January 6
THE DEADLIEST IGNORANCE
Theme: Lucidity
"The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. On the whole men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance which fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill." — Albert Camus, The Plague
Here is a surprisingly hopeful claim buried inside a dark observation. Most people are not evil. They are not scheming to cause harm. They are, for the most part, decent. But decency is not enough. Good intentions without understanding can devastate as thoroughly as cruelty.
History confirms this relentlessly. Wars launched to spread freedom. Policies designed to help that destroyed instead. Parents who damaged their children while trying to protect them. The worst atrocities are rarely committed by those who know they are doing wrong. They are committed by those absolutely convinced they are doing right.
This is why Camus names a particular ignorance as the most dangerous of all: the kind that believes it already knows everything. Such certainty closes the mind. It stops asking questions, stops listening, stops learning. And once a person is certain enough, any action becomes justified. Even killing.
Lucidity, then, is not just an intellectual virtue. It is a moral one. The willingness to say “I might be wrong” may be the only thing standing between good intentions and catastrophe.
Today, notice where your certainty runs highest. That is precisely where you should look twice.