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To act without understanding is to act blind

A thought judged by what it changes bows to effectiveness: it risks bending truth to the cause, and acting before it has understood.

Objects to Changing the world

Arendt · The Human Condition · 1958

1. Transformation wants to measure an idea by its effects: true if it emancipates, vain if it leaves the world as it is.
2. But 'what changes the world' and 'what is true' are two things: a false belief can raise crowds, an inconvenient truth remain without effect. To judge an idea by its effectiveness is to risk subordinating the true to the useful, and thought to propaganda.
3. And one transforms well only what one has first understood: to act without analysis is to reproduce blindly the ills one thought one was fighting. Theory does not follow action, it precedes it.

Therefore So a philosophy's worth is not measured by what it changes: subordinating understanding to action is to risk acting wrongly and sacrificing truth to the cause.