“The Blind Leading the Blind”

“The Blind Leading the Blind”

In a common understanding, the blind leading the blind typically refers to unknowing people following a leader who, too, is unknowing. That the blind leader, metaphorically the unaware person, is leading people toward failure or demise.

However, what about this perspective? The blind leading the blind may provide a separate insight. With the representation of the blind, unaware or lacking awareness, maybe the quote is a sign of strength; listen.

When an individual can see, understand, and analyze what happing to them or around them, then analyzing may, at times, be traumatic to the individual, especially if what is analyzed is painful.

A person’s mind possesses an automatic defense mechanism to keep problematic or traumatic experiences from the surface of conscious awareness. One of those mechanisms, for example, is expressed in a parent and child interaction called a double bind scenario, a situation is better known as the trolly problem that may result in the child experiencing symptoms or onset of schizophrenia.

In this example, the mother will punish the child for speaking out of turn or taking abruptly, so the child learns to be quiet and reserved. At the same time, the mother will punish the child for not participating in the conversation at dinner with the family. With these two conflicting sets of rules that are ultimately a lose-lose situation for the child, the brain may utilize its defense mechanisms that result in a “split mind,” better known as schizophrenia, as a method to escape the situation altogether as a coping mechanism.

Referring back to the blind leading the blind, maybe this isn’t a negative quote regarding following the unknowing on to death, but that blind is a way of continuing forward.

Without the ability to see, analyze, and understand the pain caused to the self and others, then it may provide a blind strength to continue with life by being able to change the narrative of what life’s situations offer. Without the blockade of fearing what is happening and not knowing the perils of the situation, this may provide a way for the individual to ignorantly move through the struggles of life, untimely leading others of the same blindness to their destination.

The blind leading the blind, in this context, may be a quote of the tormenting sorrows of reality, mixed with the strength of the individual and others and the sacrifice that people make as a way to march along the walk of life.

The blind leading the blind is separate from the assumption of the lost leading the lost.

Thank you,

Marshall Kilgore (Esotus’s)

References:

Getzfeld, A. R. (2018). Abnormal psychology (2nd ed.). Bridgepoint Education.