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Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

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41–50 of 138 posts

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#41

Malicious people's lies can be debunked, but the stupid people who believe the lies can't be corrected through debunking. We see this a lot today. Although it's nothing new, social media and the internet has made it easier for people to find those lies, and find others to help reinforce the lies in each other's minds.

People who belive malicious lies aren't necessarily stupid. Tens of millions of people today will turn on their TV in America. They're not all stupid.

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#42

Peak irony. He calls out stupid people for being merely vessels for ideologies. Then immediately proceeds to declare - with effortless stupidity - that god is the source of liberation from stupidity. It's peak irony. And it effortlessly describes the real state of the world; we are all bound by the ideas that flow through us. There is no escape into critical reasoning or any other ideology, precisely because these ar…

I don't understand who Bohnhoeffer was, what he was fighting on - who he was leading - and what he paid his life for.

Bonhoeffer did, in fact, reject the poplar ideas that "flowed though" his community. His sin was was rejecting the Nazi attempt to co-opt Christianity via the German Christian movement. His "confessing church" was one of the very very few organized responses to Hitler-ism in Germany.

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#43
post #23
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you write is perfectly true, but both tribes read that and think “Yes, that’s how it is for people in the other tribe. We in this tribe, of course, are much better than that.”.

Is there a pattern of thought that makes one immune to this? Like, if I reject every tribe, I become part of the 'everyone is dumb tribe', if I accept the views of every authority, I become part of the 'sheep' tribe, but maybe if one were to employ some pattern of acceptance and contrarianism in the face of other's arguments, then, on average, one's own tribalism would dissolve.

Best I've found is the first + humility.

"Everyone is dumb...myself included" at least gives me room to change my mind, and an impetus to try and find things to change my mind.

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#44
post #7

What do you do when you have close to 50/50 power dynamic and both sides think the other is stupid?

Bonhoeffer's day shows the answer. The fascists and the communists were at war in Germany. The communists tried to take over the government in the 1910s, and early 1920s. The Nazis succeeded in the 1930s. Given the history of soviet communist regimes - I suspect the communists would have done what the fascists did - put people opposed to them to death.

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#45

Peak irony. He calls out stupid people for being merely vessels for ideologies. Then immediately proceeds to declare - with effortless stupidity - that god is the source of liberation from stupidity. It's peak irony. And it effortlessly describes the real state of the world; we are all bound by the ideas that flow through us. There is no escape into critical reasoning or any other ideology, precisely because these ar…

I don't understand who Bohnhoeffer was, what he was fighting on - who he was leading - and what he paid his life for. Bonhoeffer did, in fact, reject the poplar ideas that "flowed though" his community. His sin was was rejecting the Nazi attempt to co-opt Christianity via the German Christian movement. His "confessing church" was one of the very very few organized responses to Hitler-ism in Germany.

You entirely missed my point that this idea of good ideology and bad ideology is a hall of mirrors. We are all embedded in the same network of information and we are carried by their tides. In using one ideology to escape another he is merely choosing a different tide.

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#46
post #23
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you write is perfectly true, but both tribes read that and think “Yes, that’s how it is for people in the other tribe. We in this tribe, of course, are much better than that.”.

Is there a pattern of thought that makes one immune to this? Like, if I reject every tribe, I become part of the 'everyone is dumb tribe', if I accept the views of every authority, I become part of the 'sheep' tribe, but maybe if one were to employ some pattern of acceptance and contrarianism in the face of other's arguments, then, on average, one's own tribalism would dissolve.

You view yourself as the other tribe, and therefore criticize yourself as if you were your worst enemy. From that perspective most stupid ideas you have are easy to see through. You know how stupid the other side is, yeah you probably look around that stupid yourself unless you go through this process regularly and fixes the issues you find in yourself.

Although I don't think it is possible to do it perfectly, but you can fix some things this way.

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#47

Peak irony. He calls out stupid people for being merely vessels for ideologies. Then immediately proceeds to declare - with effortless stupidity - that god is the source of liberation from stupidity. It's peak irony. And it effortlessly describes the real state of the world; we are all bound by the ideas that flow through us. There is no escape into critical reasoning or any other ideology, precisely because these ar…

> He calls out stupid people for being merely vessels for ideologies. Then immediately proceeds to declare - with effortless stupidity - that god is the source of liberation from stupidity.

His understanding of god is very different from yours.

He seems to understand god internally, within himself, not as an external force beyond (which seems closer to your own undesrtanding of this old, complex, topic).

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#48

Similar thoughts from Orwell from around the same time: https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel... It's curious how these both name a phenomenon with words that seem off-target, "stupidity" or "nationalism"; they seem to mean something like reducing yourself to a soldier for an egregore. Anyone have a better word for the general pattern?

[deleted]

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#49
post #47

Peak irony. He calls out stupid people for being merely vessels for ideologies. Then immediately proceeds to declare - with effortless stupidity - that god is the source of liberation from stupidity. It's peak irony. And it effortlessly describes the real state of the world; we are all bound by the ideas that flow through us. There is no escape into critical reasoning or any other ideology, precisely because these ar…

> He calls out stupid people for being merely vessels for ideologies. Then immediately proceeds to declare - with effortless stupidity - that god is the source of liberation from stupidity. His understanding of god is very different from yours. He seems to understand god internally, within himself, not as an external force beyond (which seems closer to your own undesrtanding of this old, complex, topic).

it doesn't matter - it's still an ideology that we choose to adopt, we are just as blind to it's evil as those bound up in any other ideology. We are all blind - to attempt to escape your current cave of shadows by moving to the adjacent cave is pretty pointless.

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#50
post #2

> 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. Do you agree?

I think understanding/explaining what "fear of God" means is kind of hard to explain in the postmodern world. It's partly recognizing that to know God is to fear God, but that also is not that great of an explanation. There's another verse about walking humbly with thy God. That may be a better more modern verse to pick I'd say.
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