화요일 2026년1월20일	-	Ignorance and Power

Discourses 1.8.8:

	Every capacity that is acquired by uneducated people of weak
	character tends to be dangerous for them.

First, it is dangerous because it promotes conceit and a sense of pride
and superiority in one area rarely is contained to its domain, but often
metastasises to a sense of superiority in general. Once this occurs, it is
increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to receive correction. Also,
increased capability without accompanying growth of character only
amplifies the ignorance and moral weakness already present by expanding
upon its capacity to act on these impulses.

On the one hand, this feels very elitist, "bad people should have limited
resources", is something one definitely feels that aristocrats would have
promote to justify the suppression of surfs (or it's modern day
equivalence). On the other hand, I feel as though I have definitely
witnessed people gain wealth or influence or some other type of power and
it acted as an amplifying power to their vices.

I don't think this passage is really about that though. Rather, it's a
warning to us, that whether it is wealth or knowledge, we firstly have a
duty to also grow in excellence as human beings, so that our capacity to
rightly guide these capabilities is commensurate with them. A stoic would
be the first to state that material or social resources come and go to
both the righteous and the wicked, and that there is no correlation
between the former and the latter.