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Clever People Have Always Made Things Easy for Barbarians

One o f the lessons o f the Hitler period is the stupidity of cleverness. How many were the expert arguments with which Jews dismissed the likelihood of Hitler's rise, when it was already as clear as daylight. I recall a conversation with an economist who demonstrated the impossibility of Germany's militarization from the interests of Bavarian brewers. And in any case, according to the clever people, fascism was impossible in the West. Clever people have always made things easy for barbarians, because

they are so stupid. It is the well-informed, farsighted judgments, the prognoses based on statistics and experience, the observations which begin: "I happen to be an expert in this field," it is the well-founded, conclusive statements which are untrue.


Hitler was against intellect and humanity. But there is also an intellect which is against humanity: it is distinguished by well-informed superiority.

—Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 1944-1947, 2002 pdf ed. p. 173.

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