March 31 (UPI) — In February 2022, millions of Europeans watched a democratic government resist a military invasion launched, in part, on the premise that its citizens lacked the will to fight. The premise was wrong. But it raised a question that goes beyond any single war: why do leaders, and the societies that follow them, so often misjudge reality so badly? And why does that failure keep recurring, across generations and continents?
The answer lies partly in what several serious thinkers have called collective stupidity — not the absence of intelligence, but its surrender.
More dangerous than malice
The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, writing from prison while awaiting execution in 1945, argued that stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. A malicious person can at least be confronted and resisted. A stupid person, in Bonhoeffer’s sense, is unreachable, because facts do not penetrate and argument has no effect.
Bonhoeffer was not describing low intelligence. He was illustrating a moral and civic failure: the moment when a person abandons independent judgment to an outside force, whether political power, ideology or religious zeal. Once that occurs, they become a tool in the hands of whoever holds authority. Societies do not collapse only through cruelty; they also fall when large numbers of people stop thinking for themselves.
Present at every level of society
Italian economic historian Carlo Cipolla offered a different but equally sobering perspective. Writing in 1976, he argued that stupid people, those who harm others while gaining nothing themselves, exist in every social class and at every educational level. Academic credentials provide no immunity.
This matters because modern societies routinely assume that more schooling or technical training will automatically produce better judgment. Often it does not. Intelligence and wisdom are different things, and the difference becomes costly when people with credentials act in ways that damage the common good without any rational payoff.
A digital accelerator
In the 21st century, French philosopher Éric Sadin argues, the problem has taken on new dimensions. It is no longer only ideological or cultural. It is increasingly assisted by technology.
Digital systems now mediate how people exchange information and make decisions. While this can boost efficiency, it also risks weakening the habit of careful thinking. The more people delegate judgment to algorithms — for news, opinions, or beliefs about events — the less they practice that skill themselves. Sadin warns that a society that relies too heavily on automated decision-making systems risks losing not only its autonomy but also the inner discipline essential to democratic citizenship.
The evidence is visible. Political discourse in many countries is driven by outrage rather than analysis. Social platforms reward reaction over reflection. The speed of digital communication has made it easier to spread a false claim than to correct one.
Why stupidity spreads
The causes vary. Some thinkers cite propaganda, social pressure, and systems of ideological control, while others point to vanity and overconfidence. In reality, both are involved, and the current moment gives both room to grow.
Many cultural and moral benchmarks have weakened over the past twenty years. Institutions that once held widespread trust, such as the press, political parties, universities, and international organizations, now struggle to maintain authority. When those anchors loosen, the space gets filled with simpler stories, emotional reactions, and disdain for complexity. Stupidity, in Bonhoeffer’s sense, spreads not because people are inherently gullible but because circumstances make independent thinking more costly and conformity easier.
What resists it
The defenses are not comfortable to describe, because they ask something of citizens rather than of governments alone. The first is the willingness to think independently, even when political movements, media ecosystems, or social platforms push toward uniformity. That takes practice and, at times, social cost.
The second is patience with complexity. Public debate rewards oversimplification. Serious citizenship requires resistance to easy answers and tolerance for genuine uncertainty.
The third is the recovery of basic habits of judgment: attention, humility and a capacity for self-correction. These are not abstract virtues. They are practical defenses against manipulation, and their absence is what makes populations manageable.
Peace requires more than luck
Many people still treat peace as something that comes by chance or divine intervention. In reality, it depends on civic culture. It requires populations capable of managing conflict without violence and of living with disagreement without turning it into hatred. That is not a passive condition. It has to be cultivated.
Ukraine in 2022 demonstrated one side of that equation: what civic will can do when it exists. But across much of the world, the opposite dynamic is more visible. Political discourse feeds on contempt. Media reward division. The incentive structures of digital life make it easier to inflame than to inform.
Bonhoeffer, Cipolla and Sadin are not gloomy thinkers writing for specialists. They are analysts of a recurring human failure and their work remains relevant. Poor judgment on a large scale, reinforced by technology and exploited by power, has become one of the central political problems of our time.
Carlos Cantero is a Chilean academic at the International University of La Rioja in Spain and the author of Digital Society: Reason and Emotion. An international lecturer, adviser, and consultant, he focuses on adaptability in the digital society, ethics, social innovation, and human development. The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
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