The overlooked virtue: Blindness

It is fitting that the greatest poet in ancient Greece was blind. Homer, the man who almost single handedly crafted the ethical precepts of our Athenian forebears with The Odyssey and The Iliad, never saw the faces of the human beings he touched. Though his words would reach a hundred generations and give us some of the mightiest and most human heroes in Western mythology, he never watched a sunrise or stared into the eyes of a girl. He never saw the wars he started, or those he prevented. He never gazed upon the adoration of his followers or the statues erected in honor of his creations, and he never saw a real hero lace his sandals to do battle for the very code of honor that he, Homer, had put into place. Though he read the human heart with skill, tenderness, and precision, it was not his lot to see the human face. And that may have had everything to do with his understanding.

Maybe blindness, viewed properly, is the overlooked virtue.

Most people would agree that there is nothing more important in this life than intimacy; there is nothing stronger, more moving, or more fulfilling in this world than the power of the human heart bound up with the hearts of others (or the heart of God) by the sheer force of hope and love. We have all experienced this: in marriage, in family, in relationships with our friends. And even if our lives have been ravaged by pain, indecision, and despair, we can usually think back to moments – gazes, conversations, dimly lit hours of physical contact and silence – that made all the challenges in our lives worthwhile. That is the power of human soul united with other souls. But too often, it is our vision chases the opportunity for these moments away.

We have a chance to connect with people, but for all the good in their hearts and the possibilities in their friendship, we cannot overlook their flaws, their history, or their past decisions. We are calculating in our relationships, and ruthless in our evaluations (and we hide this with an ambiguously beneficent word: “standards”). In a more striking and physical sense, we walk the streets of our cities every day and turn away from others because they are homeless or hurting or ugly. We maintain such a careful guard over our own physical appearances (our image) that we reject others who violate our taste; and we then let this tendency leak into our inner lives. We give up on spouses and significant others because we cannot learn to overlook their flaws. We write off our friends, or even our children, because we are disappointed in their actions or unable to forgive them for the things they have done. We are so acutely aware of the appearances of those around us, we are so attuned to they way they make us look, we are so impacted by the visual that we forget to use our other senses to draw close and see what our eyes simply cannot see. We let the visual preempt the intimate; and we never draw near enough to touch those around us.

We’ve all had the pleasure of interacting with the blind at some point in our lives; and many of us have had the same experience. Blind people, often, just don’t have the same sense of personal space that we have. On meeting, they’ll often touch you immediately. They will hold your hand. They will sometimes feel for your shoulder or face (what is it they see?). Because their eyes can’t see you, they have to draw near to you, and violating your personal boundaries become more intimately acquainted with you as a physical being. And the funny thing is this: it’s almost never uncomfortable. In a way, it’s freeing to have someone touch you without seeing you for who you are on the outside, because they are willing to draw near to you regardless of the way you look, regardless of what others see. They possess, in a physical sense, something even more perfect than forgiveness: blindness – an ignorance of the standard most people hold for you right away.

How much would it change our lives if in our everyday interactions we viewed blindness, an openness to intimacy, as a virtue? There are certainly times when we have to see others for who they are – flaws and beauties, virtues and failings – and turn away from them if (even though we forgive them), they are injurious to our lives. Sometimes to protect ourselves or those around us, it is necessary to reject physical and emotional closeness (ask the abused spouse, or the neglected child). But it seems that if relational prudence is also a virtue, it is a virtue that, in its extreme (superficiality, judgmentalism, dismissiveness, and fear) has become a vice.

Some scholars suggest that at some point in his life, Homer could see (his images of the landscapes of Greece are too vivid). But in a way, that would make his story all the more beautiful, because it wasn’t until he lost his sight, that he began to change this world with his heart. Blindness may not always be a virtue, (almost nothing, in the extreme, ever is). But in a world so attuned to the visual, to the first impression, to the distance bred by sight, it might be quality of ignorance that could allow us to draw near to those we would push away with our sight.

Comments

[Mercedes]

John,
Thank you for such a beautiful post. It reminds us that the greatest beauty often lies hidden behind the most modest exteriors. The intimacy one experiences with a blind person; the unconditional love and warm affection of a child with Downs Syndrome; the incredible spiritual strength of a person as they lay in their weakest moment on their death bed; the compassion in the eyes of the impoverished and downtrodden.

Thanks for reminding us of the beauty of the humble, as someone pretty great once said... "That which you do unto the least of your brethren, you do unto me"... Sometimes it seems the least of them are able to do the greatest things for us if we are only willing to stop, lay down our defenses and pay attention to where true beauty emanates from - the heart and the soul.

[Matt]

John,

Great post here. Excellent writing and really profound points. I'm enjoying the virtue series and am looking forward to the next post in the series.

[John C.]

Thank you, Matt and Mercedes. Anytime you two (or anyone else) would like to add something, I'd welcome it. This has been a helpful and clarifying exercise for me. I'm enjoying it.

[Elizabeth]

Wow...I had never thought about it in this way. This is a fantastic piece of writing, John.

[Brianne]

Hey John, missed you so I read your blog, beautiful post. You have a real gift with the written word. I was wondering though, do you really think blindness is a virtue or is the intimacy it creates the virtue.

I would suggest it is the latter for this reason: I believe people are naturally amoral, and that they need some incentive to do right or wrong. (where right is synonomous to "life preserving" and wrong to "life harming") I believe something that leads us to do something right is a virtue. Something that leads us to do something wrong is a vice. I believe that intimacy gives us an incentive to act in life serving manner is therefore a virtue... I dont know about blindness though... What do you think?

Take care and I hope you are doing well!
B

[Fletch]

Thank-you for the writing.

It makes me think that the war of the senses has arrived.
We are under an assult on all 5 of our senses. We are bomb-barded with images of pain, sounds of destruction, foods of dis-taste, touches of aggresive behavior, and we smell airs of unnatural polluting odour.

Peace,

Fletch