Problems of the World — Bonhoeffer’s Warning

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian executed by the Nazis in 1945, left behind an observation that cuts to the bone of human affairs:

“The greatest danger to society is not evil or malice, but stupidity.”

Bonhoeffer did not mean stupidity in terms of IQ or academic ability. He was pointing at something deeper — a willingness to accept false narratives without question, even when evidence, logic, and conscience point in another direction.

He saw, in Nazi Germany, that truly intelligent people could still become agents of destruction if they surrendered their thinking to the crowd. In his view, stupidity was not a lack of brainpower — it was a moral failing, a refusal to engage the mind when it’s most needed.

Why Stupidity Is Dangerous

Bonhoeffer noted that:

• Evil can be confronted — it wears a face, it takes responsibility, it can be resisted.
• Stupidity, in contrast, defends itself with sincerity — the stupid person honestly believes the falsehood they’ve absorbed, and so they can’t be reasoned with.
• Once someone has given up independent thought, they become a conduit for whatever propaganda or agenda dominates their environment.

In his own time, this meant people parroting Nazi slogans without ever asking whether they were true. In our time, it can mean repeating whatever official narrative the media or authorities push — even when it’s contradictory, illogical, or provably false.

The FlatPlaneWorld Connection

FlatPlaneWorld exists to challenge these false narratives — from the shape of the world to the stories we’re told about history, science, and politics. Bonhoeffer’s insight is a reminder that the problem isn’t always a secret cabal in a back room — sometimes it’s the millions of ordinary people willing to switch off their thinking and go along with whatever they’re told.

If Bonhoeffer were alive today, he might say:

“The first duty of an honest person is to refuse stupidity — to question, to test, and to think.”

This page stands as both a warning and a call:
We cannot fight falsehood with silence. We must break the cycle of stupidity — by refusing to be part of it.