Very strong insight indeed. After 15 years in higher ed, I know that professors practice and teach this principle of stupidity: conformity, complicity, and to censure heterodox thinkers and questioners of The Message (any one of the Social Justice sects).
At Virginia Tech in 2020, my department’s dean pulled in a non-tenure linguistics professor, told her remove tech affiliation from her personal Facebook page or be fired (she had posted conservative views about Covid - the horror). Then, the same dept. chair praises the same professor when Russia attacks Ukraine (the linguistics professor is from Ukraine). Bandwagon thinking. That Ukrainian prof. had enough duplicity and resigned. In fall 2020, I was forced to state my name and pronouns in 3 PhD classes (I’d already willingly used colleague pronouns at work in CA for years, but to be compelled to?). My refusal to conform earned me a poor reputation with faculty from then until I completed my PhD this June. I was expected to confess I was a CRT believer here and in my 2nd MA at cal state in 2018, for my ‘original group sin’ (as they called it) of being white and male. 2 cal state professors refused to recommend me to my PhD because I didn’t accept their definition of white and male (group category and culpability equals individual identity to them).
Herd mentality (hide, blend in, save your job, don’t stand out, group think, etc.) is alive and well in the humanities. The fear of ostracization is real, dogma in orthodoxy is too, but I didn’t enroll in higher ed programs to become accepted but to become helpful and skilled for my writing students, and to refine my knowledge, assumptions, and priors through research. Cannot confidently say the same of my programs and professors.
There is no such thing as "conservative views on COVID". Nor are there "liberal views". COVID is a disease, not a political, economic or social issue. You probably mean "minority views" or something similar. Even that is imprecise. There are legit criticisms of all medical, public health and scientific understandings or consensus views. But to be taken seriously, they must reflect the facts, ideas, and conclusions in dispute and they must reflect a thorough understanding of how science is done. Critiques that inject tendentious policy complaints or positions tend to be ignored with good reason. Much COVID revisionism is of this type. It's political complaints about "personal freedom" or heavy-handed govt, hiding behind a factually weak take on the available science. Hence, "lab leak!" Or "masks don't work" or "lock downs were unnecessary" or "it doesn't effect kids" (about 1200 kids died outright from COVID).
We can debate the timing, efficacy or duration of public health policies all day, in fact, we should. But there is nothing inherently "conservative" or "liberal"about it. If you fail to lead withn the end, the disease (pandemic, etc) has the last word. Thus we learn.
Josh, thank you for your cogent, neat explanation of why terms like “liberal” and “conservative” to describe a response to a disease (the COVID pandemic) are incorrect. Use of such imprecise terms to describe the response to disease is “stupid,” within Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s criteria, because these terms mirror the propaganda of partisan politics instead of a scientifically informed viewpoint on Covid response policy. Whether willingly or not, use of such terms exacerbates the spread of misinformation and group think.
Covid was a form of the flu easily cured with Ivermectin. But the psychopathic powers that be created and used it to see how much control and tyranny they could get away with. Sadly, the sheeple complied. The Covid was also the ruse used to cause sickness and death. No one was actually dying from Covid until the bioweapon was rolled out. Read my book, “The Covid Con; The Global Totalitarians’ Secret War Against Humanity.”
I've worn masks professionally for over four decades. Different kinds for different situations. I watched The mask fiasco unfold, starting out being a shortage of masks for medical personnel, and evolving into a panic about how we all needed to wear masks. The obvious question I wanted answerd was what kind of mask and what good does it do? I have yet to receive an answer to that question all these years later.
Also the issue of natural immunity was ignored by our fearless leaders. That's a highly relevant matter and the CDC did all they could to bury it.
Perhaps there are no conservative and liberal views on covid but there sure as hell are political views. If you haven't noticed that you haven't been paying attention.
The evidence of a deliberate attempt to create a biological weapon and have it leak from a laboratory , and to then cover it up is overwhelming. This evidence is all available in court filings , freedom of information act responses and emails between the parties , all of which can be seen on judicial watch.org and federal judicial websites.
Alas, you and your hastily-generalized online certainty may never know. I might have even agreed. But my 1400 in-person, open-minded ESL, TESOL, and writing students over 10yrs on the other hand…
Diversity is inclusive of everyone and your mention of “priors” leads me to believe you’ve studied Bayesian thinking.
My favorite phrase to those who are different is the verbal assurance, “You be You”, and that opens our dialogue to respectful, honest conversation. Shared perspectives are enlightening and individual choice is Liberty.
I appreciate your comment. I studied Bayesian thinking on my own because none of my 3 grad programs taught it or the flaws/limitations of statistical inference and the implications on scientific work. Humanities abound in pet theories with no assessment of their validity. Partly why we’re in our current partisan academic mess. I very much appreciate ‘you be you’ because I promote “Be critical. Be generous. Be you” to my students.
I saw that face in my drunk cousin when I asked him why he supports criminals and why he believes in Armageddon, a story from a 2000 year old book written by a man who was obviously stoned out of his mind on something like ayahuasca.
Fundamentalist religion literally teaches you to check your brain at the church/synagogue/Mosque door and blindly believe and follow what the leaders tell you. So no - he is not throwing another stone — he is stating facts.
No, he is stating his OPINION, not fact…his opinion isn’t even reasoned, it’s just a flippant comment indicting hundreds of millions of Christians, never mind he hasn’t the wherewithal to read peoples’ minds.
No, the reference was to fundamentalists, not Christians, Jews, Muslims, etc. It is an emphasis on blind faith, you must believe not think. That explains the rise and subsequent fall of so many huge churches' pastors once the voluntary blinders are taken off.
After 15 years in higher ed, I know that professors practice and teach this principle of stupidity: conformity, complicity, to censure heterodox thinkers and questioners of The Message (any one of the Social Justice sects).
At Virginia Tech in 2020, my department’s dean pulled in a non-tenure linguistics professor, told her remove tech affiliation from her personal Facebook page or be fired (she had posted conservative views about Covid - the horror). Then, the same dept. chair praises the same professor when Russia attacks Ukraine (the linguistics professor is from Ukraine). Bandwagon thinking. In fall 2020, I was forced to state my name and pronouns in 3 PhD classes (I’d already willingly used colleague pronouns at work in CA for years, but to be compelled to?). My refusal to conform earned me a poor reputation with faculty from then until I completed my PhD this June. I was expected to confess I was a CRT believer here and in my 2nd MA at cal state in 2018, for my ‘original group sin’ (as they called it) of being white and male.
Herd mentality (hide, blend in, save your job, don’t stand out, group think, etc.) are alive and well in the humanities. The fear of ostracization is real, dogma in orthodoxy is too, but I didn’t enroll in programs to become accepted but to become helpful, skilled, and to refine my knowledge, assumptions, and priors. Cannot fully say the same of my programs and professors.
I also refuse to state my pronouns. You figure out what you want to call me. The left has gotten very very militant about DEI which is why we are having a backlash right now. I'd argue the left wasn't like this until Trump's first term. The left became militant because they felt the need to not give him and his ideology a platform. And as such, there is no nuisance as MAGA don't deal with nuisance either.
The only thing I am very militant about is vaccines. They save countless lives and that shouldn't be fucked with.
I don't know about the others, but Jews argue about everything, including religion, and it's expected. And synagogues are not analogous to churches or mosques. Different concept, more like community centers.
CM, you write of fundamentalist religion, a small subset the “organized religion” that he’d smeared with his broad-brush attack. So yes, he was indeed throwing stones.
Go gaslight and be self-righteous to someone else. Fundamentalists make up the majority of all religions. More people have died from religious wars than all other causes combined. I will repeat: Fundamentalist religion literally teaches you to check your brain at the church/synagogue/Mosque door and blindly believe and follow what the leaders tell you. So no - he is not throwing another stone — he is stating facts. Peace be with you.
Very early on, actually in childhood (!) I absorbed the admonition, Judge not lest ye be judged. Became a guiding precept in my life w/out me even realizing it. One of my high school seniors came to me once w/ a pretty serious confession, looking for… advice, reassurance, SOMEthing to console his regret (?) I can’t even remember what the issue was. I remember only that I asked him, WHY are you telling me this? His reply was actually abt the highest compliment I have ever received. He said, You don’t judge. I told him, Not my job, not my place. All I can do is help you find a solution. Must admit, and not bragging (!), made me proud of me 🤣
This is the other thing: Reincarnation is either not true for anyone or MUST be true for everyone. As a (universal) truth, it perforce applies equally to the unbeliever as to the believer. Mull on that. Sooo arrogant to think one life is enough to learn all we need to know! Explore beyond any box. Slap it across all writings, from the Greeks, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle to the sermon delivered by your pastor any given Sunday - or from the mullah on Friday or the rabbi on Saturday (don’t know the equivalent for Hindus, Buddhists, others - doesn’t matter). God, however we call him is the God of ALL. He meets us where we’re at, provides a path to holiness & salvation beyond just our little, tight, exclusionary beliefs. It’s not that we are “made in the image of God”, but that man (re)makes Him in ours - whatever that happens to be, any given era across history. Let God be God of the Universe (also supremely arrogant to think we are the ONLY sentient beings in the Universe = what’s going on “yonder”??) Let HIM out of your box!
Do it right or do it over! As many times as it takes. That’s the mantra of every teacher on the planet. Try again! Take another whack at it. Joyce Meyer, my favorite preacher / tele-evangelist includes it in abt every other sermon. She doesn’t even realize how accurate the admonition is. Or that one lifetime is NOT enough to learn all we need to know - in any area.
BTW, any time I can… wrestle seems like a good verb… the recommendation into the conversation, I highly commend EVERYone to read or to at least investigate Michael Newton’s books, Journey of Souls & Destiny of Souls. Hint: Never mind Hell, how do you feel abt coming back here??
There are a billion Catholics worldwide. American TV evangelists and megachurches have captured the “brand” of Christian though in the U.S.A. They never wear a cross with the crucified body of Jesus, an innocent man who spoke out for the poor and vulnerable.
Indeed, Pope Leo has been a force to combat the lies and hate from those who have misappropriated “woke” and the very essence of Christianity which is love, empathy, kindness, caring for those less fortunate, etc. At least that is the Christianity I was brought up with in the Episcopal church.
Not only self righteousness but absolute obedience. To pastors, parents, anyone in authority. Religious communities brainwash their congregants. It’s no wonder so many of them think Trump is god’s chosen one.
I was once an Episcopal priest (although I have since “swum the Tiber”). I didn’t remember ever receiving absolute obedience from anyone in any congregation I served— for which I am truly grateful.
Imagine the conditions of your "eye-sight", and your moral courage, if you felt like singling out one of the successful organizations in this world, out of the many of them.
Congratulations still, for choosing the safest (hence most fashionable) targets.
Instead of thinking critically, you castigate every Christian who belongs to a Church, accusing every one of them of being self-righteous. You might want to think before you post.
“Credo ut intelligam.” St. Augustine, 4th century African Bishop of Hippo would disagree.”I believe so I understand.” Note he uses Credo which is from the Latin “core do”, what I give my heart to. It is not an intellectual assent to doctrines first it would seem but helps illuminate them, open them up. He wrote s few himself! Interesting guy!
Not sure what the “organized Christian Church” is. I am associated with the United Methodist Church and the Reformed Church of America, both Protestant churches rooted in Christianity. Nowhere do Christ’s teachings condone behavior akin to what is coming from the White House today. Christianity is based on loving your neighbor as yourself, helping those in distress and not placing yourself above others. When Jesus was asked “Who is my neighbor” he preached the story of the Good Samaritan who crossed the road to help an injured man of a reviled sect- no questions asked. We are to love and help those less fortunate than ourselves without judging. We are supposed to be grateful for our blessings and willing to help and share with others. We are Not supposed to look down on those less fortunate than we are. Trump appears to know nothing about true Christianity - only the hatred the radical so-called “religious” right spews. The basis of true Christianity (the 2 greatest commandments) can be found in the New Testament Matthew 22:36-40.
So-called enlightened atheism and other secular philosophies gave us the Soviet Union's gulags and other forms of collectivism which have killed over 100 million people in a single century.
How does this concept of the malice of stupidity relate to the constant flow of media that lulls us into the normalization of blatant cruelty? Aren't we at risk of passively accepting the tsunami of evil?
The media is the constant in the formation of the blank face of conformity and the normalization of hate, racism or “the other” that makes people look at each other with fear. The media is the dispenser of mis and disinformation and the most pervasive propagandist of all.
Sadly, this will remain the case as long as there is a profit to be made from the normalization of hate (as you so aptly put it). And so we have devolved into two tribes of monkeys gleefully flinging their poo at each other.
It's all advertising one way or another. l remember watching TV with my children, & then grandchildren' and pointing out that those very happy children playing some game or eating some food actually had a real job, to look happy, and that maybe whatever it was was not necessarily so very wonderful, and basically don't believe everything you see. Goes back to realizing, as a young housewife, that we were being advertised to constantly. It goes on and on; the ads on Youtube these days are particularly appalling.
Yes. Good question. There's certainly a tsunami of news.
If you want to destroy the ability to think for yourself you dumb down the education system and cut funding for universities. You fund in such a way that a cash-strapped university has to put more resources into business studies and economics and less into humanities and those encouraging critical thinking.
You make high school education largely vocational except for the elite.
You defund early childhood education. These are the ways to create sheep and unquestioning followers.
That doesn't answer normalisation of cruelty though. Is it ever normalised? If depends on what you know about the world (see above) and your morality.
I hadn’t come across Bonhoeffer’s “theory of stupidity” before, so thank you for introducing it here. What really landed for me is his point that it isn’t about intellect but about surrender — giving up one’s inner independence to group pressure.
It made me think about how easily that can happen when our mental bandwidth is low. Stress, fear, and exhaustion narrow the space we have for reflection, which makes conformity and “cheap certainty” feel easier.
One thing I’ve found helpful is using little forms of scaffolding to keep bandwidth open:
Pausing long enough to ask a question instead of reacting.
Writing down what I believe before I hear what “the group” believes.
Seeking out one unfamiliar source, even briefly, before settling on a view.
Checking in on bandwidth — both my own and the other person’s — before deciding how to respond.
None of these fix the deeper social forces Bonhoeffer warned about, but they do create a bit of extra breathing room. And sometimes that’s enough to resist the pull of conformity.
Really appreciate you opening this door — I’ll be sitting with his words for a while.
My reading and studying of Bonhoeffer’s life and works has set me on a path, not only enlightenment, but the double edge sword of faith. How it can be used for good and how it can be used for evil. When things are inverted, so also is the way one fights evil. Lies become necessary, betrayal becomes relevant. It takes a person with deep and strong moral character to understand which is which and when an inversion of moral decency becomes a spiritual weapon for good.
Like flying planes into buildings? He didn’t “pay with his life”, his life was taken from him by stupid people who could not accept being challenged, who stood firm in their faith that fascism should not be questioned.
Pay with his life meaning paying the cost of holding tight to his convictions to the point of being killed for them. Sure, stupid people did take his life and he could have played it safe and would have lived if he had, but he like most decent people tried to put a stop to it and didn’t succeed in saving himself. It’s a tragedy really.
An absolute tragedy. And yes, he could have kept his mouth shut, but IMHO that’s different than “faith” or holding to convictions. He was trying to save ppl from being killed, not killed bc he was challenged about his beliefs. To me these are different issues.
I was going to comment but I just read a number of comments that are so arrogant that I’ll pass. When you are so sure you see more clearly, it is time to step back and see where you are being blindsided.
It would be amazing to hear you speak as to what you thought was arrogance and believe is blindsiding rather than quickly passing judgement without putting your own thoughts on the line. It could be interpreted as arrogance not to bother speaking outside of offering a critique and we could all benefit from being shown a different if not better thought process… so please take time to share your own ideas as people are more than interested in hearing them, but without preventing what is precisely meant by using your own words rather than quotes.
I am not loquacious but found the whole discussion of IQ and college degrees without merit. College degrees have long been available to the wealthy but not always to those without wealth. Historical fact. That does not equate intelligence for the wealthy and stupidity for the poor. I bow out.
Agreed! I’m wary of defining people by IQ or education. Several brilliant minds didn’t have money or access to education. In turn, nobody offered me a scholarship or saved for my college education probably because they thought I was stupid when it was actually undiagnosed ASD making thought difficult. I had to work part time to earn an education, but this made me appreciate it all the more and become more inclined to put it to use. My experience has been with people who were handed college educations who in turn did nothing with them. One might argue that they were stupid, but then again it could be simply lazy. It seems that the harder we try or work for anything makes us productive, but I never discount anyone’s ability. If I could, so can they is my premise, IQ not being a deciding factor. I won’t even get into the contrived nature of it.
I personally witnessed an overabundance of stupidity during the pandemic. People just blindly swallowed the narrative they were given, without questioning it's relevance. Fear and panic are powerful weapons, that's when reason should prevail.
Well, I have no faith to speak of. And I admire those whose faith compels them to great sacrifice - Bonhoeffer, the Black Baptist church, the Dalai Lama - all help me see that there is some worth in being a "person of god".
I’d be a lot more impressed with the Dalai Lama if he’d do something more than spout meaningless platitudes and offer a single useful statement condemning the greatest criminals since Hitler.
“We are all one” just isn’t really cutting it as a countervailing philosophy when Nazis are making the rules.
The other thing I will add is that in my experience, for example at a Trump rally, you see very few people who would be considered intelligent. These are mostly lesser-educated and ignorant people. These are the stupid people mentioned. There are a few highly educated people who are Trump supporters, and they are smart because they know the advantages that Trump will give them over lesser moneyed people. Both groups would support an American Hitler.
God if I read one more quote about Hitler in the Nazis. It's not as if there's no record and documentaries or books of what happened in that period, it was pure devastation, millions died. It's a joke people like you run around on your keyboards living in the 1% land of the world and whining about the end of the world.
I wondered how long it would take for this to devolve into a political rant and here we are like all the other anger posting about the last election. It makes me embarrassed for us as a nation that people want to insult or hate their own countrymen over a single election. I’ve voted and my chosen candidates lost many times but I didn’t go around trash talking people who did their civic duty just because my own vote was different or that I felt mine was more right than theirs. Then again I was raised during a more polite era where it was considered impolite but today the gloves are off and everyone has become a target of mean spirited opinions. If any one behavior made our lives less enjoyable, this is for me among the worst.
If you cannot see that this was about an entirely different topic then you are the near sighted one and your insults are not welcome. I don’t have to tolerate verbal abuse from you or anybody Bill the retired IT Geek, but that is expected from IT people as far as I’m concerned, a topic I know all too well. Goodbye.
This is 100% spot on. The only thing I take issue with is calling it “stupidity,” which is a value judgment. Judgments create defensiveness, which inspires people to cling tighter rather than encouraging them to let go a little and actually think critically.
If we want people to engage in dialogue and consider other perspectives, it would be wise to refrain from using critical value judgments.
Your point is exactly what I thought when reading this. "Stupidity" carries a lot of baggage that doesn't help here. It may make us feel better to call the other "stupid," but it sure is a bad way to start a dialogue.
People have told me they voted for for trump because they have always voted republican. Well that's one less thing to have to worry about right whom to vote for? Oh dont get me started. People when you vote do your homework first.
The fear of not belonging because you asked too many questions is the root of fundy evangelical churches. Too many questions =too little faith, in their view, and too little faith makes you suspect in their eyes. If you want to belong, you go along. Explains why so many of them are MAGA.
“evil doesn’t always wear a mask of malice. Sometimes, it wears a blank, unseeing face of the conformist, the unthinking follower.”
Your post has very strong insight.
Very strong insight indeed. After 15 years in higher ed, I know that professors practice and teach this principle of stupidity: conformity, complicity, and to censure heterodox thinkers and questioners of The Message (any one of the Social Justice sects).
At Virginia Tech in 2020, my department’s dean pulled in a non-tenure linguistics professor, told her remove tech affiliation from her personal Facebook page or be fired (she had posted conservative views about Covid - the horror). Then, the same dept. chair praises the same professor when Russia attacks Ukraine (the linguistics professor is from Ukraine). Bandwagon thinking. That Ukrainian prof. had enough duplicity and resigned. In fall 2020, I was forced to state my name and pronouns in 3 PhD classes (I’d already willingly used colleague pronouns at work in CA for years, but to be compelled to?). My refusal to conform earned me a poor reputation with faculty from then until I completed my PhD this June. I was expected to confess I was a CRT believer here and in my 2nd MA at cal state in 2018, for my ‘original group sin’ (as they called it) of being white and male. 2 cal state professors refused to recommend me to my PhD because I didn’t accept their definition of white and male (group category and culpability equals individual identity to them).
Herd mentality (hide, blend in, save your job, don’t stand out, group think, etc.) is alive and well in the humanities. The fear of ostracization is real, dogma in orthodoxy is too, but I didn’t enroll in higher ed programs to become accepted but to become helpful and skilled for my writing students, and to refine my knowledge, assumptions, and priors through research. Cannot confidently say the same of my programs and professors.
There is no such thing as "conservative views on COVID". Nor are there "liberal views". COVID is a disease, not a political, economic or social issue. You probably mean "minority views" or something similar. Even that is imprecise. There are legit criticisms of all medical, public health and scientific understandings or consensus views. But to be taken seriously, they must reflect the facts, ideas, and conclusions in dispute and they must reflect a thorough understanding of how science is done. Critiques that inject tendentious policy complaints or positions tend to be ignored with good reason. Much COVID revisionism is of this type. It's political complaints about "personal freedom" or heavy-handed govt, hiding behind a factually weak take on the available science. Hence, "lab leak!" Or "masks don't work" or "lock downs were unnecessary" or "it doesn't effect kids" (about 1200 kids died outright from COVID).
We can debate the timing, efficacy or duration of public health policies all day, in fact, we should. But there is nothing inherently "conservative" or "liberal"about it. If you fail to lead withn the end, the disease (pandemic, etc) has the last word. Thus we learn.
Josh, thank you for your cogent, neat explanation of why terms like “liberal” and “conservative” to describe a response to a disease (the COVID pandemic) are incorrect. Use of such imprecise terms to describe the response to disease is “stupid,” within Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s criteria, because these terms mirror the propaganda of partisan politics instead of a scientifically informed viewpoint on Covid response policy. Whether willingly or not, use of such terms exacerbates the spread of misinformation and group think.
Covid was a form of the flu easily cured with Ivermectin. But the psychopathic powers that be created and used it to see how much control and tyranny they could get away with. Sadly, the sheeple complied. The Covid was also the ruse used to cause sickness and death. No one was actually dying from Covid until the bioweapon was rolled out. Read my book, “The Covid Con; The Global Totalitarians’ Secret War Against Humanity.”
Get help. Soon!
I've worn masks professionally for over four decades. Different kinds for different situations. I watched The mask fiasco unfold, starting out being a shortage of masks for medical personnel, and evolving into a panic about how we all needed to wear masks. The obvious question I wanted answerd was what kind of mask and what good does it do? I have yet to receive an answer to that question all these years later.
Also the issue of natural immunity was ignored by our fearless leaders. That's a highly relevant matter and the CDC did all they could to bury it.
Perhaps there are no conservative and liberal views on covid but there sure as hell are political views. If you haven't noticed that you haven't been paying attention.
The evidence of a deliberate attempt to create a biological weapon and have it leak from a laboratory , and to then cover it up is overwhelming. This evidence is all available in court filings , freedom of information act responses and emails between the parties , all of which can be seen on judicial watch.org and federal judicial websites.
Dear God you must be absolutely draining in person 🙄
😂🤣 why do you default to this position. He’s just demonstrating live thinking.
Why? I think he is spot on. He is calling out the bull. Draining is this arrogance.
Alas, you and your hastily-generalized online certainty may never know. I might have even agreed. But my 1400 in-person, open-minded ESL, TESOL, and writing students over 10yrs on the other hand…
You have a hard time thinking eh? Bummer for you.
Naw. I save it for you guys. But yeah, some things should be drained before they clog everything up.
Diversity is inclusive of everyone and your mention of “priors” leads me to believe you’ve studied Bayesian thinking.
My favorite phrase to those who are different is the verbal assurance, “You be You”, and that opens our dialogue to respectful, honest conversation. Shared perspectives are enlightening and individual choice is Liberty.
I appreciate your comment. I studied Bayesian thinking on my own because none of my 3 grad programs taught it or the flaws/limitations of statistical inference and the implications on scientific work. Humanities abound in pet theories with no assessment of their validity. Partly why we’re in our current partisan academic mess. I very much appreciate ‘you be you’ because I promote “Be critical. Be generous. Be you” to my students.
Very trite! But what gives it validity at the same time 💕
I saw that face in my drunk cousin when I asked him why he supports criminals and why he believes in Armageddon, a story from a 2000 year old book written by a man who was obviously stoned out of his mind on something like ayahuasca.
The Organized Christian Church has many blinded themselves in their Sickness of Self Righteouaness
It is important to examine and see yourself, to engage yourself, not just to throw another stone.
Fundamentalist religion literally teaches you to check your brain at the church/synagogue/Mosque door and blindly believe and follow what the leaders tell you. So no - he is not throwing another stone — he is stating facts.
No, he is stating his OPINION, not fact…his opinion isn’t even reasoned, it’s just a flippant comment indicting hundreds of millions of Christians, never mind he hasn’t the wherewithal to read peoples’ minds.
No, the reference was to fundamentalists, not Christians, Jews, Muslims, etc. It is an emphasis on blind faith, you must believe not think. That explains the rise and subsequent fall of so many huge churches' pastors once the voluntary blinders are taken off.
After 15 years in higher ed, I know that professors practice and teach this principle of stupidity: conformity, complicity, to censure heterodox thinkers and questioners of The Message (any one of the Social Justice sects).
At Virginia Tech in 2020, my department’s dean pulled in a non-tenure linguistics professor, told her remove tech affiliation from her personal Facebook page or be fired (she had posted conservative views about Covid - the horror). Then, the same dept. chair praises the same professor when Russia attacks Ukraine (the linguistics professor is from Ukraine). Bandwagon thinking. In fall 2020, I was forced to state my name and pronouns in 3 PhD classes (I’d already willingly used colleague pronouns at work in CA for years, but to be compelled to?). My refusal to conform earned me a poor reputation with faculty from then until I completed my PhD this June. I was expected to confess I was a CRT believer here and in my 2nd MA at cal state in 2018, for my ‘original group sin’ (as they called it) of being white and male.
Herd mentality (hide, blend in, save your job, don’t stand out, group think, etc.) are alive and well in the humanities. The fear of ostracization is real, dogma in orthodoxy is too, but I didn’t enroll in programs to become accepted but to become helpful, skilled, and to refine my knowledge, assumptions, and priors. Cannot fully say the same of my programs and professors.
I also refuse to state my pronouns. You figure out what you want to call me. The left has gotten very very militant about DEI which is why we are having a backlash right now. I'd argue the left wasn't like this until Trump's first term. The left became militant because they felt the need to not give him and his ideology a platform. And as such, there is no nuisance as MAGA don't deal with nuisance either.
The only thing I am very militant about is vaccines. They save countless lives and that shouldn't be fucked with.
The Reformation and the understanding that we are all equal before God is what finally brought freedom to Europe.
Looks like hundreds of years of Christian propaganda has done its job 👍🏻
How so, precisely?
I don't know about the others, but Jews argue about everything, including religion, and it's expected. And synagogues are not analogous to churches or mosques. Different concept, more like community centers.
That is not “a fact”. The purpose of religious community is to access the spiritual side of ourselves.
CM, you write of fundamentalist religion, a small subset the “organized religion” that he’d smeared with his broad-brush attack. So yes, he was indeed throwing stones.
Go gaslight and be self-righteous to someone else. Fundamentalists make up the majority of all religions. More people have died from religious wars than all other causes combined. I will repeat: Fundamentalist religion literally teaches you to check your brain at the church/synagogue/Mosque door and blindly believe and follow what the leaders tell you. So no - he is not throwing another stone — he is stating facts. Peace be with you.
Very early on, actually in childhood (!) I absorbed the admonition, Judge not lest ye be judged. Became a guiding precept in my life w/out me even realizing it. One of my high school seniors came to me once w/ a pretty serious confession, looking for… advice, reassurance, SOMEthing to console his regret (?) I can’t even remember what the issue was. I remember only that I asked him, WHY are you telling me this? His reply was actually abt the highest compliment I have ever received. He said, You don’t judge. I told him, Not my job, not my place. All I can do is help you find a solution. Must admit, and not bragging (!), made me proud of me 🤣
This is the other thing: Reincarnation is either not true for anyone or MUST be true for everyone. As a (universal) truth, it perforce applies equally to the unbeliever as to the believer. Mull on that. Sooo arrogant to think one life is enough to learn all we need to know! Explore beyond any box. Slap it across all writings, from the Greeks, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle to the sermon delivered by your pastor any given Sunday - or from the mullah on Friday or the rabbi on Saturday (don’t know the equivalent for Hindus, Buddhists, others - doesn’t matter). God, however we call him is the God of ALL. He meets us where we’re at, provides a path to holiness & salvation beyond just our little, tight, exclusionary beliefs. It’s not that we are “made in the image of God”, but that man (re)makes Him in ours - whatever that happens to be, any given era across history. Let God be God of the Universe (also supremely arrogant to think we are the ONLY sentient beings in the Universe = what’s going on “yonder”??) Let HIM out of your box!
Do it right or do it over! As many times as it takes. That’s the mantra of every teacher on the planet. Try again! Take another whack at it. Joyce Meyer, my favorite preacher / tele-evangelist includes it in abt every other sermon. She doesn’t even realize how accurate the admonition is. Or that one lifetime is NOT enough to learn all we need to know - in any area.
BTW, any time I can… wrestle seems like a good verb… the recommendation into the conversation, I highly commend EVERYone to read or to at least investigate Michael Newton’s books, Journey of Souls & Destiny of Souls. Hint: Never mind Hell, how do you feel abt coming back here??
Organized church, yes. The local church members and leaders, in my local area, are really forward thinking and helping the community.
That’s great to hear, but statistically speaking fundamentalists are the majority.
There are a billion Catholics worldwide. American TV evangelists and megachurches have captured the “brand” of Christian though in the U.S.A. They never wear a cross with the crucified body of Jesus, an innocent man who spoke out for the poor and vulnerable.
Indeed, Pope Leo has been a force to combat the lies and hate from those who have misappropriated “woke” and the very essence of Christianity which is love, empathy, kindness, caring for those less fortunate, etc. At least that is the Christianity I was brought up with in the Episcopal church.
And they are some of the greatest threats we face.
The tricky thing is finding that particular congregation.
Not only self righteousness but absolute obedience. To pastors, parents, anyone in authority. Religious communities brainwash their congregants. It’s no wonder so many of them think Trump is god’s chosen one.
I was once an Episcopal priest (although I have since “swum the Tiber”). I didn’t remember ever receiving absolute obedience from anyone in any congregation I served— for which I am truly grateful.
Opposites but the same ? The Church and the Academy? I'll stick w Church! Lol
Imagine the conditions of your "eye-sight", and your moral courage, if you felt like singling out one of the successful organizations in this world, out of the many of them.
Congratulations still, for choosing the safest (hence most fashionable) targets.
Huh?
Indeed. The sliver/log of the eye situation. Quick to find fault everywhere but in the mirror.
Instead of thinking critically, you castigate every Christian who belongs to a Church, accusing every one of them of being self-righteous. You might want to think before you post.
You might want to think before you believe...
I think…I reason…I believe…I have faith. Believe it or not, Stephen, many thinking people are also believers. What, exactly, do you believe in?
“Credo ut intelligam.” St. Augustine, 4th century African Bishop of Hippo would disagree.”I believe so I understand.” Note he uses Credo which is from the Latin “core do”, what I give my heart to. It is not an intellectual assent to doctrines first it would seem but helps illuminate them, open them up. He wrote s few himself! Interesting guy!
Absolutely I see these faces at the rallies I counter act and not wanting to critical think when I counter their claims
Not sure what the “organized Christian Church” is. I am associated with the United Methodist Church and the Reformed Church of America, both Protestant churches rooted in Christianity. Nowhere do Christ’s teachings condone behavior akin to what is coming from the White House today. Christianity is based on loving your neighbor as yourself, helping those in distress and not placing yourself above others. When Jesus was asked “Who is my neighbor” he preached the story of the Good Samaritan who crossed the road to help an injured man of a reviled sect- no questions asked. We are to love and help those less fortunate than ourselves without judging. We are supposed to be grateful for our blessings and willing to help and share with others. We are Not supposed to look down on those less fortunate than we are. Trump appears to know nothing about true Christianity - only the hatred the radical so-called “religious” right spews. The basis of true Christianity (the 2 greatest commandments) can be found in the New Testament Matthew 22:36-40.
QED
Yes. And an understatement.
true that
Mostly the Evangelicals
Religion is the root of all stupidity.
So-called enlightened atheism and other secular philosophies gave us the Soviet Union's gulags and other forms of collectivism which have killed over 100 million people in a single century.
How does this concept of the malice of stupidity relate to the constant flow of media that lulls us into the normalization of blatant cruelty? Aren't we at risk of passively accepting the tsunami of evil?
The media is the constant in the formation of the blank face of conformity and the normalization of hate, racism or “the other” that makes people look at each other with fear. The media is the dispenser of mis and disinformation and the most pervasive propagandist of all.
Sadly, this will remain the case as long as there is a profit to be made from the normalization of hate (as you so aptly put it). And so we have devolved into two tribes of monkeys gleefully flinging their poo at each other.
It's all advertising one way or another. l remember watching TV with my children, & then grandchildren' and pointing out that those very happy children playing some game or eating some food actually had a real job, to look happy, and that maybe whatever it was was not necessarily so very wonderful, and basically don't believe everything you see. Goes back to realizing, as a young housewife, that we were being advertised to constantly. It goes on and on; the ads on Youtube these days are particularly appalling.
Yes. Good question. There's certainly a tsunami of news.
If you want to destroy the ability to think for yourself you dumb down the education system and cut funding for universities. You fund in such a way that a cash-strapped university has to put more resources into business studies and economics and less into humanities and those encouraging critical thinking.
You make high school education largely vocational except for the elite.
You defund early childhood education. These are the ways to create sheep and unquestioning followers.
That doesn't answer normalisation of cruelty though. Is it ever normalised? If depends on what you know about the world (see above) and your morality.
I hadn’t come across Bonhoeffer’s “theory of stupidity” before, so thank you for introducing it here. What really landed for me is his point that it isn’t about intellect but about surrender — giving up one’s inner independence to group pressure.
It made me think about how easily that can happen when our mental bandwidth is low. Stress, fear, and exhaustion narrow the space we have for reflection, which makes conformity and “cheap certainty” feel easier.
One thing I’ve found helpful is using little forms of scaffolding to keep bandwidth open:
Pausing long enough to ask a question instead of reacting.
Writing down what I believe before I hear what “the group” believes.
Seeking out one unfamiliar source, even briefly, before settling on a view.
Checking in on bandwidth — both my own and the other person’s — before deciding how to respond.
None of these fix the deeper social forces Bonhoeffer warned about, but they do create a bit of extra breathing room. And sometimes that’s enough to resist the pull of conformity.
Really appreciate you opening this door — I’ll be sitting with his words for a while.
My reading and studying of Bonhoeffer’s life and works has set me on a path, not only enlightenment, but the double edge sword of faith. How it can be used for good and how it can be used for evil. When things are inverted, so also is the way one fights evil. Lies become necessary, betrayal becomes relevant. It takes a person with deep and strong moral character to understand which is which and when an inversion of moral decency becomes a spiritual weapon for good.
Been quoting him for years. He was right. It cost him his life.
Like flying planes into buildings? He didn’t “pay with his life”, his life was taken from him by stupid people who could not accept being challenged, who stood firm in their faith that fascism should not be questioned.
Pay with his life meaning paying the cost of holding tight to his convictions to the point of being killed for them. Sure, stupid people did take his life and he could have played it safe and would have lived if he had, but he like most decent people tried to put a stop to it and didn’t succeed in saving himself. It’s a tragedy really.
An absolute tragedy. And yes, he could have kept his mouth shut, but IMHO that’s different than “faith” or holding to convictions. He was trying to save ppl from being killed, not killed bc he was challenged about his beliefs. To me these are different issues.
Self-belief as well as "faith", perhaps?
I was going to comment but I just read a number of comments that are so arrogant that I’ll pass. When you are so sure you see more clearly, it is time to step back and see where you are being blindsided.
It would be amazing to hear you speak as to what you thought was arrogance and believe is blindsiding rather than quickly passing judgement without putting your own thoughts on the line. It could be interpreted as arrogance not to bother speaking outside of offering a critique and we could all benefit from being shown a different if not better thought process… so please take time to share your own ideas as people are more than interested in hearing them, but without preventing what is precisely meant by using your own words rather than quotes.
I am not loquacious but found the whole discussion of IQ and college degrees without merit. College degrees have long been available to the wealthy but not always to those without wealth. Historical fact. That does not equate intelligence for the wealthy and stupidity for the poor. I bow out.
Agreed! I’m wary of defining people by IQ or education. Several brilliant minds didn’t have money or access to education. In turn, nobody offered me a scholarship or saved for my college education probably because they thought I was stupid when it was actually undiagnosed ASD making thought difficult. I had to work part time to earn an education, but this made me appreciate it all the more and become more inclined to put it to use. My experience has been with people who were handed college educations who in turn did nothing with them. One might argue that they were stupid, but then again it could be simply lazy. It seems that the harder we try or work for anything makes us productive, but I never discount anyone’s ability. If I could, so can they is my premise, IQ not being a deciding factor. I won’t even get into the contrived nature of it.
I was as well. You beat me to it.
I personally witnessed an overabundance of stupidity during the pandemic. People just blindly swallowed the narrative they were given, without questioning it's relevance. Fear and panic are powerful weapons, that's when reason should prevail.
See also: Hannah Arendt and the Banality of Evil.
Luckily, the Nazis didn't kill her. And she continued to workon great questions her entire life.
I came here to say exactly this!
Well, I have no faith to speak of. And I admire those whose faith compels them to great sacrifice - Bonhoeffer, the Black Baptist church, the Dalai Lama - all help me see that there is some worth in being a "person of god".
I’d be a lot more impressed with the Dalai Lama if he’d do something more than spout meaningless platitudes and offer a single useful statement condemning the greatest criminals since Hitler.
“We are all one” just isn’t really cutting it as a countervailing philosophy when Nazis are making the rules.
The other thing I will add is that in my experience, for example at a Trump rally, you see very few people who would be considered intelligent. These are mostly lesser-educated and ignorant people. These are the stupid people mentioned. There are a few highly educated people who are Trump supporters, and they are smart because they know the advantages that Trump will give them over lesser moneyed people. Both groups would support an American Hitler.
God if I read one more quote about Hitler in the Nazis. It's not as if there's no record and documentaries or books of what happened in that period, it was pure devastation, millions died. It's a joke people like you run around on your keyboards living in the 1% land of the world and whining about the end of the world.
He said explicitly that he "loves the poorly educated," and apparently that works for them.
I wondered how long it would take for this to devolve into a political rant and here we are like all the other anger posting about the last election. It makes me embarrassed for us as a nation that people want to insult or hate their own countrymen over a single election. I’ve voted and my chosen candidates lost many times but I didn’t go around trash talking people who did their civic duty just because my own vote was different or that I felt mine was more right than theirs. Then again I was raised during a more polite era where it was considered impolite but today the gloves are off and everyone has become a target of mean spirited opinions. If any one behavior made our lives less enjoyable, this is for me among the worst.
If you cannot see that this was about an entirely different topic then you are the near sighted one and your insults are not welcome. I don’t have to tolerate verbal abuse from you or anybody Bill the retired IT Geek, but that is expected from IT people as far as I’m concerned, a topic I know all too well. Goodbye.
Sharing, following, thank you.
Thank you for this piece, translated in French here : https://zanzibar.substack.com/p/la-theorie-terrifiante-de-dietrich
This is 100% spot on. The only thing I take issue with is calling it “stupidity,” which is a value judgment. Judgments create defensiveness, which inspires people to cling tighter rather than encouraging them to let go a little and actually think critically.
If we want people to engage in dialogue and consider other perspectives, it would be wise to refrain from using critical value judgments.
Your point is exactly what I thought when reading this. "Stupidity" carries a lot of baggage that doesn't help here. It may make us feel better to call the other "stupid," but it sure is a bad way to start a dialogue.
That’s real wisdom, Chris, I appreciate your sharing your perspective.
People have told me they voted for for trump because they have always voted republican. Well that's one less thing to have to worry about right whom to vote for? Oh dont get me started. People when you vote do your homework first.
The fear of not belonging because you asked too many questions is the root of fundy evangelical churches. Too many questions =too little faith, in their view, and too little faith makes you suspect in their eyes. If you want to belong, you go along. Explains why so many of them are MAGA.
YES. THANK YOU. FINALLY. THE INSIGHT WE NEEDED ALL ALONG.