Drudge Retort: The Other Side of the News
Thursday, October 01, 2026

(Theory of Stupidity)

Why do smart, educated people often give up their own judgment? Three weeks before his execution in 1943, pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a chilling breakdown of human psychology from a Nazi prison cell:

"Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice."

In this video, we unpack Bonhoeffer's Theory of Stupidity"explaining why evil has limits, why facts cannot cure a closed mind, and how group identity forces good people to stop thinking for themselves.

(less than 5 mins, animated/with Transcript)

More

Comments

Admin's note: Participants in this discussion must follow the site's moderation policy. Profanity will be filtered. Abusive conduct is not allowed.

from the Comments:

""The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is hard business. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."
- Rudyard Kipling

"You're entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts."

- Daniel Patrick Moynihan

#1 | Posted by Corky at 2026-10-01 11:50 AM | Reply

Ten years of normalizing Trump will do that.

#2 | Posted by ClownShack at 2026-10-01 11:54 AM | Reply

facts cannot cure a closed mind

Just ask anyone who has ever tried to speak rationally to our resident trolls.

#3 | Posted by ClownShack at 2026-10-01 11:55 AM | Reply

To be fair, the Dumbing Down of America has been a 50 year project of the Republican Party that started with, "The tax cuts for the wealthy will Trickle Down!"...

... and continued with Planned Recessions, underfunded edumacation, expensive bad healthcare, Money as Speech, Corporate Personhood, and legalized political bribery and Forever Wars.

So, they've werked long and hard for the resulting Trump voters.

#4 | Posted by Corky at 2026-10-01 12:03 PM | Reply

The following HTML tags are allowed in comments: a href, b, i, p, br, ul, ol, li and blockquote. Others will be stripped out. Participants in this discussion must follow the site's moderation policy. Profanity will be filtered. Abusive conduct is not allowed.

Anyone can join this site and make comments. To post this comment, you must sign it with your Drudge Retort username. If you can't remember your username or password, use the lost password form to request it.
Username:
Password:

Home | Breaking News | Comments | User Blogs | Stats | Back Page | RSS Feed | RSS Spec | DMCA Compliance | Privacy

Drudge Retort