In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king
The phrase is attributed to Erasmus of Rotterdam, important Dutch philosopher, humanist and theologian of the Renaissance. It appeared in the anthology Colloquiums of him, from 1522, which was a collection of essays on a variety of topics, and this one that concerns us one more of the four thousand greek and latin quotes gathered there…
What search engine would Erasmus use to find so many?… “In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king” comes to mean that someone can excel at something without being goodbecause the comparison is made with respect to another that is even worse…
What if! It is enough for us to look around or remember; any mediocre person in kindness, intelligence, knowledge, aptitude, ability or in any other aspect, will stand out with respect to another who possess it to a lesser extent… A minimum of grace is enough to stand out where there is none…
It is to be hoped that the mediocre – whether or not he knows that he is – does not believe it; if mediocrity goes to his head we are ready. Erasmus, recreating that phrase exactly five hundred years agoleaves all the successful subjects one-eyed or, which is not the same, leaves all the one-eyed subjects successful…
If I may, and if not too, I will tell a little personal anecdote, just to get involved with the saying. I was in sixth grade when on a cold May 25 I had to be a flag bearer from school to the act in the town square.
Flag bearer because I was the best? Not because there was a flu epidemic and the top five were in bed with fever… That day, the sixth was one-eyed and king…
