Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Stupidity
A warning and an encouragement for 21st-century Christians?
FROM: Martin Adams (Reader in St Illogan Parish)
I recently came across the following article by Dietrich Bonhoeffer; and
immediately was struck that the points he was making in the closing
years and months of World War II are scarcely less relevant for Christians
today. Anyone who goes to the trouble of reading this might wish to
read Bonhoeffer’s words before mine. The article is below, at the end.
Many of the tensions wracking the Church of Jesus Christ today — not
just the Church of England, but most institutional churches in the West
and in the English-speaking world — have arisen through attempts,
especially over the last 50 years or so, to accommodate the Church’s
mission to the precepts of identity politics. It is inevitable, and even
necessary, that a church in a particular time and place will reflect the
cultural and other characteristics of that society; and that point is a
major preoccupation of a classic of late 20th-century Christian thought,
The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (SPCK, 1989), by Lesslie Newbigin (1909–
1998). Among the the central ideas that Newbiggin tackles head-on are
the necessity for a Christian to: 1) exercise discernment about the culture
in which he or she is living; 2) be willing to let go of cherished cultural
and other presuppositions, ideas and practices that are not central to the
Gospel; 3) prioritise the core teachings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ
while seeking, as much as possible, to find an accommodation that will
enable the believer to work effectively in that society as a disciple of
Jesus Christ, especially in the Church’s main purpose in the world —
mission.
Here, I do not wish to attack identity politics beyond mentioning one
most-fundamental point. A central tenet of Judeo-Christian teaching for
the last 2000 and more years has been that we are all made in the image
of God, are therefore all equal in that most-basic sense, and that equality
before God should be the basis of our behaviour one to another. On that
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idea, universally declared throughout scripture, have rested most of the
Church’s words and actions that have sought to tackle injustices of all
kinds. Those actions have sometimes been too slow, sometimes
christians have perpetuated injustices; but that equality before God
stands as a fundamental aspect of His love for the whole world. (John
3:16, for example)
Identity politics does the opposite. It identifies injustices or other things
that might need to be remedied or ameliorated; but it does so by
concentrating on what divides us — black or white, slave or free, male
or female, rich or poor, etc. — and it understands these differences by
claiming to identify those who have power and those who do not. It
places the remedies in the hands of people, not in the hands of God. Its
ideologies have an inexorable tendency to seep into all areas of life,
affecting education (and not just higher education, where so much of it
was born and is nourished), government policies and the general
institutions of state and society. Unfortunately, the church (not just the
Church of England) is far from immune to such infection; and because
of that it often fails to identify the true nature of the language and ideas
that it is absorbing. We (for none of us is immune to this) see what we or
others think of as an injustice; we see the attempt to deal with it; and we
jump on the bandwagon without realising the ungodly nature of the
ideas that seek to produce a remedy. An ungodly idea cannot produce a
godly remedy.
Finally, if Christians accept, even unconsciously, an ideology that
concentrates on what divides us, that acceptance inevitably undermines
the ability to live out and to rest soundly on that most basic grounding
of faithful discipleship. Our identity is in Christ; and that identity is far,
far more important than anything the world has to offer. The scriptures
are full of this, but some of the more obvious statements to that effect are
in 1 Corinthians 7:23, Colossians 2:20, and Galatians 3:28.
Bonhoeffer, and the Church in Germany during the first half of the 20th
century, were confronted with an identitarian ideology infinitely worse
than contemporary identity politics. In the following article, written
while he was in prison because he refused to obey the Nazi authorities,
is mainly concerned with the effects of Nazi ideology on his fellow
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countrymen, and with the stultifying effect Nazi power had on most of
the German people including, most sadly, a large part of the Church.
Finally, one should note that the definition of stupidity that I (and I
think Bonhoeffer) have in mind is “Behaviour that shows a lack of good
sense or judgement” (OED). So the question I keep asking myself about
this entire subject is, “Am I being stupid?” I have no enduring yardstick
against which to make a Christian assessment of that, except the
writings of scripture, of the Church’s historical wisdom, and of godly
men and women I know or know of.
Over the last few weeks I have sought to understand better why I sense
that Bonhoeffer’s distinction between stupidity and malice is relevant to
the church’s position today, vis-à-vis the fundamentally ungodly nature
of contemporary identity politics. In particular I have been considering
the following points (mainly his, partly mine).
1) “[Stupidity] . . . is in essence not an intellectual defect but a human one.
There are human beings who are of remarkably agile intellect yet stupid, and
others who are intellectually quite dull yet anything but stupid.”
2) “The impression one gains is not so much that stupidity is a congenital
defect, but that, under certain circumstances, people are made stupid or that
they allow this to happen to them.”
This is central, for it suggests that stupidity is something into
which we can all fall; but that there is a remedy.
3) “The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the
fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels
that one is dealing not at all with a person, but with slogans, catchwords and
the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused,
and abused in his very being.”
These were the sentences that jumped out to me most on my first
reading of Bonhoeffer’s article. They jumped out because I have long
been troubled at the tendency for those who espouse identity politics,
regardless of party-political associations, to talk in slogans — usually to
one another because that is how they become convinced of their own
righteousness. All too often, it is impossible to hold a conversation; and
having spent my entire working life in academia, I know this at first
hand.
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4) Finally, Bonhoeffer declares the only way to liberate people from
their 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.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer and six other major figures in the resistance against
Nazism (several of them Christians) were executed on the specific order
of Hitler in Flossenbürg Concentration Camp (Bavaria) on 9th April
1945 — less than a month before the war’s end.
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer
‘Letters and Papers from Prison’
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, vol. 8. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press,
2010, pp. 43–44.
On Stupidity
Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may
protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of
force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that
it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity
we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything
here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply
need not be believed — in such moments the stupid person even becomes
critical — and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as
inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the
malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes
dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called for
than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid
person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.
If we want to know how to get the better of stupidity, we must seek to
understand its nature. This much is certain, that it is in essence not an
intellectual defect but a human one. There are human beings who are of
remarkably agile intellect yet stupid, and others who are intellectually quite
dull yet anything but stupid. We discover this to our surprise in particular
situations. The impression one gains is not so much that stupidity is a
congenital defect, but that, under certain circumstances, people are made
stupid or that they allow this to happen to them. We note further that people
who have isolated themselves from others or who live in solitude manifest
this defect less frequently than individuals or groups of people inclined or
condemned to sociability. And so it would seem that stupidity is perhaps less
a psychological than a sociological problem. It is a particular form of the
impact of historical circumstances on human beings, a psychological
concomitant of certain external conditions. Upon closer observation, it
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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. It would even seem that this is virtually a sociologicalpsychological
law. The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other. The
process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the
intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the
overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner
independence, and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an
autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances. The fact that the
stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not
independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing
not at all with a person, but with slogans, catchwords and the like that have
taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in
his very being. 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. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can
once and for all destroy human beings.
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. Until then we must abandon all
attempts to convince the stupid person. This state of affairs explains why in
such circumstances our attempts to know what ‘the people’ really think are in
vain and why, under these circumstances, this question is so irrelevant for the
person who is thinking and acting responsibly. 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.
But these thoughts about stupidity also offer consolation in that they utterly
forbid us to consider the majority of people to be stupid in every
circumstance. It really will depend on whether those in power expect more
from people’s stupidity than from their inner independence and wisdom.
