Said Werner Herzog — on the new episode of WTF with Marc Maron. Yes! Herzog and Maron! That was great to wake up to on Monday morning. Herzog has a new movie. It made Marc Maron dream about spiders, causing Herzog to relay his own dream — he only dreams once a year — about being told to renounce the devil.
ADDED: Here's the trailer for the new movie, the one that made Maron feel doomed. It's about the internet — which isn't evil, just stupid, per Herzog — "Lo And Behold: Reveries of the Connected World":
"Have the monks stopped meditating? They all seem to be tweeting."
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The use of the term "evolved" is typically cast as a positive. I'm not so sure.
Love the topic, and cannot wait to see Herzog's film. I've been watching over the years, and recently bemoaning how we have, as a society relinquished our ability to be human- to relate to other humans, and to see the world in front of our eyes. Years ago I was in the bar business, and used to teach bartenders for a national restaurant chain all across the country. This was back in the days of encouraging people to drink heavily, then drive home. Bartenders back then were hired and taught based on their personalities, and trained to talk, to entertain the people at the bar. Their job was to introduce bar guests and get them all talking together and having a good time.
Go into any bar today and you'll see 12 people sitting at the bar, all staring at their phones, while the bartender is either chatting up a fellow employee or also on his/her phone, texting their next great thought. We are apart together. Walk down any city street and you'll see people walking by amazing buildings with their faces pointed down at their phones. They could be in Peoria or Chicago- it doesn't matter. 't's as if every thought we have or our friends have is the most important thing in the world and must be addressed NOW. It cannot wait!
The young today grow up with their faces in phones, describing their meals to the world on Facebook, or sharing their darkest thoughts somewhere online. There are thousands of connections, but there is no human connection. As we go on, it'll get less and less. I'n no Luddite, but I fear we are losing our humanity, and have already lost our privacy, and our liberties.
But, hey, gotta go to work now. Need to stand in line at the airport staring at my phone because you know, my next email is the most important thing of all time.
For evil I'd go to the MSM, the truly evil corporation.
No price too high to get eyeballs to sell.
Naturally they're the ones on guard against evil, always the right wing and (other) corporations these days.
I thought everybody already knew that the Internet is an expression of pure evil. If you don't then you haven't really been paying attention.
Hitler wasn't evil just stupid
Stalin wasn't evil just stupid
Ps 2:4
Temujin:
"Go into any bar today and you'll see 12 people sitting at the bar, all staring at their phones, while the bartender is either chatting up a fellow employee or also on his/her phone, texting their next great thought. We are apart together."
I don't remember the commenter who wrote it or which blog I read it on - maybe here - but the joke that stuck in my mind was,
"I took my wife out for coffee and my phone died.
"Turns out she's really nice, we have a lot in common."
Ron Winkgeheimer:
Disagree. It is, however, an excellent vehicle.
What if the stupid people are victims of strongholds planted in their minds by the Devil.
When a false idea is held to no matter what the evidence of reality, then very smart people always arrive at a stupid conclusion or the wrong destination.
And then a good communicator of the truth comes along and all can see it. No wonder the MSM is furious at Trump for overnight ruining 50 years of their implanted strongholds in the minds of useful idiots. A false narrative, is a terrible thing to waste.
There is no need for "belief" in stupidity. Its existence is easy to verify empirically.
Not sure what it means to "believe in stupidity." In any case, I don't think Herzog believes in his own stupidity, or to be more precise: that he, himself, is stupid. Nor should he.
Perhaps he should have said, "I believe in bell curves." Someone should write a book about it.
Is stupidity and evil necessarily the same thing? Does stupidity beget evil? I don't think so.
@Sydney - I'm more inclined to go with superiority begets evil...
"Walk down any city street and you'll see people walking by amazing buildings with their faces pointed down at their phones."
I keep my head up... by having earbuds in, listening to my phone instead of staring into it.
Fortunately, I can still see and hear, but I've lost my sense of smell (and, consequently, taste). I'm thinking it's maybe all the signals in the air and the electronic light messing up my brain.
Hitler was evil and not stupid.
"The man who founded the Third Reich, who ruled it ruthlessly and often with uncommon shrewdness, who led it to such dizzy heights and to such a sorry end, was a person of undoubted, if evil, genius. It is true that he found in the German people, as a mysterious Providence and centuries of experience had molded them up to that time, a natural instrument which he was able to shape to his own sinister ends. But without Adolf Hitler, who was possessed of a demonic personality, a granite will, uncanny instincts, a cold ruthlessness, a remarkable intellect, a soaring imagination and— until toward the end, when, drunk with power and success, he overreached himself— an amazing capacity to size up people and situations, there almost certainly would never have been a Third Reich." Shirer, William L. (2011-10-21). The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (pp. 5-6). RosettaBooks. Kindle Edition.
Herzog was born in Munich in 1942.
Ann you have to recognize sarcasm.
Those monks are catching Pokèmon.
Preposterous links evil and stupid.
via monstrous and absurd.
Why are we missing the point here? He never said he didn't believe in Evil. He said he didn't believe in the Devil. Two different things. And without Stupidity, Evil wouldn't spread as far or be nearly as effective. Sure, people could still do evil things to one another on a small scale or individual basis. But to get an evil movement going and growing? That takes the blind, trusting, ambitious stupidity of followers. Don't blame God OR the Devil for the evil, stupid, cruelties that people choose to partake in. Blame the stupid, cruel, evil individuals themselves.
Sydney said...
Is stupidity and evil necessarily the same thing? Does stupidity beget evil? I don't think so.
Evil things can be born of stupid deeds. As an example I give the Gold King mine in Colorado. The EPA was first stupid and then ,in trying to cover up their deed, were evil.
Althouse's sense of smell: It's much more likely that you either 1) took a blow to the forehead which damaged the nasal nerve (very common), 2) used a nasal spray that caused loss of smell (read the label), or 3) had a really bad sinus infection that damaged the nerve.
There's also possibility 4) as you age, you gradually & naturally lose the ability to smell.
In his interview with Rosanne Barr, Marc Maron said that Trump was Satanic. That pretty much sums up his intelligence.
The Herzog trailer doesn't look any different from the cover of any Wired magazine that promises a brave new future.
Moral panickers gotta moral panic.
If I had the time, I would love to go back 10 years and list their articles that anticipate the Brave New World of the future, and calculate their bullshit percentage. I will bet that it's closer to 1.000 than .250.
Colonies on Mars have been considered since the 1950s. A robot soccer team that can beat humans? Probably. Didn't they hear of John Henry? A vacuum cleaner can suck up more dirt than a person with a broom. Am I supposed to be in awe of that? People using their smartphones; didn't we used to watch three hours of television every evening for decades and critics fretted that The End Was Near?
They've been promising cheap solar power since the '70s. Room size nuclear reactors powers houses. Heck, Asimov wrote about the promise of fusion power in the 1960s. How they doing with that?
(Here's the nub of my point: Don't worry about what they promise; worry about what they've delivered today. That's what we need to focus on.)
For what it's worth: Tolkien wrote that Morgoth/Melkor's fatal flaw -- and the reason for his ultimate downfall -- was his stupidity, "because evil is always stupid." I'm not sure what to make of that but I want to believe it's true. I think maybe what Tolkien was getting at was that evil is willfully, arrogantly, hubristically blind to its own flaws. Morgoth, as the personification of evil, lacked humility because evil is not humble: and, lacking humility, he believed he was almighty in his power, mightier even than Illuvatar (God). Which is stupid.
@Roughcoat
"oft evil will shall evil mar"
Theoden, The Two Towers
Ann Althouse said... I'm thinking it's maybe all the signals in the air and the electronic light messing up my brain.
Oh no, Jill Stein's getting to her; run Professor, run!
Hitler was evil and not stupid.
Maybe...but I guess at a minimum you'd have to say that his hubris lead him to act stupidly and/or overcame his alleged genius at sizing up situations...and not just "towards the end." Specifically I'm thinking about military matters where he trusted his own ideas (and the yes-men he'd installed) over the wise counsel of generals/better military minds, but there are other examples.
Side note re: the devil & stupidity: Noted philosopher Oliver Stone had his character in Platoon say that hell is the impossibility of reason. Roll that into the conception of stupidity as a substitute for the devil.
Footnote: Please, please listen to some of Paul F. Thompkins' impressions of Warner Herzog.
Werner Herzog Reviews a Hotel on Yelp
Werner Herzog on Jack Reacher
Werner Herzog directs Grown Ups 3
If you accept that disobeying a higher power that you cannot hope to defeat and will punish transgressions is a terrible idea, then evil is stupid. The Devil, facing an all powerful God, is by Christian philosophy both evil and stupid. Note that the Devil is actually quite brilliant but has no hope of achieving his end goal. His pride is often cited.
In a more general sense, without an objective to measure against, "evil" and "stupid" do not mean anything. Evil compared to what? Stupid compared to what? What are the standards?
You don't necessarily have to believe in the Devil or Satan, or whatever/however else your religion names the source of evil.
But unless you believe in the existence of Evil in the world then you probably lack an understanding of reality. And frankly you are probably a bit stupid.
Again, re Tolkien: Both Morgoth and Sauron had no real understanding of good, or the power of goodness; accordingly they underestimated or discounted entirely the ability of good men (and other creatures) to act wisely and effectively. Nor could they even conceive of a circumstance in which the good could be powerful. This was evil's flaw: that evil should blind them to the power of the good. In their view, power was a function of evil only and no other. What's more, and relatedly, they could not believe that goodness was real. They thought that all goodness was a mere facade for the evil that lurked just beneath the surface in all creatures. They did not understand the nature of Original Sin: they thought it meant that all creatures were born evil when in reality it meant that all creatures were born with the capacity for sinfulness (i.e. evil) -- but also with the capacity to seek redemption. They were too stupid to understand the difference; and their stupidity was a function of their evil.
they could not believe that goodness was real. They thought that all goodness was a mere facade for the evil that lurked just beneath the surface in all creatures.
C.S. Lewis addresses this in "The Screwtape Letters." Screwtape and the other devils are convinced that God cannot "really" love humans and that he must have some ulterior motive for his actions in regards to them. Screwtape states that a great deal of effort is being made to discover God's "real" motives.
Ron Winkleheimer:
Yes, indeed, excellent point. I love C.S. Lewis and I love "The Screwtape Letters." Brilliant.
Herzog is an insufferably smug progressive asshole who has been mostly lecturing college students for the past 25 years. As a child born into a nazi family and nazi society, he has been looking for his fellow brownshirts since Berlin was partitioned, so of course he has found a home with the totalitarian progressive democrat party scum.
I don't think those are real monks. I think they're the monks who sell fake souvenirs in the parks.
Oh my... I'm behind on my WTF listening. This ought to be good.
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