It’s All About What You Know

Tags

ignorance, knowledge, shit I learned, stupid

As a self-described political satirist and all-around commentator on the human condition, I confess to spending an inordinate amount of time talking about stupid people.
Now, let’s define our terms here.

Stupid stands alone as a condition not susceptible of being fixed. One is born stupid, lives stupid and dies stupid. Moreover as John Cleese explained, and actual real serious studies confirm, stupid people are so stupid they don’t know they are stupid. The set of skills needed to assess ones relative “smartness” are sadly lacking.

Ignorance is a quite different thing, though I think most people take offense at being called ignoramuses. They should not, since ignorance is something we all share as to many many things. Ignorance is merely lacking knowledge on a particular subject. Ignorance, therefore, can be cured as to any particular thing, merely by acquiring the necessary information.

But what kind of information?

Ahh, there is the rub, as Shakespeare would say.

Which leads to the focus of this essay–the propensity of us humans to become angry at those who express ideas and act in ways that denote lack of knowledge of a subject. I’m here to tell you that you should not. I should not. No one should.

One can go back to Epictetus for the proposition. Perhaps it was known before him, I am ignorant of knowing before Epictetus.

Epictetus argued, (I would say successfully), that no human acts deliberately for the bad. The bad you say? What is that? Let us begin with the premise that there is good and there is bad. It is generally good to not harm people for instance. The devil is in the details as they say. As it any particular person we might disagree. It might be considered by some people to be “good” to kill a tyrant. Others might disagree. But we all agree that a norm is that people should not be harmed.

So, to a great degree, when we talk about specifics, what is good or bad is somewhat subjective.

Does that mean it is arbitrary?

No, of course not. The decision to define something as good or bad depends on the amount and the quality of information possessed. That’s where all the argument comes in. I say that you have made a poor decision about X because you have received either inaccurate or insufficient information. You might say the same of me.

When you include more and more people, a consensus is arrived at as to whether a particular thing is good or bad. It may not be correct, this consensus, however, since a minority might very well possess the better argument, the better data.

What else is at work?

All the panoply of “stuff” that make up the human condition. Our desires, our experiences, our fears, our goals. All impact how important that “good” is to us and thus how resistant it is to being overcome by newer and better data. The stupid person can probably never overcome his emotional lock on a particular belief as being good or bad, while an ignorant one can be brought to a point of discarding her belief in favor of one truer.

Deepak Chopra said the same thing in one of his books. I recall it as something like, “each person is doing the very best they can given their level of knowledge.” It is of course no different from Epictetus.

You may claim no, some people are born bad, and choose bad because it is their nature.

Are you sure of that? I believe that to be a convenient lie we tell ourselves. It allows us to hate whom we hate, and to kill whom we wish to kill or otherwise put them out of our way. American prisons are chock full of people we have “given up on”.

Let’s take a couple of examples.

A young man slips a gun into his waistband and leaves his home to head for the corner where he will sell drugs for the afternoon. If confronted in the wrong fashion, he may well shoot at someone to defend his “turf”. Is this youngster acting deliberately badly?

I would argue no.

He is making a decision that based on all he knows (limited as that might be), this is the best means to attain his goal–living his life in some acceptable manner. The funds he acquires from his trade of drugs for cash affords him money for food, lodging, clothing, and leisure activities. He acquires, among some subset of humans, “status”. He acquires some modicum of power over unarmed persons he comes upon should he choose to exercise it. He has concluded that either his school offers no real education, and even if it does, there are no jobs suitable that would give him the above in an equal measure. He has reasoned that his neighborhood is dangerous and if he is unarmed he faces the real possibility of death.

He has made all these assessments more unconsciously than not perhaps, but they are hardly unreasonable. Given more information, he might not make these choices, but others that we, who have not his experiences consider more “good.” But he is probably not stupid, just ignorant of a series of truths that can and would alter his calculus.

Let’s look at another example: Sean Hannity

Hannity is one of the more egregious cases of Fox News “journalism”, a form of journalism in which actual truth plays little part, but where a point of view is underpinned  with  weak facts, and assumptions to support one  political ideology over another.

Hannity has been caught selectively editing film to say exactly the opposite from what the taped statement actually said. He twists facts, ignores others, mis-states others, and berates anyone who attempts to introduce other facts that go against his desired meme.

Does he do this deliberately? Probably.

So he is actively pursuing the false? Don’t we agree that that would be a normative “bad?”

Yes, it would, but Hannity I am sure believes he serves a higher purpose. I suspect in his mind, he believes that the average viewer is incapable of understanding and is without the “insider” information he possesses. They must be appealed to viscerally rather than intellectually and led rather than informed. Hannity himself is part of that small cadre who “knows” what must be done, knows what is best for the country and world, and can’t take a chance that you, his viewer will be confused. For after all, you are tuning in for an hour, while he is living this “issue” all day, every day.

A Hannity can’t be convinced by better information, because of these hidden assumptions. He can only be “corrected” if his other assumptions about his own relative insider view of the world is changed. In other words, He would have to lose his arrogant assumptions about his relative worth vis-a-vis the “masses” in the world. Hannity is not a man to be hated, but rather one to be pitied. He lives and is content in his own delusions.

What does all this mean in the end? Not much, other than perhaps a lowering of one’s own blood pressure.

When confronted with the wrong-minded I can relax knowing that:

1. They might be purely stupid, in which case, there is nothing any mortal can do about it. Move on.
2. They are ignorant but happy in their ignorance because it satisfies their emotional needs as they view the world, in which case, they are to be pitied. Move on.
3. They are ignorant because no one has yet provided them with the additional information they need to change their opinion. Step in and offer them what you know and where they might obtain more.
4. Learn to discern which of the above is applicable. A few conversations should suffice.

There is only one caveat. Even if talking with a stupid person, if you are in a public forum, do continue. Many people are listening, and some of them, perhaps only one, is paying attention. You can change the world, one person at a time.

From Whence Comes Wisdom?

Tags

Dalai Lama, God, knowledge, psychology, wisdom

Last night, the Contrarian and I sat down to watch a documentary on the “lost years” of Jesus. As most of you know, nothing at all is known about the life of Jesus from age 12-30 or so. The bible is completely silent. There has been much theorizing of course, and there has been talk that he journeyed to the East, and India where he studied and lived in the Buddhist or Hindu monasteries.

The show turned out to be not very good, casting no real light on the subject at all. It ended up being nothing but innuendo and guessing, and somebody claims they saw, and stuff like that. At one point, at a Monastery in India a claim was made that the Dalai Lama had at one time seen the actual documents wherein Jesus time there was described.

The Dalai Lama disputed this fact, claiming no information whatsoever, but when on to talk about how all religions everywhere teach basic concepts of love, compassion, tolerance, forgiveness, and so on. He went on to remark that we must be about the business of reconciling among ourselves because we have this basic structure in common.

To make a long story short, the Contrarian wondered, “The Dalai Lama is undoubtedly a very wise man, yet is there any way to inculcate wisdom? Surely they taught him well from childhood, but just as surely wisdom does not necessarily emanate from knowledge.”

For those of you who are a bit rusty, when a Dalai Lama dies, his replacement is sought, and is found normally within three years  in a suitable infant, usually from Tibet. A number of tests are done to “insure” that this is the reincarnated Dalai Lama. If so, the child and parents are moved to a place where the child receives the necessary instruction to take on his new role.

Is it mere luck that this wonderful Dalai Lama is graced with wisdom? I am not sure, but I began to think about what might be the foundation of wisdom. Surely knowledge and education are most useful, but they are not required surely. Everyone has heard it said, that “he is wise beyond his years” and plenty of folks have met someone who is not educated, but still wise.

I turned to the bible for help, and in the Wisdom of Solomon, I found:

The beginning of wisdom is the most sincere desire for instruction. (6:17)

For she is a reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of his goodness. (7:26)

and in Sirach,

All wisdom is from the Lord, and with him it remains forever. (1:1)

Wisdom comes from God, which certainly makes sense as we would all agree (at least all believers) that God is the most wise. And in being wise, we reflect God as in a spotless mirror.

But Solomon says that it involves the “desire” for knowledge, not actual knowledge, and that seems key to me.

Wisdom I believe comes to those who look beyond themselves to the greater world around them. They “desire” to understand the world. The look, listen, think. They watch. They examine. They compare and contrast. They are “present” in the world, experiencing it fully.

In doing so, they begin to see the patterns, how things fit together, how relationships are built and grow, how they wither and die. How to avoid pain, how to grow from it. How to teach and how to learn. They see, all this and more.

They are the folks who are not the life of the party but still totally engaged. They are delighted in the delight of others, sharing but also calculating what moves others forward or back, into intimacy or withdrawal. They draw the conclusions. They predate the experiments and psychological and sociological papers detailing the results of studies. They have already seen the results, because they pay attention.

Most of us are not wise, though some of us would like to be. I am not sure that most people wouldn’t rather be rich or famous or “learned” in some field. They are in a nutshell students of humanity. But not just humanity for they see beyond humanity to human relationships with things and other living things. They see the rhythms of life if you will, the give and take, the peace and violence, the tit for tat that makes up the mosaic we call life.

Plainly, they “get it.” We like to hear their wisdom, but frankly, I think we most often look for some personal advantage in what they say, rather than the beauty of the truth they expound. There isn’t much “money” in wisdom.

There is peace in wisdom I think. Plenty of us would desire that, but desire is as far as most of us get, because wisdom isn’t easy. It’s painstakingly hard I think. It means not being number one and front and center. It means lurking at the edges. It means plenty of solitude and internal work.

It seems tailor made for monks and such. No one will ever accuse Donald Trump with being wise. Jimmy Carter may be there, or nearly so.

I would like to be, in fact I would  consider it just about the best compliment. But I’m not sure how wise people respond to compliments. Humility seems the cornerstone of wisdom too.

It’s a puzzling thought, wisdom. Elusive, elegant, wispy. But somehow, to me at least, it is something to strive for. Listen more, speak less, learn.

Whom do you find wise?

No Knowledge to be Found

Tags

critics, knowledge, logic, Poetry, W.S. Merwin

I’ve never been one to let the lack of knowledge stand in the way of an opinion. After all, speculation is a time honored pursuit. I would agree, that in some circumstances it might be prudent to announce before hand that one is engaging in the fancies of one’s own mind rather than relying on actual known facts. This is especially so for brain surgery, mountain climbing and plane flying.

Nothing brings more satisfaction that working a problem out logically, only to later find that you were indeed right. But the penalty for being wrong is not much more than a shrug of the shoulders, so the practice continues. I recall one day a number of lawyers sat in an office and ruminated about a set of facts. We all agreed, after much discussion, that the logical result was X. Of course we were quite wrong as it turned out. Law, alas is not well known for being logical, created that way, no doubt, to keep lawyers in business.

Which leads to another conclusion, or the first conclusion, whatever. And that is, that the same set of facts can logically lead to more than one logical result. One would think not, but it seems so. There are rather famous syllogisms that prove that rather clearly.

Which leads to the topic of the day, poetry. Yes, I’m sure you had already guessed that, being the logical creature you no doubt are. Poetry is illogical to me, always has been, and more importantly, it made me feel stupid, like I was the only one in the room who didn’t get the punch line.

Yes, yes, I get the simplistic poetry, the stuff that all rhymes and even I can compose. It’s that weird stuff that seems to have words willy nilly shoved together, bumping against each other in no discernible order or, dare I say, logic. I read it furiously, then grimace, then set it down, carefully looking around to make sure nobody has seen me. God forbid they should ask, “what did you think of that?” All I could say would be the mumbling, “oh, deep, very deep. Makes one think. I’ll have to ponder long before I can follow the extensions to their ends.”  Saying nothing, while saying enough to bring a nod of agreement. Ain’t language grand?

Then I learned. Or more particularly had it explained to me. It might have made some sense to the poet, or maybe not. Maybe he just liked the flow of the words, and the juxtaposition of certain phrases. But to you, the reader, it means whatever it means. It can conjure up any thought, memory or idea. There is no right or wrong. It’s meant to evoke, not make a statement.

At least some of it. I recall a prose writer or two being asked about the meaning, metaphor and allegory present in their work. “Never meant any of that,” they often insist. Such is the stuff of the literary critic, those who have created a way to make a living out of doing something unreal–telling the world what X “meant.” I’ve said the same about the art critic. Pretty much the same applies to the movie critic. You see the pattern here no doubt?

Last night we watched an interview with W.S. Merwin on Bill Moyer’s Journal. Bill kept asking, “this line, what did you mean?” and Merwin continued to reply, with something rather inane and simplistic and then turn it back on Bill, “what did it mean to you?”

Which when you think of it, is a pretty good gig. I mean, scramble and line up a bunch of words in pleasant sounding array. Then use a gimmick if possible, no capital letters, or in Merwin’s case, no punctuation. Paste a title on it that may or may not be mentioned anywhere in the piece, and voila’, a poem has emerged. Nice way to make a living, if you can do this in a way that makes people “feel” something. If not, then don’t quit your day job.

Merwin, it seems confirms my suspicions when he says that poetry emerges from what we don’t know. (See, I told you that I would connect it all up for ya!) And that also seems to be true, since we are about the business of evoking wispy feelings and thoughts, disconnected “present” moments of time. We get led to ponder the great mysteries of life as it were, and by definition, there is no “knowledge” only questions and tangents to follow to new forks in the road.

So, it all makes for a good way to wile away the hours. I’ve done it with prose, which I find an easier medium. Have I succeeded?