"PHILOSOPHICALLY SPEAKING...":

Today marks the 78th anniversary of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's execution by the Nazis.  Bonhoeffer was a young German theologian and moral philosopher who, days after Adolf Hilter's 1933 installation as German chancellor, delivered a radio address warning Germans that the idolatrous worship of the Führer (leader) may instead be a cult of the Verführer (misleader, or seducer). Ten years later, from prison, Bonhoeffer penned a letter reflecting on lessons learned over the prior decade, noting that "memory, the recalling of lessons we have learnt, is also part of responsible living." Included in Bonhoeffer's 1943 "reckoning" is this famous passage:

"Folly is a more dangerous enemy to the good than evil. One can protest against evil; it can be unmasked and, if need be, prevented by force. Evil always carries the seeds of its own destruction, as it make people, at the least, uncomfortable. Against folly we have no defence. Neither protests nor force can touch it; reasoning is no use; facts that contradict personal prejudices can simply be disbelieved, they can just be pushed aside as trivial exceptions. So the fool, as distinct from the scoundrel, is completely self-satisfied; in fact, he can easily become dangerous, as it does not take much to make him aggressive. A fool must therefore be treated more cautiously than a scoundrel; we shall never again try to convince a fool by reason, for it is both useless and dangerous. ... If we look more closely, we see that any violent display of power, whether political or religious, produces an outburst of folly in a large part of mankind; indeed, this seems actually to be a psychological and sociological law: the power of some needs the folly of others. ... The fact that the fool is often stubborn must not mislead us into thinking that he is independent. One feels in fact, when talking to him, that one is dealing, not with the man himself, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like, which have taken hold of him. He is under a spell, he is blinded, his very nature is being misused and exploited. Having this become a passive instrument, the fool will be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil."
from "After Ten Years: A Reckoning Made at New Year 1943," in Letters & Papers from Prison (ed. Eberhard Bethge)