Bonhoeffer and Public Stupidity

The stupid person is far more dangerous than the malicious one.

Bonhoeffer said stupidity was a moral and social issue, not a lack of intelligence.

The major motion picture Bonhoeffer comes to theaters this week. It’s worth seeing.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (b. 1906 - d. 1945) is one of my modern heroes.

Arrested by the NAZIs as a traitor to the German Reich for attempting to assassinate Adolf Hitler, the NAZIs executed Bonhoeffer was at Flossenburg Concentration camp on Monday, April 9, 1945, less than a month before the end of World War II.

Prior to his execution, writing in in his Letters and Papers from Prison, Bonhoeffer explored the concept of stupidity as a profound societal and moral issue, distinguishing it from mere ignorance or a lack of intelligence.

Bonhoeffer argues that stupidity is not an intellectual defect but a moral failing and a social phenomenon.

Stupidity arises when individuals abandon independent critical thinking in favor of group conformity, often under the influence of power, propaganda, or ideology.

A "stupid" person, in Bo…