virtuous stupidity

is a name for the mode of the slow spirit required of all spiritual processes to protect us, on the one hand, from the domination of arbitrary madness, and on the other, to make sure that the faithful of the great shared faith stay together and continue their dance.

The image of things still shifts and shuffles continually, and perhaps even more so and faster from now on than ever before. Continually. precisely the most select spirits bristle at this universal binding force-the explorers of truth above all. Continually this faith, as everybody's faith, arouses nausea and a new lust in subtler minds... and the slow tempo that is here demanded for all spiritual processes, this imitation of the tortoise. which is here recognized as the norm, would be quite enough to tum artists and thinkers into apostates: It is in these impatient spirits that a veritable delight in madness erupts because madness has such a cheerful tempo. Thus the virtuous intellects are needed-oh. let me use the most unambiguous word-what is needed is virtuous stupidity, stolid metronomes for the slow spirit, to make sure that the faithful of the great shared faith stay together and continue their dance. It is a first-rate need that commands and demands this. We others are the exception and the danger-and we need eternally to be defended. Well, there actually are things to be said in favor of the exception, provided that it never wants to become the rule.15

virtuous stupidity, n.Definitions

virtuous stupidity