Dietrich Bonhoeffer - on Stupidity

“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 when dealing with a stupid person than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.”

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

VE Day Plus Eighty Years

As the world today celebrates the eightieth anniversary of VE (Victory in Europe) Day--the end of the Second World War in Europe--it is good to pause and reflect on what that means.  

For nearly six years Europe had been at war, a war that claimed an estimated 20 million European lives, nearly one third of whom were civilians, murdered in industrial-scale concentration camps, for no reason other than their ethnicity, nationality, disability, or sexual orientation.  

There was still a great deal of fighting ahead in the Pacific war against Imperial Japan (the invasion of Okinawa had only just begun), but the war in Europe was over.  

The surrender of Nazi Germany ended that fascist regime's continent-wide terror campaign.  But the defeat of a nation is not the defeat of an idea.  The danger of fascism, and the hatred and prejudice on which it feeds, has never been defeated.  The dictatorship of Franco, which Hitler and Mussolini made possible, remained in power for another thirty years.  Fascist cliques in Greece, Chile, Argentina, and many other places around the world have sprung up over time, with the resultant ruin.  Greed knows no nationality, nor ethnicity.  There is no place that is immune.  Vigilance, and the willingness to resist dictatorship wherever it appears is the only defense - the only way to honor those who have suffered in the past, and who sacrificed so much to end that horror eighty years ago.