Video of the day -- Bonhoeffer on "stupidity"
What he's talking about here is not so much stupidity in the literal sense of low intelligence, as a certain form of closed-mindedness -- the refusal to consider information that conflicts with whatever world-view one has adopted. In its practical effects, this might as well be literal stupidity. Certainly such mental rigidity is dangerously abundant in our own society today. We see it in hard-line right-wingers' truculent dismissal of any challenge to their increasingly baroque alternate reality of conspiratardia and paranoia, and in hard-line left-wingers' strident and bullying denial of the harmfulness and unpopularity of woke-ism -- and, most recently, in their refusal to face its role in this month's election defeat. Bonhoeffer is right that this is more of a moral failing than an intellectual one. Some people can and do overcome it in themselves (here's one example), but freeing someone else who is truly committed to it seems nearly impossible.
posted by Infidel753 at 6:25 AM
4 Comments:
Indeed, closed-mindedness is very hard to deal with. Once someone has an entrenched opinion they're unlikely to change it however rational and sensible the opposing view. The continuing widespread support for gender ideology despite the constant challenges is a case in point.
Fantastic! Thank you for posting this.
This is how I see it
We all respect anyone who makes the best out of the natural gifts they were provided. We’re not talking IQ test here, more like common sense, & human decency
But willfull ignorance and anti-intellectualism has always been a problem in the USA. Now it’s really come back to bite us in the ass, as Trump has glorified & weaponized it- The death of expertise, indeed
He has made “I’ll believe whatever I want. “a badge of strength & a way of giving The Finger to intellectually-honest people who MAGA felt look down upon them. It’s all about their insecurities, from economic to psychological. ‘ You can’t control me’ - for them, their positions don’t need to make sense
Of course he’s not helping, only exploiting them
But somebody explain to me why I shouldn’t look down upon people who purport to believe fairytales that somehow make them feel better about themselves for five minutes
That’s all QAnon is, along with most conspiracy theory. It’s a childlike game to pretend they ‘know something’ you don’t.
Nick: It's a problem. Hard-hitting personal experience can sometimes shift a fixed idea, but argument and logic rarely do, especially when people have been trained to dismiss uncomfortable facts as "fake news" and to treat opposing opinions as evidence of moral depravity (as if that had any relevance to whether they're correct or not).
Rad: Thanks! Glad you found it worthwhile.
Reaganite: I continue to believe that the unusually strong religiosity in the US makes us especially susceptible to this problem. Religion has long made a virtue of belief without evidence or even contrary to evidence, calling it "faith" and treating it as something to be proud of. When people think that way in the religious sphere, they're that much more likely to extend the same mentality to other areas as well.
You or I can look down on people for being stupid, but a political party and those who speak for it are in a different situation. "You're stupid and ridiculous, now please vote for us" isn't a winning tactic.
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