Stupidity Can Be More Dangerous Than Evil
The church, the community, and the people of conscience must not give up their God-given ability to think, to reflect, and to act.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor who lived during one of history’s darkest times: the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime. He was not a sideline preacher. He spoke out. He resisted. And ultimately, he paid with his life when he was executed for his role in resisting Hitler. From a prison cell, awaiting what he knew could very well be his death, he wrote about something that still feels uncannily relevant to our moment in history: the difference between evil and stupidity.
Bonhoeffer argued that stupidity can be more dangerous than evil. That may sound strange at first—after all, isn’t evil the real enemy? Evil destroys lives, wages wars, oppresses the weak, and manipulates the vulnerable. Evil is the stuff we can all point to with clarity and say, “That is wrong.” But Bonhoeffer noticed something: evil often exposes itself. It leaves behind wounds, unrest, a trail of consequences that cry out against it. Evil can be seen, named, and resisted. Stupidity, on the other hand, is more slippery. Stupidity is when people close their ears to truth and shut down their own capacity to think. You can argue with evil. You can resist evil. But Bonhoeffer said of stupidity: against it, we are defenseless.
Now let’s be clear. When Bonhoeffer talked about stupidity, he was not talking about a lack of intelligence. He wasn’t mocking people with fewer years of education or fewer academic degrees. Some of the most “educated” people he knew acted in the stupidest ways imaginable. Stupidity, for him, was not about intellect. It was about morality. It was about surrendering one’s responsibility to think and to act. He saw stupidity as a kind of willful blindness, a decision not to wrestle with truth or reality. It’s when people outsource their thinking to someone else, usually someone in power, and follow blindly rather than reflect critically.
And here’s the most chilling part of Bonhoeffer’s insight: stupidity isn’t just an individual problem. It’s a social condition. He wrote that when political upheaval comes, when movements of power rise, whole swaths of people can be swept into stupidity. People give up their capacity for independent thought because it feels safer, easier, or more comfortable to simply join the crowd. He even suggested a sort of law of history: “the power of the one needs the stupidity of the other.” In other words, authoritarian leaders depend on stupid followers—not because people aren’t intelligent, but because they stop using their intelligence. Stupidity becomes a convenient tool of the powerful.
Contrast that with evil. Bonhoeffer said that evil can be fought. It can be exposed. It can be dragged into the light. When a dictator orders violence, we can call it violence. When a system exploits the poor, we can name it exploitation. Evil is real, but it always leaves a scar that people can see. And once seen, people can resist. But stupidity? Stupidity creates an environment where evil can thrive without much resistance at all. Stupidity is the soil that evil loves to grow in. When masses of people refuse to ask questions, refuse to see what is right in front of them, and refuse to think for themselves, evil doesn’t even have to hide. It just marches in with a grin and takes a seat at the head of the table.
Sound familiar? In our own day, we have seen both evil and stupidity on display. We have seen violence, greed, lies, and cruelty—clear and undeniable evil. But we’ve also seen people shut their ears to truth, cling to conspiracy theories, parrot slogans, and ignore evidence. We’ve seen neighbors cut off relationships, not because of reasoned conviction, but because of stubborn allegiance to something they refuse to question. That’s the kind of stupidity Bonhoeffer was warning us about. It is not just a lack of knowledge. It is a moral failure to engage reality with honesty and courage.
The hard lesson Bonhoeffer offers is that you can’t argue people out of stupidity. Facts alone won’t do it. Clever rebuttals won’t do it. Endless fact-checks won’t do it. He said it was “senseless and dangerous” to try. That’s discouraging, but it’s also clarifying. If you’ve ever tried to argue with someone whose mind was closed, you know how fruitless it feels. Bonhoeffer reminds us: don’t waste your energy there. Instead, direct your energy toward living differently. Resist by refusing to join in. Resist by staying awake when others choose to be lulled asleep. Resist by telling the truth, even when it costs you. Resist by nurturing compassion, by practicing integrity, by choosing responsibility over apathy.
That’s the invitation for us today. We don’t need to call everyone stupid—Bonhoeffer himself was careful not to do that. He knew that stupidity isn’t permanent, and it isn’t universal. People can wake up. People can resist. But we need to recognize the danger of what it is. Evil will always be part of the world, but evil gains its real power when stupidity gives it cover. Evil wins when people stop thinking, stop questioning, and stop caring.
Bonhoeffer’s warning from his prison cell echoes across the decades: the church, the community, the people of conscience must not give up their God-given ability to think, to reflect, and to act. Stupidity thrives in silence. It thrives in passivity. But resistance thrives when people stand up, speak out, and keep their minds and hearts awake. The good news is this: you don’t have to be brilliant to resist. You just have to be awake. You just have to care. You just have to refuse to let evil borrow your silence and stupidity borrow your soul.
