Now that I’m retired, I’ve been catching up on my reading as a history enthusiast and documenting a dictionary of my favorite quotes. This one falls under the definition of ignorance. It is based on the letters and papers from prison : “On stupidity” by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), a German Lutheran theologian hanged by the Nazis for his involvement in a plot against Hitler.
“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 pre-judgment simply need not to 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.”
bob-gardner says
Good example: How stupid are the Senate Democrats for confirming 15 right wing judges on a voice vote last week?
fredrichlariccia says
“When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.” anon
SomervilleTom says
It is certainly an example of how broken our political system is.
You do understand the rationale, right?
We are a minority party in the Senate. It will already be hard to change that reality on November 6. If senate Democrats had not been so “stupid”, they would have lost the ability to campaign between now and then, while being unable to stop the nominations anyway if they stayed in Washington. The senate Democrats chose to campaign instead.
What would you have had them do differently?
bob-gardner says
Fight each judge, of course. Both sides would be equally affected if they had to stay in DC.
In fact, a grassroots campaign, the kind Democrats supposedly specialize in, would have an advantage.
Instead, they caved. Watch what some of these incumbents do when they get home. Parties with donors, I’ll bet .
This is close to a year’s worth of judges. The damage will last 50 years.
Stupid party. And we’re just as stupid if we put up with it.
SomervilleTom says
Of course?
The Democrats lack the votes in the current Senate to do anything but delay the confirmations. If the GOP retains control of the Senate, the same 15 judges will be seated anyway, sometime after the mid-terms. If the GOP retains control of the senate, dozens more appointments as bad or worse than these are waiting in the queue.
The only way to block these appointments (never mind additional Supreme Court nominees and cabinet officials) is to take control of the senate. That can’t possibly be done without campaigning.
The decision doesn’t sound stupid to me at all.
I don’t know about a stupid or stupidity, but I do know a content-free flame when I see it.
bob-gardner says
Ah Fred,you go from boycotting Maine over one judge to shrugging your shoulders over 15.
This post is well named.
SomervilleTom says
Fred?
What you call “shrugging your shoulders” I call facing reality. You would no doubt call a decision to withdraw firefighters from a six-story inferno whose floors are collapsing “stupid” — with you in command, the entire fire brigade would be killed in the ensuing catastrophe.
Your “smart” tactic would guarantee scores of Trumpist judges likely to be far worse than these 15.
bob-gardner says
As long as there is a Republican in the White House, there will be right wingers appointed as judges. They are being installed at a record pace.
The idea is to slow this process down to a normal level. So,don’t approve
15 judges at a time by voice vote.
Your burning building metaphor makes no sense at all.
The marginal advantage of getting out of Washington this month helps incumbents. At best, it helps marginally more Democratic incumbents than Republicans like Ted Cruz.
For this margin of a margin, the Democrats are accelerating the Republican court packing.
This is stupidity at a dangerous level.
SomervilleTom says
I guess we just disagree.
It’s your characterization of this as “stupidity at a dangerous level” that bridles me. The fact that your opinion is different from some other opinion doesn’t make the other opinion “stupid”.
A few cranks show up at every town meeting who haven’t read the budget, don’t know the players, don’t know the constraints, and don’t know the relevant laws. They stand up and say “This budget is stupid because it allocates way too much for streetlights” (or “snow removal” or whatever else their pet peeve is). Attempts to explain why the number is what it is are met with a combination of hostility and plain old stubbornness.
Your characterization of this as “stupid” remind me of those cranks. Have you ever been part of a campaign? Have you ever served in elected office yourself? I ask because this commentary from you sounds like armchair quarterbacking to me.
I disagree with the Democratic senate leadership from time to time. I don’t find any of them “stupid.”
bob-gardner says
I once had a crank declare that rent control could never work because he had seen the arson fires from his seventh floor balcony.
SomervilleTom says
Have you ever lived in Boston?
It was a ninth-floor balcony. I did see the fires. The city did have rent control at the time. The fires were the work of arsonists. The media coverage at the time characterized these fires as a consequence of rent control. The fires stopped when rent control stopped.
Those were the facts. You apparently didn’t like those facts either.
Your difficulty in accepting reality doesn’t change that reality.
Christopher says
OK, I must be missing a connection. What do rent control and arson have to do with one another?
SomervilleTom says
Bob is referring to an exchange that happened here years ago.
In Boston in the mid-1970s, there were many neighborhoods that were under rent control. Landlords were unable to raise rents and it was very difficult for property owners to recover even maintenance costs, never mind improvements.
One of the alternatives that emerged was something called variations of a “hot renovation” — one of the exceptions to rent control was when a building burned and had to be replaced.
Resources like this 1983 paper and this 2010 paper (about New York, but the phenomenon is the same) describe the connection between rent control and arson in more detail. From the first (emphasis mine):
I lived in a 9th floor apartment in Boston in the mid 1970s. I saw frequent fires all over the city from my balcony — it was the frequency of those fires that led me to explore why so many buildings were burning.
A few here at BMG, for whatever reason, ridiculed my commentary on this issue — specifically my reference to my living situation.
I stand by my commentary.
bob-gardner says
This is just idiotic. You obviously have never met Michael Moore, who worked closely with tenant unions. His point was that the decisions of landlords, banks, insurance companies and in some cases organized crime rings were responsible for arson. I haven’t been in touch with Michael Moore for a while, but he would be appalled at how you misread his arguments.
I appreciate the irony of your accusing me of being a crank and an armchair quarterback, and then citing someone that I worked with personally (at street level, while you were up on your balcony.)
SomervilleTom says
I posted a 1983 paper by James Brady and a 2010 piece by Greg David. If the quote I cited distorts the views of Michael Moore, I encourage you to take it up with Mr. Brady.
I notice that now, as when we first had this exchange, you attack the messenger rather than addressing the message.
In the meantime, it is clear that whatever “trenches” you were in had nothing to do with actual campaigning by actual candidates. Your “analysis” of the judicial confirmation decision made by Senate Democrats, concluding with your characterization of them as “dangerously stupid”, speaks compellingly to your competence as a political strategist.
Christopher says
So presumably otherwise law-abiding landlords were deliberately setting their own buildings on fire? That sounds awfully desperate and I hope the proverbial book was thrown at them.
SomervilleTom says
Who said anything about “otherwise law-abiding”?
Landlords in general, and urban landlords in particular, have a long history of committing all sorts of illegal acts in pursuit of profit.
We see BU students die in fires in grossly overcrowded student housing in areas like Gardner Street (near the BU west campus) relatively frequently. Boston has never been particularly rigorous about enforcing laws about rental property then or now.
Christopher says
I guess I meant not prone to violence or destruction in any other context rather than ignoring code violations.
SomervilleTom says
The point is that some (not all) property owners DO arrange for buildings to be burned. Sometimes it is for insurance coverage. Sometimes it is to escape zoning restrictions. Sometimes it is to escape a problem mortgage. During the period when rent control was in effect, it was to escape constraints on rent.
Some landlords arrange for third parties to perform the act. Some banks look the other way regarding the starkly higher frequency of fires in neighborhoods that they are illegally red-lining.
It does happen.
Christopher says
It defies logic that there is not more enforcement against this. Fires are unsafe and possibly deadly. They are not just a tool to get out of an obligation.
SomervilleTom says
@ defies logic: Indeed. Sadly, it is neither the first nor last act by government that defies logic.
Hopefully enforcement is more rigorous today than it was in the late seventies.
fredrichlariccia says
I don’t waste my time responding to stupidity.
bob-gardner says
Do you think this deal is good or bad for Ted Cruz?
centralmassdad says
I think that one could make the argument that Sen. Schumer did not have to appear, as always, to simply acquiesce. Make them have their vote. Since you’re going to lose, let the vulnerable incumbents head home to campiagn. McConnell needs all but 3 of his caucus, and the extra Dems could have headed home. This would have had the notable effect of making it seem like the Senate Dems have a backbone.
terrymcginty says
I cannot imagine a more apt quote for our times. It seems to me that when Bonhoeffer uses the word “stupid”, he appears to be using it not with regard to ‘intelligence’, per se, but instead with regard to a kind of temporary – or ad hoc – mass stupidity.
In other words, it is not so much that individual Germans of lesser intelligence were prone to support the Nazis, but rather that a large segment of Germans had become ‘stupefied’ under the spell of the demagogue.
I would like to know whether I am correct in this instinctual surmise. Does anybody know? Any experts on Bonhoeffer out there?
petr says
I daresay that you are correct in thinking that native intelligence or cognitive ability has little to do with it. In the limit of Nazi aggression and will to power the cognate to what is here listed as ‘stupid’ is a spectrum that runs from inability to think through unwillingness to think to those not allowed to think… ‘Stupefied’ is a good term, if only to get at the idea of having done to, rather than doing… or not doing.
terrymcginty says
I would tend to agree with Bob Gardner on this one, except for one thing: is there any doubt at all that McConnell would gavel them all through in the lame duck period, long-term consequences and precedent-setting be damned?
And if that is the case, do we really think that this one act would have a major political consequence for the Republicans considering the far more outrageous things they have already done in this area, e.g., Merrick Garland? I think not.. So for that reason I think Fred and Somerville Tom are on the money.
bob-gardner says
As a general rule the more the Dem’s resist the fewer the judges who will be confirmed. And the more the Dem’s cave in , the more right wing judges there will be..
SomervilleTom says
As a general rule, the fewer Democrats there are in the Senate the less effective the Democratic Party will be in resisting the Trumpist onslaught.
fredrichlariccia says
More con puke evil : “Let’s not risk $100 Billion worth of arms sales.” Pat Robertson. CA Democratic Congressman Ted Lieu : “Remember when Jesus said its OK to deal with murderers as long as you can make a profit? Me neither.”