Posted on 05/28/2025 4:34:35 AM PDT by ShadowAce
What if stupidity isn’t about intelligence at all, but about surrendering the will to think? In this chilling and timely video essay, we explore Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theory of stupidity — a terrifying insight into how smart, well-meaning people can become blind instruments of destruction. Drawing on Bonhoeffer’s life, the psychology of conformity, Milgram’s obedience experiments, social media echo chambers, and the rise of AI-driven misinformation, we reveal why stupidity isn't a lack of intellect — it's a surrender of critical thought.
👉 Why do intelligent people support dangerous ideas? 👉 How does groupthink override personal judgment? 👉 What does it take to remain intellectually independent in a world that rewards conformity?
From Past Germany to modern-day misinformation, this deep psychological breakdown blends philosophy, history, neuroscience, and media theory, with urgent insights for today.
🔍 Learn why Bonhoeffer warned that "Against stupidity, we are defenseless" — and what you can do to resist it
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
What did Forrest have to say about that?.
Homosexuality/sodomy is an abomination. The very terms are indicative of that fact. So, they got around the stigma by redefining it as "gay."
Adultery is an abomination. So, they got around it by renaming it "an affair."
See how they are? Insanity. Not necessarily stupidity.
Agreed.
Most people have perfectly functional brains—they just refuse to use them. That’s what makes them stupid, sometimes to the point of madness.
The internet only makes it worse, drowning them in untested nonsense that props up their half-baked beliefs. They’d rather cling to bad answers than admit they don’t know.
Certainty, even when false, feels safer than doubt.
Ltr
There were threats and coercion, many subjects knew it was a setup (there was a direct correlation between "voltage" given and whether or not the subject was aware), most did not comply, and Milgram hid the data relating to tests where if just one other person alongside the subject said they disagreed, the subject almost all the time stopped.
In a nutshell.
It is a very timely concept to address. Problem is you are about to get a whole lot of replies from those who do not own a mirror... And even if they own a mirror they will refuse to honestly admit what they see.
“I heard Johnny said...”
Ultimate cop out.
“...Most people have perfectly functional brains—they just refuse to use them...”
Someone said: ‘People insist on their ‘freedom of speech’. But it only matters if they have freedom of thought...(which they never use)’
Once it becomes a habit, it is exciting.
...and very quickly one realizes that ‘the true pandemic’ has merit.
It is not a ‘complex’ to walk around believing that most everyone is stupid:
It’s reality.
In my professional sphere, we are minus one this week; it was like someone promptly sealed a massive vacuum leak. That he was not a lib confounds me...but validates said reality.
Essentially, stupidity requires one to be capable of willfully and unconsciously misinterpreting what one experiences in terms of pre-existing belief systems having no need for logical consistency with facts, physics, etc.
Truth telling is an acquired trait too, also requiring many years of careful practice. Knowing pursuit of truth in acknowledgement of fact and ignorance is essential to the scientific method.
While watching this, I was constantly reminded of how otherwise intelligent, well-meaning people were taken in by the myriad fictions — lies, actually — promoted by "medical experts" during the Fauci Flu debacle; specifically, the outright lies that masks, "social distancing" and dangerous RNA vaccines were effective in controlling the spread of a respiratory virus. I have no doubt that when the pseudo "medical experts" at the CDC, WHO, et al. who practice political science in contrast to medical science dream up Fauci Flu II, that millions upon hundreds of millions of these intelligent, well-meaning people will go right back to believing, living and spreading the lies promoted by oh-so-many "experts".
Many overlook the high probability of demon possession. It is good to know there are others who consider this possibility.
Interesting...
I teach music and it is amazing, the ends students will go to, rather than do the correct things. Rather than diligently study music, practice their lessons and do scales, time-tested tools for advancement, they spend time on the internet WATCHING other people play, joining discussion groups arguing about musicians, and yearning for expensive instruments. Jamming! I know of no successful musicians that ever made it without jamming, but no one wants to jam, anymore.
Then, they come to class and ask incredibly stupid questions on topics way above their abilities to eat up class time.
Recipes for failure... If I were rich instead of famous, I would tell these losers to take a hike! :/
I had the great fortune of hearing a testimony by two returned hostages last night, Sapir Cohen and Sasha Troufanov. It was stunning that the brutality and horror they faced were not very different from the Holocaust. I have had friends who were Holocaust survivors, and the story was so evidently similar from the standpoint of how ‘intelligent’ people can perpetrate such evil. The Nazis felt extremely justified in their treatment of Jews because of their religious belief that they were the ‘Master’ Race, given to them by God, and mandated to destroy the ‘evil’ they deemed Jews to be. The Arabs have no less fervor and justification for their barbarity against Jews, but have replaced the Christian concept of God with their own concept (Allah), and are justified in their minds. Both Hostages said that their captors constantly told them that Allah had told them to do these things and that they would be rewarded in the Muslim world to come by 72 virgins, rivers of alcohol, great mansions and fields, etc. In other words, they justified their arguments with arguments that were not arguable in normal discussions. Bonhoeffer’s revelations are truly scary, but a good analysis.
In my state (CT) 97% of folks over age 65 took the jab.
I was one of the 3%.
Fighting state propaganda is a tough battle.
Haha but the whole purpose of the article is the students would rather be beaten than conform.
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