The phrase is a metaphor used to describe a situation when uninformed people are being advised or led by others who appear to be inept. Usually, it carries a connotation of harm and misfortune inflicted on the inexperienced by their misguided superiors. Although the saying was widely used in antiquity, it does not conform to modern understandings of the ability of blind persons to carry out full and enriching lives or to guide, lead, and teach others who are blind or sighted. The expression appears already in the Upanishads (800–200 B.C.E.), the sacred Hindu treatises, where we read, “Fools […]
