Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

COMMENTARY

Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye
Are there beams and motes in peoples’ eyes? Yes. Do these foreign elements obscure peoples’ vision, give them faulty beliefs, and make them perceive a reality that is separate from truth? Yes. And when people believe these false paradigms are they going to be prone to behavior that harms both themselves and others? Yes.
Given all this, of course we want to help our brothers and sisters see more clearly.

First cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye
But here we come to the great irony. Each of us might very well hold just as delusional a perspective as the person we are trying to help. In fact, those of us who have beams in our eyes very often believe that beams are what you are supposed to see when your vision is clear.
It’s not wrong to want to make the world a better place, but if that means just making it better “according to us,” then we might not be improving it at all. As we’ll see tomorrow, there is a better way.