Final Paper Part II: On Knowledge and Ignorance

One of the greatest obstacles for us to achieve anything is overcoming overcoming our own heart and mind.  In other words, the reason why we don't do things is because... we don't actually start doing things.  Motivation and passion are key to getting anything done.  It has been said the the hardest part of anything is getting started in the first place, but not even that is entirely true.  Think about how many people sign up for gym memberships during the new year, and promptly drop it soon after.  There’s so many things that prevent us from doing what we want to do that are completely internal. Our shame, anxiety, fear, laziness, apathy, weariness, and so much more.

Of these many roadblocks that hold us back, one of the greatest I would argue, is ignorance.  Ignorance is bliss, and it is the root cause of so many issues with humanity.  As Socrates once put it, 

  

Now, we’re rather free to interpret what he might be trying to say here, especially in what the bounds of “knowledge” and “ignorance” happen to be.  As I’ve come to see it, it means all human error is in some way caused by ignorance in some form (in other words, evil’s existence is a purely human aspect, something that describes despised human actions).  This can all be summed up in one idea: a lack of understanding the world and its people.  We make bad decisions because we are ignorant of all of its consequences.  

I’ll put it like this, people would be a lot less likely to commit crimes or equivalents thereof if they could feel everything their victim could.  But chances are, they never get to even see or hear anything; chances are, they’ve gone far away, either mentally or physically, believing themselves justified in their actions. Would we be able to kill other human beings if we realized how much it would impact the lives of those that knew the deceased, if we felt the pain of dying?  Would we be so willing to belittle and berate others if we saw them as people, just like us?  Maybe we would jump at more opportunities if we realized how much we could gain from them.  Perhaps we would have less apprehensions if we could know what people would truly think of us, or if that matters at all.  Then, there’s another aspect of ignorance, not realizing the problems that plague the world, and the ways to solve them.  To say that people in general have an abysmal understanding of the world around them is a massive understatement (don’t look it up online, it’s depressing).  To be honest, I belonged in that group of people, I think that I still do.  Yet, ignorance is not an excuse for not being a citizen of planet Earth; not knowing a law exists doesn’t exempt you from being under it.  One of the greatest follies of mankind would be believing that all is right in the world, or being satisfied just because your own life is great.

Here's a practical example, let's take a look at the life of renowned abolitionist writer Frederick Douglass:

In his autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Douglass details his journey to learn to read and write, something that he believed would ultimately grant him the power not only to free himself, but both slave and slave owner from the dehumanizing effects of slavery.  It started when his master, Mr. Auld, forbade Mrs. Auld from teaching him with a harsh scolding.  In seeing how opposed his master was to him learning, he had "a new and special revelation... to wit, the white man's power to enslave the black man" (Douglass 330).  One of his future mistresses would also stop educating him, because she had (and by extension causing Douglass to find out) "that education and slavery were incompatible with each other" (Douglass 333).  The more that Douglass read, to more infuriated he became with his superiors and his situation, the better he could express feelings about the injustices he had suffered throughout his life.  Something that he realized was that those without knowledge could not rise above where they currently were, if they could even recognize that they were in a situation that was wrong in the first place.  How much are we blind to, how much more can we do, what is there to reach for beyond what we have now?

Besides this, there is something far more grave that must be addressed: about fear and paranoia, and how it breaks us apart.  We fear what we do not understand.  Whether we do it consciously or not, we like to stick to what is familiar and safe.  Just the other day I was considering what I wanted to eat for lunch.  What do you think I chose?  Even from a selection of dozens of items, I end up eating from the same select few things each and every week.  Chances are, you've probably been in the same situation in some way, shape or form.  Maybe you've watched a specific movie over another just because it was a genre you like, chose to stick to a particular daily routine even though there was something else you could have done, or maybe you too suffer from "I could try something different this week but... eh" syndrome.  While there is nothing wrong with the familiar (we all need to treat ourselves for our own well being), these sort of habits can ultimately end up being destructive.  They can close our minds from all the possibilities, and from all the people in our lives.  Our cliques and other close friend groups provide us with happiness and something comforting and familiar, yet it is also something that divides and separates us, prevents us from letting others in or expanding our own horizons.  Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken" is something very popular to quote when talking about diverging from society, but what about the two roads within ourselves?  In a slowly polarizing world, it is easy to see examples of misunderstanding, of not even just not even knowing exactly what the other side wants and why, but jumping to criticizing and belittlement.

What then, must we do, what can we do in this hostile world?
Diverging from the topic of "knowledge" for a bit, there is a more pressing issue that must be addressed beforehand, in the next part of this series: our own self worth and impact.

Next: The Ant Effect