Self-knowledge is like lost innocence; however unsettling you find it, it can never be 'unthought' or 'unknown'.
Interpretation
Self-knowledge reveals uncomfortable truths about ourselves that cannot be ignored.
Michael Sandel's quote highlights the complexity of self-knowledge, suggesting that while it can be disconcerting or challenging, the understanding we gain about ourselves is an irreversible process. Just as lost innocence cannot be regained, once we have acquired self-knowledge, we can no longer return to a state of ignorance, leading to a deeper awareness of our identities and choices.
In practice
In a personal development workshop, one might use this quote to discuss the importance of confronting one's true self.
First, individual rights cannot be sacrificed for the sake of the general good, and second, the principles of justice that specify these rights cannot be premised on any particular vision of the good life. What justifies the rights is not that they maximize the general welfare or otherwise promote the good, but rather that they comprise a fair framework within which individuals and groups can choose their own values and ends, consistent with a similar liberty for others.
If you pay a child a dollar to read a book, as some schools have tried, you not only create an expectation that reading makes you money, you also run the risk of depriving the child for ever of the value of it. Markets are not innocent.
I find this in all these places I've been travelling - from India to China, to Japan and Europe and to Brazil - there is a frustration with the terms of public discourse, with a kind of absence of discussion of questions of justice and ethics and of values.
The simplest way of understanding justice is giving people what they deserve. This idea goes back to Aristotle. The real difficulty begins with figuring out who deserves what and why.
To argue about justice is unavoidably to argue about virtues, about substantive moral and even spiritual questions.
Democracy does not require perfect equality, but it does require that citizens share a common life. What matters is that people of different backgrounds and social positions encounter one another, and bump up against one another, in the course of ordinary life.
Your life is an expression of all your thoughts.
Joy, rather than happiness, is the goal of life, for joy is the emotion which accompanies our fulfilling our natures as human beings. It is based on the experience of one's identity as a being of worth and dignity.
The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected.
Are right and wrong convertible terms, dependant upon popular opinion?
We used to say poor people had lousy genes. Then we decided that wasn't OK, but we transferred the prejudice to upbringing. We said, 'You were neglected as a child, so you'll never make it.' That's just as pernicious.
One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing better.
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