The danger of a fascist in power

In April, 1945, a German pastor named Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged at Flossenburg concentration camp days before it was liberated. 

He had been arrested for his involvement in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. While he waited for his execution, he wrote an insightful essay—not of God or faith—but how educated people voluntarily surrendered their ability to think for themselves once a fascist came to power. 

He concluded many Germans must be going through some kind of cruel stupidity. He begins by clarifying what he meant about how a thinking person becomes a stupid one. When people outsource their thinking to someone else like a leader, a party, or a media figure, it changes their thinking process. 

Even when evidence is available, the person then stops evaluating information for themselves. They start filtering everything through what the leader or party demands. Their thinking becomes a kind of willful ignorance, in order to be loyal to the cause. Even if they might be wrong, it becomes more important to belong, and not be ostracized from the group.

Bonhoeffer concluded people are not born but made this way. He lamented this type of thinking is not a defect of the individual, but a product of the system. When Bonhoeffer tried to reason with someone in this state, he felt like he wasn’t talking to a person, but to a slogan or phrase that had taken possession of them. It was like they were under a spell because a part of them that evaluates or questions had been deactivated. They became unwilling to think independently. 

Once people surrender their ability to think independently, Bonhoeffer concluded people can do any evil because they can no longer see evil for what it is. This type of mindset was front and center when the President made fun of a disabled journalist and people laughed. Or, people seriously considered the fictional campaign story of immigrants stealing and eating pets in Ohio. Or, at the Republican National Convention when delegates held up signs that said “Mass Deportation Now “ and cheered. Or at CPAC when Elon Musk walked onto the stage holding a chainsaw while the audience roared. 

Federal workers were being fired by email, then losing their pensions and their healthcare? An aid worker testified that children overseas will die because USAID food programs being canceled. Overnight this caused 700,000 deaths, a projected 14 million in 5 years! Oh well.

The White House posted a video of handcuffed immigrants being walked onto a deportation plane. Dr. Phil filmed ICE raids of family apartments for television? ICE assaulting families or peaceful protestors and don’t see this as cruelty? 

When people succumb to these events, or fictitious phrases like “fake news” or stereotyping immigrants, Bonhoeffer would describe this cruelty as social stupidity.

David James, Eureka