Evil Comes Through Ignorance

An interpretation of a statement by Albert Camus

“The evil that is in the world always comes from ignorance” and those with good intentions may do as much harm as those who actually desire to do harm to others, if they lack understanding. In general, men can have a greater tendency to do good than bad; that, however is not the point of this argument.. Most men are more or less ignorant of an understanding of the truth of their relationship with others when viewed from the standpoint of a desired end result of peace and joy during this life time. There are enormous possibilities available to man kind through an understanding of the true possibility of brotherhood of man and his empathic relationship to nature in a gestalt of peaceful coexistence, mutual respect, and continuing enlargement of the soul. Albert calls this understanding, Personal Enlightenment. Personal Enlightenment is the process of developing a clearer view, to instruct oneself so he may see and comprehend truth, free from ignorance, prejudice and superstition.

The relative ignorance of men is what we call vice and virtue; the most difficult vice to change is ignorance. That ignorance that believes it knows the whole truth and then believes it has a divine right of power over others. All too often the soul of the self claimed righteous is blind. But, there can be no true righteousness, nor love without the utmost clear sightedness.

Believe those who are searching for the truth.

Doubt those who find it.

--Andre Gide

Since man is not born with the knowledge and reinforcing experience to have understanding, he must set out on a life long adventure in learning. All too often his information inputs are limited to those from within his immediate environment. He undertakes little or no initiative on his own to search for knowledge and experience that will give him greater understanding than his immediate culture already claims to have. All too often this data base is extremely limited compared to the accumulated knowledge of mankind and the injection of new ideas from the out side is looked upon with great suspect. Often inherited ideas are never tested by the individual but are taken for granted because the local power structure has declared them. “You don’t need to think about these things because WE have done this for you”. A challenge to the doctrine of the hierarchy is a challenge to their power and authority. It is difficult for the orthodoxy/institution to exist when the cultural data base is changing and growing and there is an unrelenting flow of information from the outside. The “Arab Spring” of 2011 is a great example of this. The free flow of information enabled by the World Wide Web could be a great force for fighting ignorance, but it can also be an amazing propaganda tool.