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Bonhoeffer on Stupidity vs Conspiracy Theorists

Members of any military are encouraged to unthinkingly hate the enemy, especially in war times.

It makes them more likely to kill any enemy possible and further the cause of thier commander.
The upper ranks not only feed them bad information about the evil baby eaters and inhuman monsters they must stop but take away any penalty in killing.

The trump movement wasn't far off this model as if fearless leader could spout racist garbage it must now be ok to act on deep rooted racism.
Throw in a heap of fear mongering that a certain skin tone may lose dominance in numbers and now one MUST act.

Except the trumpist has no immunity to his illegal acts and can be called on to answer for them. This is where stupidity stepped in and burned so many.

Fearless Leader failed to give his dullard army any such protection a soldier gets and probably doesn't care as long as enough donation money rolls in to maintain his lifestyle.

The price of not thinking can be big.
 
Oystein said:
I was just musing about what the difference is between today's Republican and Democratic parties. Specifically, whether there is an emerging power in the GOP with an overwhelming impact that makes too many voter, members, office holders even, stupid and irresponsible - something with no apparent equivalent in the Democratic party.
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I don't want to derail this thread, but I disagree. Just one of many examples is the recent defunding of the police movement supported by the Democratic party.

My experiences in conversations, with people of declared liberal ideologies and people of declared conservative ideologies, is the overwhelming majority are more centrist than extreme, but it is the more extreme stances that get the publicity and party support. I firmly believe that a trusted person, regardless of party (may need to be 3rd party to get nominated), with an even-handed agenda, could win the next presidential election in a landslide. Anyway, rant over. Carry on.
 
defunding the police is not an extreme stance - not doing so is.
With many cities using up half their budget on the PD, with crime rates lower than ever before, it makes no sense to spend so much resources on something with so little ROI.
 
MBDK said:
... I firmly believe that a trusted person, regardless of party (may need to be 3rd party to get nominated), with an even-handed agenda, could win the next presidential election in a landslide. ...
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Didn't happen last November - the respected, moderately-right candidate won, but hardly by a landslide.
 
Vixen said:
For myself, John Lennon sums it up with brevity and percision:

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still ******* peasants as far as I can see
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

So you have people expressing their opinion about everything and nobody cares, to be frank, so they gain traction by refusing to have the vaccination or wear a mask, etc. For me, the mind of an anarchist epitomises stupidity, it is their way of feeling 'individual' in a world of seeming conformity. They rationalise their total selfishness by coming up with theories that lays blame on others. For example, we supposed to 'rage against the machine'....that there something out there that makes us dull conformists. We can laugh when we see teenagers 'rebelling' - "That is SO unfair!" - but in anyone over the age of 20, it is sad. At sixteen, spitting on the products of record artists who've 'sold out' is kind of cute but in a 30-something, just stop it.

Bonhoeffer, and I have read his book, is about making choices and having values and principles. So instead of handing over your life choices to 'group think' - them versus us - you need to take responsibility over your own life choices.

IMV the biggest conspiracy theorists today are the mass media press: you only have to read the comic, the DAILY EXPRESS and chuckle over their daily battle to 'humiliate' Sturgeon or the EU or show the French who is boss. It is pathetic but people really do swallow this dreadful rubbish.
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Absolutely true, (with one important exception, see below).




I can personally validate the OP, with this Real Life Example:

My crew and I will not be swallowing recent fake testimonies and bogus rulings (cover up), allegedly crushing the so called Russia Hoax.

We have the truth. It was not a hoax. Trump was and still is working for Putin!

Rachel Maddow proved it again just the other day, debunking the cover up.

Our faith in in Rachel is unshakeable.
 
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Oystein said:
I was just musing about what the difference is between today's Republican and Democratic parties. Specifically, whether there is an emerging power in the GOP with an overwhelming impact that makes too many voter, members, office holders even, stupid and irresponsible - something with no apparent equivalent in the Democratic party.

And this popped up in my mind:

Movements.

Starting with Gingrich's "Contract with America" and the general conservative movement (or perhaps going back to Reagan), we have seen increasingly bizarre conservative movements, that more and more challenged the traditional Republican constituency, from the rise of the neocons to various "Truth" Movements to the Tea Party to the Trump take-over of the party to Qanon.

Populist movements used to be a lefty thing while conservatism was still the rule. The past 30, 40 years: Clinton and Obama became lonesome presidents on their own accord, Biden merely represents an old, lowest-common-denominator establishment. We had the Occupy movement, okay... and perhaps the Bernie-crowd. But those failed to challenge the party.
With a proper Movement come slogans, memes and unlikely but inspiring leaders, and togetherness, shared emotions - and the temptation to stop thinking.
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Bernie absolutely challenged the Dem party. He had the votes. Thats why they pulled every possible dirty trick to defeat him.

Occupy was also a threat to the establishment. Hence it of course was stealthily undermined with COINTELPRO* type tactics.


* Do you happen to know whether COINTELPRO was discontinued, or merely re-named ?
 
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1) It is striking how materialistic the thinking of this pastor:
[Stupidity] 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 of a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity.
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In fact, this idea is almost Marxist:
Es ist nicht das Bewußtsein der Menschen, das ihr Sein, sondern umgekehrt ihr gesellschaftliches Sein, das ihr Bewußtsein bestimmt.
Aphorismen.de
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2) It is also remarkable that he thinks that "external liberation" is a prerequisite for overcoming stupidity:
...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.
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Again, it sounds almost iike when Marx describes what needs to be done to overcome religion:
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
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3) However, Bonhoeffer is an idealist when he implies some kind of pre-existing "inner independence" that people give up on:
it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power[1], humans are deprived of their inner independence, and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances.
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I think that this is his way of idealizing democracy during the Weimar Republic. He seems to forget (and to want to forget) that the German masses helped Hitler become a rising power, just as much as the QAnon cult helped Trump gain power - and would like to do so again. He also forgets that people in Germany weren't exactly free before Hitler came into power. They just had other masters, democratic ones, the rulers of the Weimar Republic, to whom they were subservient much the same way they were to Hitler later on. And he forgets that the masses who helped Hitler gain power desired to be subservient to him much the same way that QAnon believers and other Republicans nowadays desire to be subservient to Donald Trump (again).

The German masses were disgruntled nationalists, who believed in Hitler's ideas of a magnificent nation ruling a magnificent race, and like their warlords who had lost WW1, they were disappointed with the outcome of that war: Revanchism

The American masses who go for Donald Trump are disgruntled, too, but their kind of revanchism is slightly different. Their ideal is the American Dream. They think that the USA is all about using the opportunity to get rich, get the girl and live a life like Trump's. They are disappointed that reality turned out to be different from their ideal, and they are blaming the Libruls, who are giving all the imaginary riches that they themselves feel entitled to to inferior races, illegal immigrants and homosexuals. In their world of make-believe, they actually think that Trump will help them get the riches that they are entitled to by putting all their inferior compatriots in their place, primarily by reinstating true American values: Xmas and a racist and creationist agenda in public schools.

It is no wonder that their favourite of idea of Trump sees him as a warrior riding a brontosaurus, spearheading his loyal QAnon army to a victorious battle against the undeserving. Even the people who no longer really believe that Trump will make them richer still stick to him because at least he helps them keep the dream alive.

USA is currently a live reenactment of Norman Spinrad's The Iron Dream.


ETA: And in the meantime, billionaires are supporting both Republicans and Democrats and laughing all the way to the bank.
 
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I think the better fit is Francis Bacon's The Four Idols, specifically the "Idol of the Tribe".

And while CTs helped Trump, thanks to Cambridge Analytica's work on manipulating Facebook, Qanon didn't exist until 2017. And it was - and is - the most successful trolling job in the history of LULZ.
 
People are CT's because it answers some emotional need they have. Logic has little to do with it.
 
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