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 prejudgment simply need not 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.
—Bonhoeffer
I wanted to revisit Bonhoeffer’s words recently. I feel compelled, although I have discussed these words in this philosophical series before. I often stray from using the word “conscience” in reference to others. I have once erroneously assumed most ordinary people have it. I have been proven wrong. In the signs of the times, I see most people will choose to be numb to it.
But what Bonhoeffer discourses in that first sentence is unshakeable. When you have that, which it is and it is always there, appeal to reason can fall by the wayside. Evil has a distinctive way of demeaning the evil doer even if this fact is easily concealed. Evil has a way of demeaning the evil doer. Every action has its repercussions on trails. And the path of evil is a path of great unease. However much there may be cover-up actions sustaining the ill-reality of the harm done for the cover. Unease knows variance for degrees. But to find this absent must define the natural reality of psychopathy.
The great unease is like the cumulation of snow or formation of icy surfaces from snowfall. Its critical angle against a plane is imaginary, ill-reputable and delusional. Its up-going is a drag. And its basal reality is unsafe, a sham.
To say stupidity has a defense is to state a redundancy disease. The stupid person refuses to admit the realistic state of affairs. In fact, may choose to fully adopt ill-reality. The fact that there is an alternate good possible of being chosen is the root of the germination defining the state of humanity in the evil-doer. The subversion is the human condition, however damaged or flawed.
It is important that I add to Bonhoeffer’s exploration of the difference between stupidity and maliciousness. He is missing something important here.
Stupidity is ultimately subjective or on the behalf of a subjective-group objective, that is, it owns a subjective cause but may extend a group clause, a group imperative. It is, from this view, a lack. Stupidity or malice, whichever derives the other, or a combination of both, ceaselessly seek validation against the lack through the objective, that is, the group classification enabling the stupidity-state to sustain.
The dissociation from this lack is extended as some kind of superficial power enabled for instance by science and engineering in cases of war as it must be that what’s evil is evil in war and peace, or perspective of position or status in localizable differentials. The possession of this power outside the limits of that merely rational or reasonable, is stupidity.
The states of stupidity, malice and evil can become so meshed that the subjective definition for distinction becomes blurred. And they may be perceived as one and the same. In times when evil or harm may be provoked or deserved and the sense and sets of entitled actions has neither scope nor limit, the harm done achieves all three—stupidity, malice and evil.
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