It turns out that Fox News, fair and balanced, is really Faux News, lying through their teeth. Internal memos and emails surfacing in the Dominion lawsuit against Fox News and others show that Fox News personnel, news broadcasters and commentators knew that the Big Lie really was a big lie. They were complicit in promoting the Big Lie to keep their ratings and stock prices higher. They knew that if they told the truth, their audience would leave them to find news that they liked on the internet and through social media.
There is a theory that explains all this — Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Theory of Stupidity, which posits that we have more to fear from stupid people than from evil people. To quote Bonhoeffer, “Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed — in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical — and when facts are irrefutable, they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack.”
When we know someone or something is evil we can take steps to fight it. With stupidity it is much more difficult. Bonhoeffer argues that stupidity is worse than evil because stupidity is easily manipulated and can be used by evil people.
And there you have Fox News. People who were lying, knew they were lying, discussed it among themselves but couldn’t resist promoting the big lie as fact, to continue to control their audience.
One analogy for arguing or reasoning with stupid people is that it is like playing chess with a pigeon. The pigeon will knock over the pieces and crap all over the board, then fly off to its flock claiming that it won. I don’t know how you see this, but when I read that description I saw the Jan. 6. 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, right down to crapping in the hallways. Those were stupid people egged on by evil people on Fox News and government people, Representatives like Louie Gohmert, senators like Ted Cruz and of course the former president and his minions. These were people who stood up to say the election was stolen and the results should be thrown out. To date, in case after case investigations have shown the election results to be valid. In fact, the infamous election ninjas in Arizona actually found there was a slight undercount for President Biden. There are still people who will deny that Joe Biden is president. These are the people to which Bonhoeffer is referring in the quote above.
The former President pooh-poohed wearing masks, saying he couldn’t see himself meeting with important people wearing a mask, and stupid people refused to wear masks. Stupid people swarmed into school board meetings to protest masks and vaccination requirements. Stupid people refused to get COVID vaccinations and promoted all kinds of bogus remedies for COVID.
President Biden in his State of the Union address took advantage of stupid people, tossing out a hook, Sen. Rick Scott’s bill that proposed sunsetting all programs passed by Congress including Social Security and Medicare every five years. Biden stated that Republicans wanted to end Social Security and Medicare. Stupid people took the bait and rose up to scream that wasn’t true at the president, who then declared that “we are in agreement then, Social Security and Medicare are off the table.” A large majority of the representatives and senators rose to support the president’s statement. Even “Sleepy Joe” (as he is characterized by many stupid people) could maneuver them, reeling them in like fish in a barrel.
A stupid person attacked an FBI office with a nail gun to break the bullet-proof glass. A stupid person went to Nancy Pelosi’s home with a hammer to assault her husband. A stupid person killed the son and wounded the husband of a federal judge in New Jersey. A stupid person drove hundreds of miles to shoot up a Walmart store in El Paso. Stupid people attack men, women and children in grocery stores, mosques, synagogues, churches, schools and colleges.
The Texas governor sits for a photo with a bogus border wall being constructed behind him. The wall section is isolated and will never be connected to anything, it is a showpiece to manipulate his voters. He stations thousands of troops along the southern border at taxpayer expense. The soldiers can’t arrest anyone. The governor has turned his attention to books in classrooms and school libraries wanting to control what children can learn and what teachers can teach. He puts on a show and stupid people will vote for him.
Evil people maneuver stupid people with lies and deceit. Evil people are on trial in the Dominion lawsuit. The former president is facing a plethora of lawsuits related to his lying and maneuvering. We have more to fear from stupid people because they are so easily maneuvered by evil people. We can deal with evil people.
Thomas Butler lives in Edinburg.
