Bonhoeffer on Recognizing an Evil Leader

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Christian pastor in the time of Hitler who watched the National Socialists expand their power in the 1940s. A committed pacifist, he wrestled with his conscience and his faith about how to respond as the evils of Nazism became apparent. He joined resistance efforts, not only helping to save Jewish individuals but also supporting armed resistance, including a group seeking to assassinate Hitler.

But the plotters were discovered. Bonhoeffer was arrested for his associations with them and hung in 1945.

His writings have inspired generations confronting evil in the political realm, notably his classic, The Cost of Discipleship. His essays, Letters from Prison, are also deeply inspiring. Wikipedia provides a good overview of his life and writings at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer

In this excerpt he is insightful and prescient about how good people become caught up as participants and supporters of evil because of their "Dummheit", commonly translated to English as "stupidity". He makes clear that he does not mean low intelligence, but rather failure to use ordinary intelligence with due diligence to ferret out falsehood and determine truth. "Blind loyalty" might be a better term today. It's especially common, he says, in response to leaders who are powerful.

In the last sentence he cautions against over-using the concept and offers a useful test: Do leaders seek to encourage a thoughtful quest for truth or are they actually encouraging thoughtless loyalty (which we might today call "building the base")?

In a time when fake news surrounds us and technical advances make it easy to manufacture deceptive pictures and videos, avoiding blind loyalty is a greater challenge than ever. High standards of verification and truth must now become our passion. Religious communities, often the first zone of outreach for demagogues soliciting a base, please help lead out on this!

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(From Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "After Ten Years" in Letters and Papers from Prison (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works/English, vol. 8 ) Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010. Additional paragraph breaks inserted by RK.)

"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 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 sociological-psychological 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."

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from ‘After Ten Years’ in Letters and Papers from Prison (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works/English, vol. 8 ) Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010.