We’ve all done stupid things. We look back on them, shake our heads, and admit to ourself, “That was stupid.”
We simply stopped thinking and jumped in oblivious to the consequences. What I don’t understand is why some people actually choose to stop thinking, to stop thinking for themselves.
In 1943, a German pastor — Dietrich Bonhoeffer — was arrested for aiding Jews in Nazi Germany.
In prison, Bonhoeffer wrote an essay explaining how an entire country of reasonably smart people went along with fascism’s extermination of people who were considered enemies of the regime because the regime told them it was the right thing to do.
Bonhoeffer called this essay “On Stupidity.” He was executed April 1945.
Bonhoeffer said stupidity has nothing to do with how smart you are, your IQ, or your education level. He said three things make a person stupid.
The first thing is when you let someone else do the thinking for you: a leader, a political party, a media figure, a third-party group of any kind.
Senate Republicans voted to limit Trump’s war power on Iran.
The next day they reversed their own vote, not because the facts changed, but because they were told to change their vote or else.
That’s not governing. They outsourced their thinking to one man.
The second thing is when you don’t know something about a topic, and you’re proud of not knowing.
You don’t even try to learn something new. You celebrate not knowing things. You celebrate being ignorant.
The ancient Greeks had a word for this, amathia, or, willful ignorance.
When MAGA supporters are shown that tariffs raise prices on American consumers, they don’t look into it. They say, “Fake news,” and then move on with their day.
Or they’ll say, “I’ll look into it,” and they never do.
That’s amathia.
We have an entire world’s history of knowledge at our fingertips, and these people will literally not even try to look it up.
The third thing that makes people stupid is when you go along with the group even when the group is wrong.
You know something is off, but you say what the group says anyway. You believe what they believe, even though it’s wrong. Because belonging matters more than truth.
Only three Republican senators voted against Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill. All three were immediately punished for it.
The message to every Republican was clear: Think for yourself and we will destroy you.
This is what Bonhoeffer meant by stupidity. Not that you can’t think, but that you choose to stop thinking for yourself.
Bonhoeffer said people aren’t born this way — people are made this way.
It happens in groups. It spreads like a disease every time.
Every time fascist power rises, it infects people with stupidity.
The power of the one needs the stupidity of the others. He watched it happen in Germany — doctors, lawyers, professors, smart people, people who could think for themselves and the moment fascist power rose, they stopped thinking.
Paul Flentge
Gallatin Gateway, Mont.
