Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen, Diary of a Man in Despair, 1947
"For these are a rebellious people, deceitful children, unwilling to listen to the commandments of the Lord. They say to their seers,‘Do not see!’ and to the prophets,‘Say nothing of what is right! Tell us only things that please us, prophesy illusions."
Isaiah 30:8-10
"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.
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.
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."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, executed on April 9, 1945
Foolishness has overreached. If you cannot see this by this point, you cannot see.
All that remains is for them is failure after failure, and the sickening downfall, and judgement in this life or the next.
Stocks rallied once again.
The complacency in the VIX is apparent.
Gold lost a bit of ground, silver gained.
The gold miners ignored the paper metal and were bought by the smart money.
The Dollar continues to slide.
And so it goes down the familiar halls of history.
Have a pleasant evening.
