In José Saramago’s novel Blindness, why do people who lose their sight quickly descend into barbarism?

José Saramago’s novel Blindness is a shocking allegory that shows how fragile the invisible structures on which civilization is built are. The loss of the ability to see is not only a physical disability, but also an existential collapse directly related to consciousness, ethics, and the production of meaning. In the world of the novel, the sudden outbreak of blindness in individuals means not only a visual loss, but also the destruction of social, cultural, and moral references. For this reason, people quickly fall into barbarism; because most of the foundations on which civilization is based depend on these invisible forms of “seeing.”

Sight and Meaning: Epistemological Foundation

In the philosophical sense, seeing is not only an optical function; it is also a symbol of knowing, understanding, and distinguishing. As in Plato’s allegory of the cave, seeing is a metaphor for reaching the truth. Therefore, the sudden loss of vision in Blindness interrupts individuals’ relationships not only with the physical world, but also with the world of values. This rupture is a fundamental loss of knowledge, understanding, and ethical orientation.

From the perspective of Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialism, a human being is defined as a subject who consciously constructs his own existence. However, Saramago’s blind people are largely deprived of this consciousness and therefore freedom. They become a mass that cannot comprehend their own situation, determine their limits, and take responsibility for their actions. This reduces them to beings that act with animal instincts.

The Collapse of Order: The Fragility of Civilization

As Hannah Arendt points out in her analysis of totalitarianism, what drives people to barbarity and violence is not only individual evil; it is the collapse of institutions, law, and shared systems of meaning. This is exactly what happens in the novel Blindness: State authority collapses, laws become inoperative, ethical norms are forgotten. Individuals in society can no longer decide what is right and what is wrong. This turns them into beings that act with animal and self-interested instincts, as if grotesquely fulfilling Nietzsche’s call for a “revaluation of values.”

In this context, Michel Foucault’s analysis of the relationship between knowledge and power should also be remembered. According to Foucault, knowledge is both a tool and a product of power. When the means of accessing knowledge are cut off with blindness, individuals lose their autonomy and fall under the dominance of more powerful and cruel individuals in the power vacuum. Blindness is thus both a physical and epistemological loss of power.

Man’s Return to His Primitive Instincts

The process of decline described by Saramago can also be read with the conflict between civilization and impulses described by Sigmund Freud in his work The Discontent of Civilization. According to Freud, civilization exists by suppressing the aggressive and hedonistic impulses of the individual. Since blindness eliminates these suppression mechanisms, the primitive impulses of the id (in Freud’s words) are released. People no longer act with the ethical principles guided by the superego, but with the naked instinct of survival.

Community and the Dispersion of Meaning

In Martin Heidegger’s ontology, humans exist in the world as Dasein (being there). However, Saramago’s blind characters lose this integrity of meaning. Not being able to see the face of others also eliminates the relationship of confrontation and responsibility. When considered within the framework of Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophy of “the face of the other,” seeing the face is the basis of the ethical relationship. It becomes difficult to establish a responsible relationship with someone whose face you cannot see. This eliminates the ethical obligation that a person feels towards the other.