A confederacy of dunces

"Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice."

So wrote Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran pastor and theologian whose opposition to Hitler and Nazism in Germany led to his execution in Berlin, just before the end of the Second World War, in 1945. I suspect, in the second Trump presidential term, we may once again be about to witness an unholy alliance of stupidity and malice, and what that can accomplish when coupled with untrammelled power.

Bonhoeffer seems to have approached the phenomenon of human stupidity with appalled fascination. Goodness knows, he was eyewitness to a monstrous example of it! By stupidity (Dummheit) he implied not so much mental impairment as a wilful lack of judgment; a deliberate abandonment of good sense, curiosity and morality. As he put it, "The impression we get is less that stupidity is an innate defect than that under certain circumstances people are made stupid or allow themselves to be made stupid." 

What makes Bonhoeffer's analysis so chilling is his conclusion that stupidity is not synonymous with unintelligence but that - as Americans would doubtless put it - smart folk can act dumb. However, one could argue that, in voting for Trump, working class Americans made a shrewd assessment of where their own best interests lay. Insofar as those interests were purely materialistic and jingoistic, having no regard either to ethics or morality, they reached an understandable, if lamentable, conclusion. 

And such voters cannot be argued out of their convictions, or, rather, lack of them. As Bonhoeffer observes, "The fact that stupid people are often stubborn should not disguise the fact that they are not independent. When talking to them, you can almost sense that you are not dealing with them, with them personally, but with slogans, catchphrases etc that have become powerful over them." Fake news, make America great again (MAGA), it's a beautiful thing, they're taking your jobs. Ring any bells?

If voters elected Trump knowing he posed a very real danger to their supposedly cherished democracy but choosing to ignore the fact, is that stupidity or something else? Given Trump's overt statements during the campaign it is impossible to believe they could have been in any doubt as to his true intentions. In which case, if not exactly stupid they were taking one hell of a risk with their, and their country's, future. Stupid or not their actions speak of reckless self-interest. They deserve whatever they get as a result.

The circumstances in pre-war Germany were very different to those of modern-day America, where the economy was already buoyant under President Biden. Germans under the Weimar Republic suffered hyper-inflation, life was grim and it is perhaps unsurprising that Hitler was able to seduce them as he did. In the US Trump's re-election arguably speaks more of greed than need. Hitler used his people's hardship to take advantage of the existing democratic mechanisms to overthrow democracy. He became Chancellor in 1933, abolishing the role of President and declaring himself Führer in 1934. The rest, as they say, is history.

While the forces that gave rise to Nazism and the Third Reich are by no means unique to that particular era of human history, country or ideology, we only have to look at the recent US Presidential election for proof of the abiding nature of human stupidity. Karl Marx wrote that "history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce". While there are undoubtedly many farcical aspects to Trump's re-election, tragedy could still be in prospect, though we can only wait and watch. Much will become clear after next Monday's Inauguration ceremony, where triumphalism will be the order of the day.

Bonhoeffer's Von der Dummheit (On Stupidity) was published posthumously in Germany in 1951, having been collated from a number of meditations sent by him in letters from prison in 1943. In America the word dumb, derived from the German dumm, is used to mean stupid, and in English the word stupid - derived from the Latin stupere, implying stupor or a state of insensibility - is most commonly applied in contemporary English in the phrase 'a drunken stupor'. I think it may be a kind of drunkenness that Bonhoeffer refers to, induced by power, or the promise of power. When skilfully manipulated by a charismatic demagogue, this can be a truly potent brew. 

But the ultimate exercise of power in this context is not by the people so much as over them. If there is an initial resistance among the masses to surrendering their democratic power it is willingly forgone on the offer of simple solutions to complex problems. It very often appears, though, that demagogues are pushing at an open door, preying on an already pre-existing mass stupidity which, when driven by alienation and despair, is ripe for political exploitation. 

Spotting and exploiting such an opportunity is perhaps where the evil genius lies. By employing skilful psychological manipulation a malign actor can feed on popular fears to build a power-base and create legitimacy for a power-grab. Bonhoeffer realised that legitimacy acquired by such dubious means is not merely spurious but entirely illusory. 

Might is not necessarily right and mass hysteria is always inimical to rational governance. In face of the mobilisation, indeed weaponisation, of irrational forces, opposition becomes a moral imperative, albeit a potentially dangerous one. John Stuart Mill observed, "Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing." He went on to add, "He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.”

Bonhoeffer used his formidable mind - and paid a terrible price for it.

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