Compromise and Stupidity
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about the interesting link between power, compromise and stupidity. Interesting because we see something similar in modern times.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer – After Ten Years (2017)
Bonhoeffer explained this source of stupidity as a common human tendency to compromise both ethically and intellectually when faced with the demands of an upsurge in power. He was of course looking at the issue from the perspective of the rise of Hitler and the National Socialists in Germany, but the tendency may be wider than the brute power he knew.
For example, we in the West are living through an upsurge in a powerfully demanding political culture. Although not at all comparable to the rise of German National Socialists, modern Western political culture does demand ethical and intellectual comprise, a level of compromise strongly associated with stupidity. We know this because we observe it.
In this sense, sceptics are those who in their various ways resist compromise. It isn’t a matter of intelligence or the ability to understand complex reasoning, but a refusal or merely a sufficiently strong reluctance to compromise reason, experience and what is already known.
Source: https://akhaart.blogspot.com/2025/03/compromise-and-stupidity.html
