Bonhoeffer on Stupidity and Independence

3 min. read

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a philosopher, theologian, and Lutheran minister who resisted the rise of the Nazi regime. He actually used the governmental post he was offered as a cover for subverting Hitler. This got him arrested. He was executed just a few months before the end of World War II.

Bonhoeffer has always been, and will always be, a guiding voice for me. If you are familiar with his name, you most likely have read or heard about his seminal work The Cost of Discipleship. It is a rich and necessary work in its own right, but here I want to focus on one essay from his collection Letters and Papers from Prison.

The primary reason he was in prison was because of his involvement with assassination attempts on Hitler. That produces its own ethical questions. However, the observations he made about the disconnect between following Jesus and the blatant illogic of many fellow German Christians who followed Hitler, or at least did not resist the Nazi rise, are prescient.

In one of the essays entitled “On Stupidity” he discusses some of the issues he saw at work in Hitler’s rise to power:

“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. … The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other. 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, 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. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, 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.”

-|||-

Reclaiming Individual Independence

In the divided America we have today, I do not wish to add to the division by strictly applying the above observations to our political context.

But I do think we all would do well to read Bonhoeffer’s essays.

And we would do well to set aside our anger that stems from our perception of another’s stupidity. Instead we might look past the stubbornness and recognize that there has likely been an individual loss of independence. Or at least that the other has the feeling that they have lost their independence.

You see, if I do not relent my liberty to any ruler, then I will not slip into what Bonhoeffer calls “stupidity.”

So, maybe a loving act of resistance in these days can be to help those who have not recognized or appropriately dealt with their fears of losing independence.

A More Generous Activity

What might that help look like?

Begin to lovingly show them where authentic liberty comes from. Gently awake in them the awareness of their own independence.

Governments and political leaders do not hold the keys to individual liberty and independence. I alone can embrace or relinquish my independence.

This independence has nothing to do with the system of government my country uses, nor the abundance or lack of civil liberties, nor the creeds and constitutions of my nation.

Sometimes those most confined and restricted are the most independent. Just look at Bonhoeffer.

Finally, my independence is a gift (which I tend to think comes from a mysterious kind of king and kingdom). By the way, this does not allow me to ignore political challenges. On the contrary, this worldview requires me to engage against political injustice of every stripe.