"We are slaves to whatever we don't understand"
About this Quote
The line lands like a trapdoor: it flatters your independence, then yanks it away. Howard isn’t talking about chains so much as compulsions - the quiet kind that feel like “just how I am.” “Slaves” is deliberately inflammatory, moralizing even, because it forces a reader to stop treating ignorance as harmless. Not knowing isn’t neutral here; it’s an active dependency.
The intent is corrective, almost therapeutic. Howard wrote in the mid-to-late 20th-century self-help and spiritual-psychology lane, where “freedom” is an internal project and the enemy is unconsciousness. The quote compresses that whole worldview into a single mechanism: whatever you fail to understand will run you. The subtext: you can’t out-will what you won’t examine. That’s a rebuke to the modern cult of hustle and self-control, which assumes discipline solves everything. Howard argues the opposite - insight is the lever, and without it you’re just gripping the wheel while something else steers.
It also has a political reading hiding in plain sight. “Whatever we don’t understand” covers more than personal neuroses: it includes systems. People become manageable when they can’t name the forces shaping their attention, spending, outrage, or shame. Confusion is a form of governance. The beauty of the phrasing is its ruthless generality; it’s a dare. Pick your addiction, your fear, your algorithm, your inherited story. If it operates in the dark, it owns you.
The line works because it makes ignorance feel costly - and freedom feel less like a right than a practice.
The intent is corrective, almost therapeutic. Howard wrote in the mid-to-late 20th-century self-help and spiritual-psychology lane, where “freedom” is an internal project and the enemy is unconsciousness. The quote compresses that whole worldview into a single mechanism: whatever you fail to understand will run you. The subtext: you can’t out-will what you won’t examine. That’s a rebuke to the modern cult of hustle and self-control, which assumes discipline solves everything. Howard argues the opposite - insight is the lever, and without it you’re just gripping the wheel while something else steers.
It also has a political reading hiding in plain sight. “Whatever we don’t understand” covers more than personal neuroses: it includes systems. People become manageable when they can’t name the forces shaping their attention, spending, outrage, or shame. Confusion is a form of governance. The beauty of the phrasing is its ruthless generality; it’s a dare. Pick your addiction, your fear, your algorithm, your inherited story. If it operates in the dark, it owns you.
The line works because it makes ignorance feel costly - and freedom feel less like a right than a practice.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
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