The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge. - Daniel J. Boorstin: The Discoverers: A Man’s Search to Know His Word and Himself
It is hard to be humble when one believes the secrets of life lay bare before them. It is harder yet not to evangelize - hoping, needing, requiring others to follow the enlightened path. The illusion of knowledge is a powerful, potent, and often costly assumption, rarely overcome. Fed by dogma, tradition, illusion, conceit, inapplicable confirmation, fervor, charm, fear, and delusions, a false sense of security is formed, placing the edified self above the ignorant, unwashed masses.
The world is becoming overwhelmingly complicated. It is harder, if not impossible, for individuals to evaluate complex information. We are too often duped to believe assertions masked as facts, commercials as news, and entertainment as evidence. I joke with friends that politics is better left to philosophers than to lawyers and businesspersons. Epistemology, a basic concern of philosophers, has become a leading impediment to consensus, and most Americans are unfamiliar with the word.
When you shout, “Fake News!” you are actually saying, “I challenge your epistemological framework!”
You didn’t know that? For a couple of decades, neither did I.
Lately, there has been a palpable contempt for knowledge. Those who wish to establish civil communication are ignored and belittled. Belief, passion, volume, and absurdity have dominated inquiry, discipline, cooperation, and insight. It was once an embarrassment to have been caught lying or trying to misrepresent. Now, it seems expected. Displaying ignorance is no disgrace; it’s a rallying cry to action. The louder, the cruder, the more disrespectful, the more the faithful feel served.
Please take time to read this from a man who was destroyed by ignorance, a martyr to stupidity gaining power, then depravity:
Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed – in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable, they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this, the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called for when dealing with a stupid person than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous. – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran minister, raised his voice in opposition to Hitler’s Reich and was executed on 9 April 1945, just days before the Flossenburg concentration camp was liberated, and three weeks before Hitler committed suicide. Evil, stupidity, and power had united, and Bonhoeffer, as well as the entire world, paid dearly.
What passes for knowledge? Do we care?
Epistemology.
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