Opus 2013-274: Conspiracy and Complacency

Most of us are aware of how incompetent the government is to do things.  We look at all the scandals and fraud.  We worry about conspiracies.  The problem is bigger than that.  I remember hearing from several sources over the years a statement something to the effect, “Don’t attribute to conspiracy what is probably just incompetence.”  You get the picture.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said something along the same lines.  Bonhoeffer was a Christian pastor who was arrested and martyred by Hitler’s Nazi regime.  His most famous book is The Cost of Discipleship.  In another book that is a collection of his letters he wrote about this topic.

“Folly is a more dangerous enemy to the good than malice.  You can protest against malice, you can unmask it or prevent it by force....  There is no defense against folly.  ...it is never amenable to reason....  Thus the fool, as compared with the scoundrel, is invariably self complacent....   We shall never again try to reason with the fool, for it is both useless and dangerous.”  p. 22

The people in the progressive movement are here to help us.  It is possible that Obama actually thinks his ideas are new, fresh and workable.  Teachers really want to help.  They are generally people of good will. Too often they are fools.

That doesn’t solve the problem and doesn’t make it any easier to live but it might help understand what we are fighting against.  On the freeway you can often spot the drunk far ahead and find a way to avoid them.  It is almost impossible to avoid the fool who suddenly feels a need to send a text message.

Deal with it.  One day at a time.

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich.  Letters and Papers from Prison.  New York:  The Macmillan Company, 1953.

homo unius libri