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November 2019

Is Bevan Shields stupid?

By Media10 Comments

Environment Editor at Guardian Australia, Adam Morton tweeted the following on Friday (8/11/2019): “Just to recap Today’s fires are ‘unprecedented’ The fires in Queensland earlier this year were ‘unprecedented’ The…

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Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it a political or a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity … The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other. The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances. The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversations with him one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.

P.J. O’Rourke