One must come to know the mechanisms that render people capable of such deeds, must reveal these mechanisms to them, and strive, by awakening a general awareness of those mechanisms, to prevent people from becoming so again.
It is not the victims who are guilty, not even in the sophistic and caricatured sense in which still today many like to construe it. Only those who unreflectingly vented their hate and aggression upon them are guilty. One must labor against this lack of reflection, must dissuade people from striking outward without reflecting upon themselves. The only education that has any sense at all is an education toward critical self-reflection."
Theodor Adorno, Education After Auschwitz, 18 April 1966
"Foolishness is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own downfall in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease.
Against such foolishness we are defenseless. 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 foolish person even becomes critical — and when facts are irrefutable, they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the foolish person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack.
For that reason, greater caution is called for dealing with a foolish person than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the foolish person with reason, for it is senseless and dangerous. If we want to know how to get the better of foolishness, we must seek to understand its nature. This much is certain, that it is in essence not an intellectual defect but a human one. There are human beings who are of remarkably agile intellect yet foolish, and others who are intellectually quite dull yet anything but foolish.
Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or of a religious nature, infects a large part of humanity with foolishness.
It would even seem that this is virtually a sociological-psychological law. The power of the one needs the foolishness of the other.
The fact that the foolish person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with a person, but with slogans, catchwords and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the foolish person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.
Yet at this very point it becomes quite clear that only an act of liberation, not instruction, can overcome foolishness.
Here we must come to terms with the fact that in most cases a genuine internal liberation becomes possible only when external liberation has preceded it. Until then we must abandon all attempts to convince the foolish person. The word of the Bible that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom declares that the internal liberation of human beings to live the responsible life before God is the only genuine way to overcome foolishness.
But these thoughts about foolishness also offer consolation in that they utterly forbid us to consider the majority of people to be foolish in every circumstance. It really will depend on whether those in power expect more from people’s foolishness than from their inner independence and wisdom."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, executed on April 9, 1945
“Each day we are becoming a creature of splendid glory, or one of unthinkable horror.”
C. S. Lewis
They don't wish to hear it.
Of course they don't!
No one caught up in the madness of evil ever wants to hear it.
All that can be said is— hell awaits.
And they will not believe it, and never see it coming.
Winning....
Stocks managed to rally back today after the Non-Farm Payrolls decline of Friday.
Smells like a wash and rinse, but the timing is not yet clear.
Gold broke out sharply, fueled by signs and rumors of a short squeeze in London.
Silver advanced but was pressed back into the close for only a modest gain.
VIX declined.
Mispricing risk and lying about it is one of the great talents of our politicians and financiers.
The lying is becoming so fashionable that nearly all of the servants to power, the demimonde of humanity, are doing it.
When the fruits of their actions start falling to earth it is going to be an avalanche of consequences.
But we don't believe it!
Of course you don't.
The storm gathers.
Have a pleasant evening.
