08-22-2020, 03:57 PM
Bonhoeffer was deadly serious about what he believed -- and he ended up quite seriously dead (hanged by the Nazis as a traitor). Was he a sanctimonious prick? Maybe... but if one was in his position in Nazi Germany one had to sell one's soul or put everything at risk. In a way, Bonhoeffer is alive and his killers (including the hanging judge who had him sentenced to death), and not only because those who killed him died often of Allied judgment. People can learn from Bonhoeffer with few adaptations, and one can learn from his foes only from utter negation of those foes' deeds and beliefs.
It is amazing that people of supposed advantage, even in formal education and consummate talent, can do really-stupid things... like get addicted to dangerous drugs, to do crime for the thrill, or participate in totalitarian causes.
It is hard to characterize the intelligent (quadrant I in analytic geometry) who achieve positive results for themselves and others) because there are so few. Truly intelligent people are hard to analyze because too few people are able to analyze them. Those smart enough to analyze them are so much at the top of some other game that they likely have better things to do. Besides... who could fully understand a Michelangelo, a Mozart, a Dostoevsky, a Einstein, or a Kurosawa? They are clever enough to make their expressions as accessible as they are clever.
The second quadrant (II) on the upper left contains people whom Cipolla calls the Naive, people who do positive good (positive) but get exploited or hurt (negative) in the process. These are the Schlemazel to the stupid Schlemiel. This is often the productive worker whose work is terribly underpaid, the person who falls for rip-offs that enrich a shyster operator (yes, that operator is a bandit). This is the person who has worthless hangers-on (like an addict, alcoholic, or compulsive gambler) whom he or she cannot quite evict from one's life and assets. This is the person with a cr@ppy job, let us say as a domestic servant, or a retail clerk who gets paid a near-minimum wage, who lives honorably despite being treated dishonorably. These people are the exploited and oppressed, necessary for a capitalist order... or any. Admit it -- the system needs these people. There just aren't enough truly-creative people to do all the needed good.
Jumping beyond the simply stupid, the bandit (quadrant IV in analytic geometry) gets positive results for themselves, at least for a long time, but negative results for others. This can be a predatory entrepreneur or an outright criminal. It is clear that Al Capone (no brilliant fellow) got away with his bootlegging empire for a long time because he did almost as much good (by meeting a need) as harm. Pornographers are largely in this category... Hugh Hefner did well for himself and avoided legal problems well, but it is safe to say that his Playmates of the Month have had shorter life expectancy than women who choose some other means of achieving fame (or at least publicity) and fortune (or at least easy money -- at least easier than being a factory worker or a clerk-typist). Go lower in the pornography business, and the suicide rates for participants are incredibly high despite the profits of the pornographers.
Those who do about as much harm as good are best described as pure thieves and mooches who hurt others economically without doing other harm. The person who does as much harm as good is a pure thief or parasite... OK, in the vernacular, a mooch. This includes people who live off welfare or draw pay without doing anything to earn it. But do real harm, and one might be the Barrow-Parker gang.
The stupid do things that do no good for Humanity yet none for themselves... and they are in Quadrant III, people negative in results for the rest of humanity and for themselves. Really-dumb crooks, the ones who get caught quickly, fit this category. Ideally these are people who can be sheltered so that they don't do real harm on a large scale. They get isolated so that nobody gets access to them to doing something really harmful like being a lookout in a series of armed robberies. One keeps their assets under lock and key so that they can't really hurt themselves. Keeping a pet dog or cat makes some sense; keeping a bear or a tiger as a pet is simply stupid.
People can go from one category to another, but whatever direction one goes one tends to go away from Quadrant I, which is intelligent behavior. One might become helpless and go into Quadrant II or become intelligently predatory (Quadrant IV)... Bernie Madoff is a prime example of the latter. From Quadrants I to III? Become a drug addict or a political extremist (like Ted Kaczynski or William Shockley) after achieving a few things.
Now... Bill Cosby. He was extremely competent as a comedian (Quadrant I)... but his sexual exploits were clearly low and to the left in Quadrant III. He was using date-rape drugs to get sex which the women could feel only awful about as they came out of the drug-induced episode. Maybe it's just me, but I prefer sex to be clearly interactive, with both enjoying the deed as fully as possibly... which means sober and with some ability to decide on what happens. )I hope that I am not excessively explicit). Of course sex finds its way into many discussions of ethics because it is so important even if people liek to pretend otherwise.
So is it possible to be intelligent about some things and stupid about others? Maybe Cipolla missed that. Instinct, including the sex drive, can make one very stupid.
It is amazing that people of supposed advantage, even in formal education and consummate talent, can do really-stupid things... like get addicted to dangerous drugs, to do crime for the thrill, or participate in totalitarian causes.
It is hard to characterize the intelligent (quadrant I in analytic geometry) who achieve positive results for themselves and others) because there are so few. Truly intelligent people are hard to analyze because too few people are able to analyze them. Those smart enough to analyze them are so much at the top of some other game that they likely have better things to do. Besides... who could fully understand a Michelangelo, a Mozart, a Dostoevsky, a Einstein, or a Kurosawa? They are clever enough to make their expressions as accessible as they are clever.
The second quadrant (II) on the upper left contains people whom Cipolla calls the Naive, people who do positive good (positive) but get exploited or hurt (negative) in the process. These are the Schlemazel to the stupid Schlemiel. This is often the productive worker whose work is terribly underpaid, the person who falls for rip-offs that enrich a shyster operator (yes, that operator is a bandit). This is the person who has worthless hangers-on (like an addict, alcoholic, or compulsive gambler) whom he or she cannot quite evict from one's life and assets. This is the person with a cr@ppy job, let us say as a domestic servant, or a retail clerk who gets paid a near-minimum wage, who lives honorably despite being treated dishonorably. These people are the exploited and oppressed, necessary for a capitalist order... or any. Admit it -- the system needs these people. There just aren't enough truly-creative people to do all the needed good.
Jumping beyond the simply stupid, the bandit (quadrant IV in analytic geometry) gets positive results for themselves, at least for a long time, but negative results for others. This can be a predatory entrepreneur or an outright criminal. It is clear that Al Capone (no brilliant fellow) got away with his bootlegging empire for a long time because he did almost as much good (by meeting a need) as harm. Pornographers are largely in this category... Hugh Hefner did well for himself and avoided legal problems well, but it is safe to say that his Playmates of the Month have had shorter life expectancy than women who choose some other means of achieving fame (or at least publicity) and fortune (or at least easy money -- at least easier than being a factory worker or a clerk-typist). Go lower in the pornography business, and the suicide rates for participants are incredibly high despite the profits of the pornographers.
Those who do about as much harm as good are best described as pure thieves and mooches who hurt others economically without doing other harm. The person who does as much harm as good is a pure thief or parasite... OK, in the vernacular, a mooch. This includes people who live off welfare or draw pay without doing anything to earn it. But do real harm, and one might be the Barrow-Parker gang.
The stupid do things that do no good for Humanity yet none for themselves... and they are in Quadrant III, people negative in results for the rest of humanity and for themselves. Really-dumb crooks, the ones who get caught quickly, fit this category. Ideally these are people who can be sheltered so that they don't do real harm on a large scale. They get isolated so that nobody gets access to them to doing something really harmful like being a lookout in a series of armed robberies. One keeps their assets under lock and key so that they can't really hurt themselves. Keeping a pet dog or cat makes some sense; keeping a bear or a tiger as a pet is simply stupid.
People can go from one category to another, but whatever direction one goes one tends to go away from Quadrant I, which is intelligent behavior. One might become helpless and go into Quadrant II or become intelligently predatory (Quadrant IV)... Bernie Madoff is a prime example of the latter. From Quadrants I to III? Become a drug addict or a political extremist (like Ted Kaczynski or William Shockley) after achieving a few things.
Now... Bill Cosby. He was extremely competent as a comedian (Quadrant I)... but his sexual exploits were clearly low and to the left in Quadrant III. He was using date-rape drugs to get sex which the women could feel only awful about as they came out of the drug-induced episode. Maybe it's just me, but I prefer sex to be clearly interactive, with both enjoying the deed as fully as possibly... which means sober and with some ability to decide on what happens. )I hope that I am not excessively explicit). Of course sex finds its way into many discussions of ethics because it is so important even if people liek to pretend otherwise.
So is it possible to be intelligent about some things and stupid about others? Maybe Cipolla missed that. Instinct, including the sex drive, can make one very stupid.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.