a fearless truth-speaker, The Mechanics of Virtue, aphorism 303

303

Of course, it is incorrect to say that explaining the causal chain of a horrible crime thereby justifies that crime.  It only mitigates individual guilt.  Either way however it is inefficient for an official to expose the causal chain, for then the official shuts off the outlet to public aggression.  In such a case both the official and the observation of behavioral causes would become evils.  If the official should wisely remain silent, public improvements are nonetheless made behind the scenes with incredible leaps of dishonesty. 


The sad fact is that without our conscious and direct effort to uncover such causal chains, anticipate problems, and thereby prevent them, we can only progress by recoiling from outrageous disasters ... and our problem is compounded by the fact that a fearless truth-speaker is indistinguishable from an outrageous disaster.  

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