Most great thinkers in history share a common oversight: they have not talked enough about idiocy; that kind of bottomless, malevolent ignorance that plagues the world. How to escape ignorance is something philosophers haven’t tackled, and that has come back to bite us all.
With the possible exception of the delightfully pessimistic Plato, philosophers through the miserable centuries have talked about truth and ethics having a rather idealistic picture of humanity in mind.
Even Marx, who talked about the responsibility of philosophers to actually change the world instead of simply interpreting it, underestimated popular idiocy.
Let’s not fool ourselves, being poor or working-class is a shield against neither ignorance nor malice.
