The power of stupidity
Die Macht der Stummheit ( La bêtise in the French original ) is a philosophical non-fiction book by the French author André Glucksmann , which he published in 1985 and which was also published in German by Thomas Dobberkau and Josef Winiger at the Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt in the same year.
content
André Glucksmann claimed in his book that stupidity has become a world power . With the help of examples from literary and intellectual history as well as the history of ideologies and current politics at the time, Glucksmann analyzed the nature of stupidity. In doing so, he tries to explain why stupidity itself increased so conspicuously after the Enlightenment .
Although the Enlightenment, in one of its maxims according to Immanuel Kant , demanded that everyone must have the courage to use his own understanding , Glucksmann revealed how diametrically opposed humanity is from achieving this goal.
In doing so, Glucksmann did not shy away from provocative formulations, such as the significant one: “You can recognize the idiot by the fact that nothing can upset him. He is always ready to form an opinion on what he does not understand and to judge infallibly on what he does not know ”.
As the first, most elementary stupidity, the French philosopher described in his foreword to the German first edition, as well as in the chapter Dummheit as a form of existence and as a logic to lock oneself into the labyrinth of stupidity: “Systematic, step by step, the spontaneous gesture with the Etiquette, the question and the answer flawlessly harmonized. This perfect, that is, primary and mechanical correspondence of concept and thing is the engine of compulsive action, which grafts ready-made opinions onto stereotypical situations ”.
expenditure
- André Glucksmann: The power of stupidity . German translation by Thomas Dobberkau and Josef Winiger, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-421-06293-5
- André Glucksmann: The power of stupidity . German translation by Thomas Dobberkau and Josef Winiger, Ullstein, Frankfurt / a. M./Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-548-34472-0
review
- "Whoever gets involved with it will discover that really interesting insights into the nature of stupidity are opened up here." The world
- "(...) a witty Philippika , which the author expands into a philosophical textbook ... a pamphlet against stupidity". The star
Individual evidence
- ^ André Glucksmann: The power of stupidity . German translation by Thomas Dobberkau and Josef Winiger, Ullstein, Frankfurt / a. M./Berlin 1990, p. 10.