>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. >It really will depend on whether those in power expect more from people’s stupidity than from their inner independence and wisdom. Pretty radical. I'm still digesting. On the one hand, I do think that people, free in the external and internal sense tend to make better decisions than otherwise. But on the other hand I feel there is a missing necessary condition here. But I'm not sure what it is

abecedarius 5y ago

Similar thoughts from Orwell from around the same time: https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/notes-on-nationalism/ https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel... It's curious how these both name a phenomenon with words that seem off-target, "stupidity" or "nationalism"; they seem to mean something like reducing yourself to a soldier for an egregore. Anyone have a better word for the general pattern?

avitous 5y ago
Erich Fromm's "Escape From Freedom", written around the same time, also touches on similar ideas centered around why and in what situations people can be steered toward totalitarianism.
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pugio 5y ago
In The Scout Mindset, Julia Galef calls a very related state "the soldier mindset" - this is similar enough to the term you proposed but I think you would enjoy reading the book.
- abecedarius 5y ago
  It's very good. I'd say she focuses more on people in a more reachable state; I can imagine the eaten-by-egregores reading the book going "Yeah! This is what's wrong with the outgroup!" or just angrily rejecting it all, but it's mainly about how/why to improve in this regard on the margin. She sees the soldier mindset as having its place. Orwell acknowledges we all have these tendencies but focuses on the people he sees as too far gone (I have no idea about all those 1940s folks).
robocat 5y ago
> nationalism Tribal is my best guess at his meaning, but ingroup is related, or perhaps partisanship when applied to American politics. Nationalism feels incorrect, especially when he chooses examples of beliefs that are against their own nation (skip to the heading “negative nationalism”), or examples that are not much to do with nationality (political Catholicism, Antisemitism, Pacifism). Another theme is blind loyalty (authority figures) versus freethinking. As a geek I try to avoid succumbing to geek groupthink, although HN doesn’t always help that goal.

justin_oaks 5y ago

Malicious people's lies can be debunked, but the stupid people who believe the lies can't be corrected through debunking. We see this a lot today. Although it's nothing new, social media and the internet has made it easier for people to find those lies, and find others to help reinforce the lies in each other's minds.

iratewizard 5y ago
People who belive malicious lies aren't necessarily stupid. Tens of millions of people today will turn on their TV in America. They're not all stupid.
- jbotz 5y ago
  Yes they are. By the definition of "stupid" in this article, they are. Like Bonhoeffer says, "there are people of remarkably agile intellect yet stupid".
  - iratewizard 5y ago
    Can't argue with that

DrStormyDaniels 5y ago

Bonheoffer was a Lutheran pastor. Nietzsche, the son of a Lutheran pastor: 'In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.' Also cf. Cipolla: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiprtD3v8_zAhUHecAKHXToDUwQFnoECAQQAQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fharmful.cat-v.org%2Fpeople%2Fbasic-laws-of-human-stupidity%2F&usg=AOvVaw1E0_baWU87osmk_fiXO4Cw https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...

poulsbohemian 5y ago
I'm not completely sure the point you are intending to make, but yes - there is a reason why so many great German thinkers were Lutheran or had Lutheran ties. It is exemplified by Luther's Table Talks at the pfarrhaus. Basically, it was a regular activity to gather at the pastor's house and debate / discuss / philosophize. Thus this became part of the culture.
- DrStormyDaniels 5y ago
  Interesting, thanks. I want to know more about Lutherism, if you have any suggestions? As for my point, I'm not 100% sure there was one, except that it's nice to observe a theologian having common ground with the antichrist himself.
  - isityouyesitsme 5y ago
    bookofconcord.org

bitwize 5y ago

I've heard it observed that there are a class of people too thick to be stupid and I now have a point of anecdata in support: my girlfriend's beloved Uncle Geri, who had Down's Syndrome and was also the only of her maternal uncles not to be a blatant racist. It seems the folly of racism required mental faculties he just couldn't bring to bear. I think a lot of stupidity is like that, it requires a certain threshold of intelligence to look at a set of options or perspectives and choose the wrong one for a dumb reason.

UncleOxidant 5y ago

I wonder if we would "foolishness" would be a better translation than "stupidity"? Foolishness as in a lack of wisdom.

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richardatlarge 5y ago

There is individual stupidity but there is also species stupidity. I’ve always felt that humans, living according to culture instead of nature (to oversimplify), are intelligent as individuals but moronic as a society. Ants and bees, etc, just the opposite

mbrodersen 5y ago

He is just describing mass psychosis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09maaUaRT4M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09maaUaRT4M

mbrodersen 5y ago
Any argument why that is not the case? I am honestly interested in hearing any arguments against.

mindless_solips 5y ago

I hope the asutute reader is recognizing the classical Western European thinker mentality of "in going through this particular contextual situation where a variety of forces have conspired to create a situation. From my limited view and biasing heavily on observations from a limited sample pool, I derive conclusions broadly applicable to all of humanity across all time." This is not to say Bonhoeffer was a fool nor to completely disregard his words, but to derive essentially that" all humans are stupid in groups " because you're living through the rise of Nazism is one frame, and is not necessarily self-evidently valid. Until culture became the cesspool of the mid-10s, we had a lot of good analytical evidence for Wisdom of the Crowds, I. E. Wikipedia, PageRank, etc.

HackOfAllTrades 5y ago

@pugio (Interpreting Bonhoeffer) "If you put your fear of God (in other words, some power higher than, and distinctly external to, any social group) you begin to liberate yourself from caring too much about what other people think." And as such he is making exactly the same mistake, because he is assuming that his God is a higher power, when in fact his God is defined by his community. Where did he learn what it means to live "The responsible life before God"? From the community he grew up in of course. (My assumption is that God did not appear and teach him in person.) When stripped of the appeal to the authority of God, his argument becomes "My community values independent thought over group conformity." I totally agree with him. I just don't find it a solid argument.