I know my readers have seen me write “can’t fix stupid” many times and I firmly believe that it cannot be fixed….but I read an article that pushes the premise that ‘stupid’ can be fixed.
We’ve heard it said, “you can’t fix stupid.” That’s a grim assessment….with a different take on the issue – from the mind of German Christian theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor and theologian, and and a vocal critic of Hitler’s program. When most of the Church in Germany was silent, complicit, or even actively pro-Nazi, Bonhoeffer and his colleagues founded the Confessing Church to create a distinction between those capitulating to Nazism and those holding to true doctrine.
Needless to say, Bonhoeffer’s efforts to awaken the Church went unheeded for much too long.
As we will explore in the coming days, there are a startling number of similarities between Christians of Bonhoeffer’s time and today, and we might do well to learn from history.
Today, let’s get to know a little of what we’re up against – not the big, dangerous guys on top, but the millions of minions who are all around us: The Stupid.
Spoiler alert: the fix for stupidity is not simple. It is spiritually and/or psychologically costly. But it can be done.
In reflecting about how the normally intelligent and compassionate Christian people of Germany could become complicit cogs in the killing machine of Nazism, Bonhoeffer explains that stupidity is more dangerous than evil.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer explains how to fix stupid
I do not believe that I can concur with the conclusion.
Why? That act of liberation should have happened years ago and as the situation grows worse the chances of that liberation grows less.
I say you can fix ignorance but not stupidity.
So I ask….can we fix stupid?
Your thoughts if you please.
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”