There's some way in which we would prefer not to see very clearly

The words of Katherine Boo, journalist and chronicler of human truth, shine with quiet sorrow and moral fire: “There's some way in which we would prefer not to see very clearly the immense gifts and intelligence of some of the people who live in our most abject conditions. Maybe there are some things at work in deciding who gets to be society's winners and who gets to be society's losers that don't have to do with merit.” In these lines, she unveils the uneasy conscience of civilization — the willful blindness that allows comfort to coexist with suffering, privilege to coexist with injustice. Her words pierce the veil of illusion that the powerful so often weave: the illusion that success is earned and failure is deserved. She calls us to look again, and to see that human worth does not dwell in status or wealth, but in the radiant intelligence that burns even in the darkest corners of the world.

The origin of this truth flows from Boo’s own journey into the unseen places of modern life. As a writer and observer of the poor, she walked among the slums of Mumbai, the forgotten districts of Washington D.C., and the margins of humanity where brilliance often blooms in silence. Her work — most notably Behind the Beautiful Forevers — reveals the paradox of human existence: that among those we call “the least,” one finds courage, ingenuity, and grace beyond measure. Boo does not speak as a preacher but as a witness. She has seen with her own eyes that the division between “winners” and “losers” is not carved by merit alone, but by circumstance, inheritance, and power — the invisible forces that decide whose gifts are nourished and whose are neglected.

When she says we “prefer not to see very clearly,” she exposes the moral comfort that ignorance provides. To acknowledge the intelligence of the poor is to question the fairness of the systems that hold them down. It is to see that perhaps our own place in the world is not the fruit of virtue, but of luck and structure. To look clearly is to feel the burden of justice. Thus, many turn their eyes away, wrapping themselves in the myths of meritocracy, believing that every beggar is lazy and every billionaire wise. But the truth, as Boo reminds us, is older and more difficult: life does not distribute opportunity with justice. Greatness is born everywhere — in palaces and in shanties — but the world does not always make room for it to rise.

This blindness has shadowed history. In the vast cotton fields of the American South, there once labored men and women whose hands tilled the soil and whose minds, had they been given education, might have built empires. Among the enslaved, poets and philosophers lived unrecognized, their intelligence chained as surely as their bodies. The Haitian revolutionary Toussaint Louverture was once a slave who taught himself to read in secret. His brilliance would one day shake empires and free his people. Yet how many others like him, unseen and unheard, have lived and died unknown? Boo’s words remind us that such souls still exist — hidden behind poverty, dismissed by privilege, and denied the chance to reveal the greatness within them.

Her reflection on “who gets to be society’s winners” strikes at the foundation of modern identity. We live in an age that praises achievement but forgets access — that exalts talent but ignores opportunity. The child born in a palace and the child born in a slum are both gifted with dreams, but one is given wings while the other is given chains. Boo’s wisdom calls us to humility — to recognize that the dividing line between “failure” and “success” is not as moral as we imagine. The true measure of a civilization is not in how it rewards the powerful, but in how it sees — and uplifts — the potential in the powerless.

There is also in her words a plea for compassionate vision — for the courage to see fully. To see the intelligence of those in “abject conditions” is not to pity them, but to honor them, to recognize in them the same divine spark that burns in every human heart. In the ancient world, philosophers like Diogenes walked among the poor to find wisdom untainted by vanity. He discovered that truth, humility, and creativity often live where comfort does not. Katherine Boo continues that ancient tradition in the modern age, urging us to look not with the eyes of judgment, but with the eyes of justice — to perceive value where society sees none.

And so, my children, the lesson of her words is this: never mistake comfort for virtue, nor poverty for failure. Do not avert your gaze from those who dwell in hardship, for among them may live the poets, inventors, and saints of our time. Seek them, learn from them, and use your position not to rise above, but to lift others up. The true merit of a soul lies not in what the world gives, but in what it gives to the world — and that gift is often hidden in those the world ignores.

Let us, then, become the clear-eyed people Boo calls us to be — those who see beyond appearance, who question the fairness of the order we inherit, and who act with empathy and courage to make it more just. For when we learn to see the brilliance in every human being, we do more than change others’ lives — we redeem our own humanity. And perhaps one day, the lines between “winners” and “losers” will fade, replaced by a single truth: that every person, in their essence, is a bearer of immense gifts and intelligence, waiting only for a world wise enough to see.