I follow the saga of Jair Bolsonaro with an almost philosophical fascination: what drives a man to consistently act against his own interests?
The question has been raised during his government, continued in his response to the pandemic, deepened with the attempted coup — and now finds a theatrical outcome with protective custody after he tried to rip off an electronic ankle bracelet.
He explained that it was out of “curiosity.”
The vigil called by his son is just further proof that genetics is unforgiving.
Some will say that this trend predates politics and actually comes from the barracks – which perhaps allows for the “soldier to welder” joke to get passed around.
But the issue is serious: How do we explain stupidity in politics?
The topic rarely receives due attention. Hannah Arendt, in her famous analysis, stated that Adolf Eichmann represents the “inability to think” that defines the “banality of evil.” Eichmann would be stupid, and his stupidity was used as a tool in the Holocaust.
Clearly false: Eichmann thought so. He was a convinced Nazi, even a “sophisticated” Nazi, so to speak, as we later learned from audio recordings.
His evil was not ordinary.
Robert Musil, another German-language author, tried to go a little further. He said at a conference in 1937: There are two types of stupidity. The first is a natural, innocent, devoid of malice – the “village idiot”, in its classic literary version.
The second type, which is the most dangerous: distortion of ideas due to pride, vanity, or moral blindness. The subject knows how to think, but he does not want to think. This kind of stupidity is not cognitive, but moral. It’s a character flaw.
I don’t think Bolsonaro fits neatly into any of these categories. The stupidity of their actions is not born of innocence; But the deliberate distortion of thought requires a kind of intelligence that he does not possess either.
What is there is the mental inertia that historian Barbara Tuchman dissected in her classic book The March of Folly, from the original The March of Folly. The word “foolishness” itself suggests this immobility, the twin sister of madness.
As Tuchman put it, history has been full of moments of stupidity: they arise when rulers pursue policies that do not benefit them, but rather accelerate their destruction.
Interestingly, Tuchman agrees with Carlo Cipolla, who believes that a stupid person is one who harms others and himself, without obtaining any benefit.
But there are criteria for stupidity to be politically correct, Tuchman warns. First, the behavior must be recognized as stupid at the time, not just in retrospect.
Second, there must be a viable and more rational alternative – stupidity is only stupid when acted unnecessarily.
Finally, the stupid ruler introduces what Tuchman calls the “wooden head” – something like “empty head,” which we might better translate as “armored head”: the stupid ruler can only interpret reality on the basis of fixed, preconceived notions, ignoring or dismissing any evidence to the contrary. As if he was proudly saying: “No truth will defeat me!”
In Tuchman’s works, examples of armored heads continue: Trojans with the wooden horse; Behavior of Rome before the Protestant Revolution; George III’s stubbornness in trying to tax the British colonies; In the twentieth century, the suicidal adventure of German submarines against the US Navy or the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor – two actions that, ironically, pushed the United States into wars that destroyed their authors.
In all these cases there were warnings; There were alternatives; But the facts did not deter the armored heads.
Given the scale and importance, Bolsonaro’s behavior is almost evidence of political stupidity.
During the pandemic, more efficiency and compassion could have been achieved – but the man “was no gravedigger”.
In a coup, there was always the option of simply not considering it – and who knows, waiting for another election in opposition, because the 2022 defeat was narrow. But this would imply admitting that the Workers’ Party won the election, which is heresy for the Bolsonarians.
And in an ankle bracelet comedy, a supposed escape attempt wouldn’t be worth the risk at all. Carrying out the punishment—or part of it—would have brought more advantages than disadvantages; But learning from Lula’s case would be another heresy.
It is not surprising that Bolsonaro’s followers disagree with these premises. In the end, they follow the “myth” for a reason.
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