Reasons fall on deaf ears.

From Bonhoeffer’s Theory of Stupidity by Jonas Koblin.  I came across this argument probably thirty or forty years ago but have not engaged with it in decades.  But in a world of fanatics of many stripes, AGW, Woke, Social Justice, Critical Race Theory, Inequality, etc. His argument makes a lot of sense.

There is little traction in presenting information, argument, or data.  The fanatic has chosen to believe and will not abandon that belief when challenged by empiricism.  It is a faith and therefore must be addressed via faith and morality.  Or by the deconstruction of the conditions which fostered the fanaticism in the first place.  

In the darkest chapter of German history, during a time when incited mobs threw stones into the windows of innocent shop owners and women and children were cruelly humiliated in the open; Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a young pastor, began to speak publicly against the atrocities.

After years of trying to change people’s minds, Bonhoeffer came home one evening and his own father had to tell him that two men were waiting in his room to take him away. 

In prison, Bonhoeffer began to reflect on how his country of poets and thinkers had turned into a collective of cowards, crooks and criminals. Eventually he concluded that the root of the problem was not malice, but stupidity. 

In his famous letters from prison, Bonhoeffer argued that stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice, because while “one may protest against evil; it can be exposed and prevented by the use of force, against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here. Reasons fall on deaf ears.”

Facts that contradict a stupid person’s prejudgment simply need not be believed and when they are irrefutable, they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this, the stupid person is self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack.

There is a decent video on the argument.

Double click to enlarge.