What's Hitler's last name?

 

Credit: Giovanni Battista Recco, Annelisa Leinbach

Stupidity, an all too common human condition, not only can be humorous but also dangerous as the stupid can be led as seen by the rise of Hitler where the big lie was fed to the great unwashed with skill and precision by Joseph Goebbels, the propagandist elite who channeled Edwin Bernays in enabling the Nazis to attain power via the ballot box in 1933. 

Edwin Bernays                                Joseph Goebbels

When we know something or someone is evil, we can take steps to fight it. With stupidity, it is much more difficult. Dietrich Bonhoeffer argues that stupidity is worse than evil because stupidity can be manipulated and used by evil. He also argues that stupidity tends to go hand-in-hand with acquiring power — that is, being in power means we surrender our individual critical faculties.

To whit ...

There’s an internet adage that goes, “Debating an idiot is like trying to play chess with a pigeon — it knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory.” It’s funny and astute. It’s also deeply, depressingly worrying. Although we’d never say so, we all have people in our lives we think of as a bit dim — not necessarily about everything, but certainly about some things.

Most of the time, we laugh this off. After all, stupidity can be pretty funny. When my friend asked a group of us recently what Hitler’s last name was, we laughed. When my brother learned only last month that reindeer are real animals — well, that’s funny. Good-natured ribbing about a person’s ignorance is an everyday part of life.

Stupidity, though, has its dark side. For theologian and philosopher Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the stupid person is often more dangerous than the evil one.

You can't fix stupid  - Trump or DeSantis 2024.