Willful Blindness summary

Love is one of the most powerful emotions a human can experience, but it also bears inherent dangers. After all, to love someone is to view them through a rose-tinted lens that necessarily hides their flaws. As a result, love can obscure the true nature of another person, leading to potentially disastrous consequences.

For instance, some women will fail to notice when their partners are abusing their children. Only after such facts become undeniable, say through a police investigation, do the small signs of abuse become impossible to ignore. The willful blindness that obscures such signs is often fueled by a variety of fears, like losing the breadwinner of a household or challenging assumptions about a partner.

Have you ever seen an ostrich burying its head in the sand, or at least a picture of one doing so? While this phenomenon is often characterized as something ostriches do to feel safe or hide, it is actually a simple optical illusion. Since ostriches’ heads are quite small for their body size, it can sometimes look like they are burying their heads when they are merely poking around in the sand for food.

But while these big birds might not hide from reality, humans do all the time.

Imagine you’re a soldier who has been given an order that, if carried out, would take thousands of innocent lives. Would you blindly obey?

Even if you’re a highly moral person, you’d have to fight the natural human impulse toward obedience, a fact that regularly blinds people to their moral responsibility.

As companies expand from fledgling start-ups to major corporations, the resultant growing pains almost inevitably include a sense that things are beyond their grasp. After all, suddenly having new teams and offices around the world, each of which specializes in specific areas of business, is a recipe for losing control that can be bad news for businesses.

In fact, businesses that are spread out across the globe but also work to maintain central control can be blind to the dangers inherent in their various operations.

Have you ever heard the story of Cassandra?

Her father was an ancient king, gifted in the art of prophecy. But unfortunately for Cassandra, her fate was such that nobody believed a word she said. Because of this tragic combination, when she warned the Trojans about the dangers of the infamous wooden horse, nobody listened. While Cassandra’s story may be an ancient Greek myth, there’s plenty to be learned from it – especially for whistleblowers.