His conclusion: Its the stupidity, stupid.
Against stupidity we are defenseless.
It is in essence not an intellectual defect but a human one, he writes.
Stupidity, according to Bonhoeffer, is a sociological problem.
It would even seem that this is virtually a sociological-psychological law.
Were all lonely these days, but that doesnt make us less stupid.
Consider this description of the typical stupid person from Bonhoeffer:
He is not independent.
He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being.
Sounds familiar, eh?
How do we fight evil?
Fighting evil is easy.
You devote your existence to opposing it while ignoring how much danger youre in.
Bonhoeffer confronted Nazism both publicly and privately.
Fighting evil makes sense.
There are concrete steps it’s possible for you to take (if you have the courage).
The tricky part isrecognizingevil.
But run-of-the-mill Nazis in the 40s didntthinkthey were evilthey thought Hitler was fighting for Germanys freedom.
How do we fight stupid?
Until then we must abandon all attempts to convince the stupid person.
I want to say all of them, but Im too stupid to really know.
But this solution imagines morality exists outside of humanitys tenuous agreement on it.
Either way, he met his maker, if there is such a thing.
After studying German society, Cameron came to a similar conclusion as Bonhoeffer.
Again, sound familiar?
Or at least not kill everyone earth.
He performed electric lobotomies by zapping patients brains with nearly deadly jolts of electricity, over and over again.
Essentially, Cameron erased his patients minds.
In other words, torture.
That was rooted in Camerons ideas.
He sure didnt think so.
His writing has that aint Iamazing?
vibe common to those who see themselves as heroically good.
Cameron wasnt stupid either, at least not in the way we usually think of the word.
He didnt develop his ideas about human behavior by passively accepting propaganda like some damn Nazi.
