Here is an excerpt "On Stupidity" from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's paper called "Letter and Paper from Prison". Click here for the full papers.
Context is important:
First, Mr. Bonhoeffer was a highly intelligent German, a pastor, during World War 2. He had high morals, believed in God, and was very analytical. During World War 2, a persecutory system was present. He tried to resist but also to understand it. Eventually, he was shot dead. Yet he was able to produce some profound writing of his assessment of the evil-doing.
Second, he identified two types of malevolent people. First type are those who 'know what they are doing', they are strategic, cannot feel empathy, and exploiting people (or even killing) is merely a strategy to get what they want. You can reason with these people and you would find that there is actually a logic (though evil) and awareness of it This theory is well aligned with hosts of Narcissistic Paradigm. Second type, he calls Stupid people. We disagree with the label but the concept holds true. Our label would be 'deluded' or 'under massive societal psychosis', or "Flying Monkeys - Psychosis". These people, he claims, are those who will parrot an ideological narrative. These people WILL, in the name of the ideology, do immense evil and justify it as good. There is no discussion with these people. If you oppose them, you will be attacked for being stupid or something else. They are the blind warriors of the first type. This also aligns with hosts operating from within Paradigm Blindness.
What follows here, is Bonhoeffer's paper "On Stupidity". Our comments are in [square brackets and in green color] and highlights and emphasis are ours as well.
In order to understand the paradigm context, we strongly recommend reading the following articles prior to this article:
On Stupidity [On Mass Psychosis]
Stupidity [Warrior of the Paradigm Blindness] is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice [Narcissistic Paradigm]. 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 [All symptoms of Level 1 of the Paradigm Blindness]. 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. [The Stupid person is a Flying Monkey and under Psychosis of the Narcissistic Paradigm]
If we want to know how to get the better of stupidity, we must seek to understand its nature. This much is certain, that it is in essence not an intellectual defect but a human one. There are human beings who are of remarkably agile intellect yet stupid, and others who are intellectually quite dull yet anything but stupid. [We are all under a spell of a Paradigm. Intellect has no defense against it, it is actually under control of the Paradigm to support it and keep the Paradigm hidden from its host.] We discover this to our surprise in particular situations. The impression one gains is not so much that stupidity is a congenital defect but that, under certain circumstances, people are made stupid or that they allow this to happen to them. We note further that people who have isolated themselves from others or who live in solitude manifest this defect less frequently than individuals or groups of people inclined or condemned to sociability. And so it would seem that stupidity is perhaps less a psychological than a sociological problem. It is a particular form of the impact of historical circumstances on human beings, a psychological concomitant of certain external conditions. Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. [Narcissistic Pyramid] It would even seem that this is virtually a sociological-psychological law. The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other. [Why are narcissists so effective at exploitation?] The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence and, more or less consciously [we disagree], give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances. The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him. [One is dealing with a Paradigm that the person embodied and became a warrior of within Paradigm Blindness] He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. [Yes, the paradigm abuses its host] Having thus become a mindless tool [Tool of what? Paradigm], the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.
Yet at this very point it becomes quite clear that only an act of liberation, not instruction, can overcome stupidity. Here we must come to terms with the fact that in most cases a genuine internal liberation becomes possible only when external liberation has preceded it. Until then we must abandon all attempts to convince the stupid person. This state of affairs explains why in such circumstances our attempts to know what “the people” really think are in vain and why, under these circumstances, this question is so irrelevant for the person who is thinking and acting responsibly. 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. [Bible is correct. Paradigm IS the evil: Ephesians 6:12 "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."]
But these thoughts about stupidity also offer consolation in that they utterly forbid us to consider the majority of people to be stupid in every circumstance. It really will depend on whether those in power expect more from peoples’ stupidity than from their inner independence and wisdom.