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Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

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Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#71

Post by AlbertCory »

pugio wrote: post #67
AlbertCory wrote: post #14

"The responsible life before God" -- I don't think any modern person is capable of understanding what that meant in the 1940s. We just don't think that way anymore. However, none of the comments so far have really grasped his point, which is that stupidity is a group phenomenon. Maybe a modern equivalent would be "tribe." Of course you can't convince someone of the other tribe to come over and join yours on any one p…

> "The responsible life before God" -- I don't think any modern person is capable of understanding what that meant in the 1940s. We just don't think that way anymore. I would suggest that perhaps you are limiting your scope of possible "we" (21st century human) thought states. The passage seems to me perfectly clear. For reference, the full quote is: > "The word of the Bible that the fear of God is the beginning of w…

Well said.

Of course, he was a minister, so he'd spent his life thinking about that.

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#73

Post by bitwize »

I've heard it observed that there are a class of people too thick to be stupid and I now have a point of anecdata in support: my girlfriend's beloved Uncle Geri, who had Down's Syndrome and was also the only of her maternal uncles not to be a blatant racist. It seems the folly of racism required mental faculties he just couldn't bring to bear. I think a lot of stupidity is like that, it requires a certain threshold of intelligence to look at a set of options or perspectives and choose the wrong one for a dumb reason.

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#74

Post by Ceyarrecks »

as is well known currently: "the effects of Incompetence and Malice are indistinguishable." And as further consolation, just look around and see that: "No Child Left Behind & Ebonics are working as intended."

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#75

Post by AlbertCory »

AlbertCory wrote: post #63
CoastalCoder wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source for what Bonhoeffer would have meant by that? I have my own guess to its meaning, but I hesitate to say it does/doesn't match his definition without seeing some exposition on it.

Given this layout, I can't tell whom you're addressing this to: the guy who said "folly" was the better translation? In any case, I did study German in college, but I'm far from being able to judge what word is accurate. If the word was "Dummheit" that translates literally as "dumb head" but that doesn't mean a German would understand it that way.

Funny how your mind works. I just realized Dummheit doesn't mean "dumb head" like I said; it's "state of being dumb" or, as Google Translate puts it, "stupidity."

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#76

Post by burrows »

Jensson wrote: post #46
BobbyJo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 yo…

> You know how stupid the other side is, yeah you probably look around that stupid yourself

Any other techniques for dealing with this?

To get a better measurement of my own intelligence I think about my “dumb friend”, and then try to realize that that’s probably actually about how smart I am.

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#77

Post by User23 »

NalNezumi wrote: post #9
preach wrote: 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?

To me that just seems like a theistic wording of "be humble because you are not perfect, and there's always a potential that you're wrong" An atheistic wording could come from a moral perspective or appealing to virtuous characteristic. A more scientific/ modern observation based re-wording of that is just the dunning kruger effect. (specifically the middle plateau of it)

What is virtuous and what is moral for the atheist? Is it more than the bits of the religious morality his ancestors believed that doesn't contradict his present desires?

That question seriously troubled me for some time. Ethics cannot be deduced from logic and aesthetics. To give an example, why exactly is rape wrong? Logically, evolutionary science lets us conclude that it increases individual fitness by increasing mating opportunities and group fitness by spreading alleles that are good at reproducing themselves. Judging by the popularity of the subject in fine art, aesthetics can't condemn it either. So what makes it wrong? Is it anything more than a bald assertion? On what basis and by whose authority? Is ethics merely the science of discerning whatever it is that the strongest secular power one is subject to will permit? I find that proposition philosophically unsatisfying.

Meanwhile, while there is plenty of room for elaboration, a theist can rest on the moral foundation that Mankind was created with inherent dignity in the image of the Creator and thus rape, murder, theft, and various other offenses against that dignity are objectively immoral, regardless of what whoever holds the local monopoly on violence thinks. Additionally, to aid those who may not be capable of drawing those inferences, the sacred scriptures literally spell out the most obvious dos and don'ts.

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#78

Post by analog31 »

AlbertCory wrote: post #14

"The responsible life before God" -- I don't think any modern person is capable of understanding what that meant in the 1940s. We just don't think that way anymore. However, none of the comments so far have really grasped his point, which is that stupidity is a group phenomenon. Maybe a modern equivalent would be "tribe." Of course you can't convince someone of the other tribe to come over and join yours on any one p…

I think aside from interpreting that prescription, he didn't live long enough to see what actually happened, which is that the power associated with the stupidity was overcome by sheer and overwhelming force.

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#79

Post by bmj »

AlbertCory wrote: post #71
pugio wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The responsible life before God" -- I don't think any modern person is capable of understanding what that meant in the 1940s. We just don't think that way anymore. I would suggest that perhaps you are limiting your scope of possible "we" (21st century human) thought states. The passage seems to me perfectly clear. For reference, the full quote is: > "The word of the Bible that the fear of God is the beginning of w…

Well said. Of course, he was a minister, so he'd spent his life thinking about that.

And as a theologian whose work included a book on Christian ethics, and The Cost of Discipleship.

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#80

Post by UncleOxidant »

pugio wrote: post #67
AlbertCory wrote: post #14

"The responsible life before God" -- I don't think any modern person is capable of understanding what that meant in the 1940s. We just don't think that way anymore. However, none of the comments so far have really grasped his point, which is that stupidity is a group phenomenon. Maybe a modern equivalent would be "tribe." Of course you can't convince someone of the other tribe to come over and join yours on any one p…

> "The responsible life before God" -- I don't think any modern person is capable of understanding what that meant in the 1940s. We just don't think that way anymore. I would suggest that perhaps you are limiting your scope of possible "we" (21st century human) thought states. The passage seems to me perfectly clear. For reference, the full quote is: > "The word of the Bible that the fear of God is the beginning of w…

> He's discussing one way out of the trap of conforming to group/tribal beliefs. If you put your fear of God (in other words, some power higher than, and distinctly external to, any social group) you begin to liberate yourself from caring too much about what other people think.

This is well said. I believe it was the theologian Stanley Hauerwas who said in the 70s that the decline of religion in America would inevitably lead to the rise of political tribalism - seems prescient.

"There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship [...] is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already - it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness." David Foster Wallace

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