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About this quote

What does it mean?
All political theories admit people are ignorant but liberty advocates include themselves in that group.
In plain terms
Liberty supporters accept they are just as ignorant as others.
What can you take from it?
Accept your own ignorance like everyone else.

Where it applies

  • political debate
  • intellectual humility
  • civic engagement

Putting it to work

  • practicing humility
  • listening to dissent

Questions to consider

  • How do we know who knows best?
  • Why accept ignorance?

Another view

Some claim expertise in specific areas.

More from Friedrich Hayek

  1. A society that does not recognise that each individual has values of his own which he is entitled to follow can have no respect for the dignity of the individu…

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  2. Compared with the totality of knowledge which is continually utilized in the evolution of a dynamic civilization, the difference between the knowledge that the…

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  3. A policy of freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy.

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