Turn a Blind Eye

A convenient excuse for certain Admirals

Wikipedia Commons — Public Domain (edited by author)

Whether that be your dwindling bank balance, that hard to deal with child of yours, or anything else that seems more hassle than it’s worth, sometimes it’s better to ignore a problem rather than confront it.

This is what it means to “turn a blind eye”. To pretend not to see an issue, and choose to look the other way. This would usually, as in the examples above, be when there is something you disapprove of, and it is both beneficial and convenient to knowingly ignore the problem.

Not just blind eyes but also deaf ears

The origin of the phrase comes from a pairing with deaf ears, way back in 1698 (or at least that’s the earliest record of the phrase in print) via the English clergyman John Norris in his work A Discourse of Walking by Faith:

…to turn the deaf Ear, and the blind Eye to all those Pomps and Vanities of the World which we renounc’d at our Baptism…

Now, this isn’t used in the same form as we know the expression today, but the sentiment is the same. To turn a deaf ear and a blind eye: i.e. to ignore. In this context John Norris is telling the reader one must look the other way (and… hear, the other way, I suppose?) when it comes to sinful pleasures. Pretend they are not there. Simple as…