Ignorance is a relative (and perhaps dangerous) measurement. To many people, I remain ignorant (about so many "facts" and "experiences"), but when I am in the company of others, those others are the ones who are ignorant (about other "facts" and "experiences"). Is there anyone who is "above" ignorance? No. Is there anyone who is absolutely, completely ignorant? Possibly. The relative label (Ignorance) is potentially dangerous because it exalts some people and marginalizes others based on some arbitrary standard(s) of what kinds of "facts" and "experiences" are essential or desired. To my mind, the best approach is to accept one's own ignorance and strive constantly and tirelessly to chip away at it by acquiring more "experiences" and learning (and especially understanding) more "facts." That, by the way, is simply another way of saying: live and learn.
Good point, R.T., differentiating between "facts" and "experience." A lot of "knowledge" is merely an aggregation of "facts," many of which can be debatable and, therefore, not exactly facts at all. Which is why wisdom is so much more important than mere knowledge. As Eliot put it: The only wisdom we can hope to acquire Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.
I feel a bit out of my depth here. I'm sure that, eg, the Spanish Inquisition, the religious oppressions of the Tudors and Stuarts, Attila the Hun, the goths/visigoths, the Crusaders, et al. all "thought" they were right, but in fact they were all deeply ignorant, as is anyone who resorts to violence and force. It's true that ideas take time to become generally accepted and that establishments of various kinds often cling to notions of correctness or knowledge for too long. But, on the other hand, you can also point to plenty of incorrect ideas that people feel equally knowledgeable about, even though they are wrong (astrology, autism/vaccines, etc). I find it impossible to generalise on this topic.
Oh, you're not out of your depth at all, Maxine. You ask the interesting questions. In fact, it may well be impossible for any of us to generalize on the subject, precisely because our knowledge tends to be so hemmed in by circumstance. There are probably all sorts of things we feel certain of today that future generations will roll their eyes over or simply deplore - as we deplore the false certainties of the inquisitors.
Interesting that you would end with a Jeffers quote. Few poets would be better suited to support your thesis, in their viewpoints. Jeffers was acutely aware of how small we are, how little we know; his explicit philosophical position was to remind humans that we're not the sum and pinnacle of creation, but rather small participants in it.
My viewpoint on your topic, which is from a slightly different angle, is that I have long formulated for myself the principle that ignorance is forgivable, because it can be reduced, but WILLFUL ignorance is almost never forgivable. The kind of willful ignorance and denial of another's human rights is what is necessary for making war; Mark Twain's "The War Prayer" still says this better than anyone else ever has. You must make yourself willfully ignorant of the humanity of others before you can destroy them. (A point jeffers also made, BTW.)
No one, following up on Maxine's point, can think themselves in the right, and have the right to wage war, unless they have chosen to become ignorant of the alternative rightness of others, and deny them the same humanity granted oneself. You have to choose to deny others the same rights you demand for yourselves: you have to choose the regard the enemy as sub-human.
Those who claim an essentialist argument—they really ARE sub-human, that argument goes—would deny that their denial is a choice. But they are proved wrong every time a dissident member within their own ranks self-educates herself enough about the Enemy to have developed even a modicum of empathy. The essentialist argument is disproved simply by the fact that education DOES dispel ignorance, even willful ignorance.
Willful ignorance is always a choice, in other words. And that's why it's so unforgivable.
The distinction you draw, Art, is similar to the one the Catholic Church draws between vincible and invincible ignorance, the former being ignorance you are fully capable of doing something about if you'd take the time and trouble - and be honest. But I think a problem of scale tends to enter into discussions like this. It is easy to deplore violence when we think of it in terms of world war. But war itself is simply violence on a grand scale. The question of violence is actually best looked at from the perspective of the individual. In the schoolyard, I think most of us will recall, there is usually someone who tries to be the bully. If one allows oneself to be bullied, one effectively places oneself in bondage. Translate that to the geopolitical arena and one can see that, while war may be bad - having someone slice through your abdomen and remove a diseased organ ain't no fun either - but may be necessary in order to prevent something worse. I cannot see what plausible alternative there was to waging war against Hitler. To return to the individual scale, if someone tries to mug me on the street, I am not going to try and open up a dialogue with him. I'm going to use whatever means are at my disposal to take him out. And if I succeed - and this is something else we must acknowledge about violence - I am going to feel exhilarated. Because violence can be thrilling. After a fight, whether you win or lose, you are usually as high as a kite from the adrenalin rush. Maybe we should look back to the Greeks for insight into war. They knew it was bad. But they knew a god was behind it. And so had a certain reverence for what can only be called its mystery. This is a view widely at variance with today's comfortable society, in which we think everything is up for negotiation (odd how so many people who deplore "capitalism" seem to think that everything can be bargained). But it may be more in touch with reality.
"Maybe we should look back to the Greeks for insight into war. They knew it was bad. But they knew a god was behind it. And so had a certain reverence for what can only be called its mystery. "
I'm in total agreement with this. And it also is a better way of looking at war than the essentialist argument that "all males are aggressive," etc., that whole masculine ideology complex. None of which I have ever found particularly convincing, as there have always been too many exceptions.
Having Ares as a mysterious force that cannot be denied also makes more sense, in that women can be also prone to violence, so it's not only men. It's human, it's divine.
I think there is something archetypal and inexplicable about all this: indeed, a Mystery. Even if Ares is only a mask of the an archetype, one face of the inner world's mysterious drive, it still makes more sense than many other explanations.
The point you make about the scale of world war vs. the school playground is a valid point. And yet I don't see standing up to the bully with necessary violence as being fundamentally different than standing up to totalitarian dictators such as Hitler and Mussolini with necessary violence. It is indeed a matter of scale; but morally those are not really different impulses.
Having studied martial arts, having been bullied as a boy, and eventually learning to fight back, I acknowledge that overcoming a mugger, as I have done once or twice in my life, did make me feel exhiliarated—but that was mostly physiological, the rush of andrenaline. I didn't take pleasure from it, then or after. In fact, once the andrenaline wore off, I threw up.
So I want to be clear that there is an important distinction between the physiological high that arises from the exertion of self-defense, and the ethical "high" that I feel when I am able to practice non-violence effectively.
Which leads me back to willful ignorance. I find it impossible to accept that violent solutions are necessary in all situations when we have such a strong record of wise spiritual teachers showing us explicitly how to enact change using non-violent means. Gandhi, Dr. King, Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, are only a few of the names that come to mind.
I don't see governments embracing these teachings except of course when it's expedient, or to pay them lip service as a way of projecting peaceful intentions geopolitically. (In other words, for often cynical reasons.) Non-violence remains a largely bottom-up, populist, street-level movement; perhaps that's the natural order of things.
Nonetheless, the dynamic of power-with rather than power-over has led to at least as much global social change as has waging war. Arguably, more.
So, if we treat war as willful ignorance, which I think it is—and this says nothing about the why of war but is mostly about the how—it remains a lesser solution than other means. Sometimes it's a necessity, from bullies to global genocidal bullies. But if we turn it into something we love, if we "sell" the war as something good when it's not (really, comparing Saddam to Hitler was great for rallying the troops but hardly a realistic comparison), if we turn to jingoistic patriotism to force social concensus (the "war" of disinformation and propaganda), if we lie to ourselves about why and how we're engaging in war (where WERE those WMDs?), and if we engage in war for preemptive rather than defensive reasons—then indeed war is willful ignorance, and unforgivable, and wrong.
Andre Malraux wrote fabulously about the governmental expediency/non-violence paradox in his "Anti-Memoirs," which includes long discussions of how both Nehru and de Gaulle dealt with this issue. I recommend Malraux highly on this topic.
I think we're pretty much in agreement here, Art. And yrs, there is no fundamental difference between standing up to the bully and standing up to Hitler. I also don;t think governments are ever going to be inclined to follow non-violence. I think of that as counsel of perfection pursued by individuals. As for those WMDs, I read the Kay the and Duelfer reports. There were no stockpiles because stockpiles were no longer necessary, because a program was in place that could enable their manufacture in the same amount of time it would take to mobilize in the first place. This was an important development that the media could have reported more accurately than it (I used to work in arms control and disarmament). One thing this means is that the world is in fact a more dangerous place than we thought. The belief that there were stockpiles was shared by every major intelligence service in the world - the only reputable sources of information. They were wrong. To be wrong is not to lie, however, and to call someone a liar for being wrong is intellectually dishonest - and does not advance the debate. But that is how political debate has lately devolved. I confess I may be more naturally violent than you. Though I've lost as many fights as I've won, I've always kind of enjoyed it.
Ignorance is a relative (and perhaps dangerous) measurement. To many people, I remain ignorant (about so many "facts" and "experiences"), but when I am in the company of others, those others are the ones who are ignorant (about other "facts" and "experiences"). Is there anyone who is "above" ignorance? No. Is there anyone who is absolutely, completely ignorant? Possibly. The relative label (Ignorance) is potentially dangerous because it exalts some people and marginalizes others based on some arbitrary standard(s) of what kinds of "facts" and "experiences" are essential or desired. To my mind, the best approach is to accept one's own ignorance and strive constantly and tirelessly to chip away at it by acquiring more "experiences" and learning (and especially understanding) more "facts." That, by the way, is simply another way of saying: live and learn.
ReplyDeleteGood point, R.T., differentiating between "facts" and "experience." A lot of "knowledge" is merely an aggregation of "facts," many of which can be debatable and, therefore, not exactly facts at all. Which is why wisdom is so much more important than mere knowledge. As Eliot put it:
ReplyDeleteThe only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.
I feel a bit out of my depth here. I'm sure that, eg, the Spanish Inquisition, the religious oppressions of the Tudors and Stuarts, Attila the Hun, the goths/visigoths, the Crusaders, et al. all "thought" they were right, but in fact they were all deeply ignorant, as is anyone who resorts to violence and force.
ReplyDeleteIt's true that ideas take time to become generally accepted and that establishments of various kinds often cling to notions of correctness or knowledge for too long. But, on the other hand, you can also point to plenty of incorrect ideas that people feel equally knowledgeable about, even though they are wrong (astrology, autism/vaccines, etc). I find it impossible to generalise on this topic.
Oh, you're not out of your depth at all, Maxine. You ask the interesting questions. In fact, it may well be impossible for any of us to generalize on the subject, precisely because our knowledge tends to be so hemmed in by circumstance. There are probably all sorts of things we feel certain of today that future generations will roll their eyes over or simply deplore - as we deplore the false certainties of the inquisitors.
ReplyDeleteInteresting that you would end with a Jeffers quote. Few poets would be better suited to support your thesis, in their viewpoints. Jeffers was acutely aware of how small we are, how little we know; his explicit philosophical position was to remind humans that we're not the sum and pinnacle of creation, but rather small participants in it.
ReplyDeleteMy viewpoint on your topic, which is from a slightly different angle, is that I have long formulated for myself the principle that ignorance is forgivable, because it can be reduced, but WILLFUL ignorance is almost never forgivable. The kind of willful ignorance and denial of another's human rights is what is necessary for making war; Mark Twain's "The War Prayer" still says this better than anyone else ever has. You must make yourself willfully ignorant of the humanity of others before you can destroy them. (A point jeffers also made, BTW.)
No one, following up on Maxine's point, can think themselves in the right, and have the right to wage war, unless they have chosen to become ignorant of the alternative rightness of others, and deny them the same humanity granted oneself. You have to choose to deny others the same rights you demand for yourselves: you have to choose the regard the enemy as sub-human.
Those who claim an essentialist argument—they really ARE sub-human, that argument goes—would deny that their denial is a choice. But they are proved wrong every time a dissident member within their own ranks self-educates herself enough about the Enemy to have developed even a modicum of empathy. The essentialist argument is disproved simply by the fact that education DOES dispel ignorance, even willful ignorance.
Willful ignorance is always a choice, in other words. And that's why it's so unforgivable.
The distinction you draw, Art, is similar to the one the Catholic Church draws between vincible and invincible ignorance, the former being ignorance you are fully capable of doing something about if you'd take the time and trouble - and be honest. But I think a problem of scale tends to enter into discussions like this. It is easy to deplore violence when we think of it in terms of world war. But war itself is simply violence on a grand scale. The question of violence is actually best looked at from the perspective of the individual. In the schoolyard, I think most of us will recall, there is usually someone who tries to be the bully. If one allows oneself to be bullied, one effectively places oneself in bondage. Translate that to the geopolitical arena and one can see that, while war may be bad - having someone slice through your abdomen and remove a diseased organ ain't no fun either - but may be necessary in order to prevent something worse. I cannot see what plausible alternative there was to waging war against Hitler. To return to the individual scale, if someone tries to mug me on the street, I am not going to try and open up a dialogue with him. I'm going to use whatever means are at my disposal to take him out. And if I succeed - and this is something else we must acknowledge about violence - I am going to feel exhilarated. Because violence can be thrilling. After a fight, whether you win or lose, you are usually as high as a kite from the adrenalin rush. Maybe we should look back to the Greeks for insight into war. They knew it was bad. But they knew a god was behind it. And so had a certain reverence for what can only be called its mystery. This is a view widely at variance with today's comfortable society, in which we think everything is up for negotiation (odd how so many people who deplore "capitalism" seem to think that everything can be bargained). But it may be more in touch with reality.
ReplyDelete"Maybe we should look back to the Greeks for insight into war. They knew it was bad. But they knew a god was behind it. And so had a certain reverence for what can only be called its mystery. "
ReplyDeleteI'm in total agreement with this. And it also is a better way of looking at war than the essentialist argument that "all males are aggressive," etc., that whole masculine ideology complex. None of which I have ever found particularly convincing, as there have always been too many exceptions.
Having Ares as a mysterious force that cannot be denied also makes more sense, in that women can be also prone to violence, so it's not only men. It's human, it's divine.
I think there is something archetypal and inexplicable about all this: indeed, a Mystery. Even if Ares is only a mask of the an archetype, one face of the inner world's mysterious drive, it still makes more sense than many other explanations.
The point you make about the scale of world war vs. the school playground is a valid point. And yet I don't see standing up to the bully with necessary violence as being fundamentally different than standing up to totalitarian dictators such as Hitler and Mussolini with necessary violence. It is indeed a matter of scale; but morally those are not really different impulses.
Having studied martial arts, having been bullied as a boy, and eventually learning to fight back, I acknowledge that overcoming a mugger, as I have done once or twice in my life, did make me feel exhiliarated—but that was mostly physiological, the rush of andrenaline. I didn't take pleasure from it, then or after. In fact, once the andrenaline wore off, I threw up.
So I want to be clear that there is an important distinction between the physiological high that arises from the exertion of self-defense, and the ethical "high" that I feel when I am able to practice non-violence effectively.
Which leads me back to willful ignorance. I find it impossible to accept that violent solutions are necessary in all situations when we have such a strong record of wise spiritual teachers showing us explicitly how to enact change using non-violent means. Gandhi, Dr. King, Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, are only a few of the names that come to mind.
I don't see governments embracing these teachings except of course when it's expedient, or to pay them lip service as a way of projecting peaceful intentions geopolitically. (In other words, for often cynical reasons.) Non-violence remains a largely bottom-up, populist, street-level movement; perhaps that's the natural order of things.
Nonetheless, the dynamic of power-with rather than power-over has led to at least as much global social change as has waging war. Arguably, more.
So, if we treat war as willful ignorance, which I think it is—and this says nothing about the why of war but is mostly about the how—it remains a lesser solution than other means. Sometimes it's a necessity, from bullies to global genocidal bullies. But if we turn it into something we love, if we "sell" the war as something good when it's not (really, comparing Saddam to Hitler was great for rallying the troops but hardly a realistic comparison), if we turn to jingoistic patriotism to force social concensus (the "war" of disinformation and propaganda), if we lie to ourselves about why and how we're engaging in war (where WERE those WMDs?), and if we engage in war for preemptive rather than defensive reasons—then indeed war is willful ignorance, and unforgivable, and wrong.
Andre Malraux wrote fabulously about the governmental expediency/non-violence paradox in his "Anti-Memoirs," which includes long discussions of how both Nehru and de Gaulle dealt with this issue. I recommend Malraux highly on this topic.
I think we're pretty much in agreement here, Art. And yrs, there is no fundamental difference between standing up to the bully and standing up to Hitler. I also don;t think governments are ever going to be inclined to follow non-violence. I think of that as counsel of perfection pursued by individuals. As for those WMDs, I read the Kay the and Duelfer reports. There were no stockpiles because stockpiles were no longer necessary, because a program was in place that could enable their manufacture in the same amount of time it would take to mobilize in the first place. This was an important development that the media could have reported more accurately than it (I used to work in arms control and disarmament). One thing this means is that the world is in fact a more dangerous place than we thought. The belief that there were stockpiles was shared by every major intelligence service in the world - the only reputable sources of information. They were wrong. To be wrong is not to lie, however, and to call someone a liar for being wrong is intellectually dishonest - and does not advance the debate. But that is how political debate has lately devolved.
ReplyDeleteI confess I may be more naturally violent than you. Though I've lost as many fights as I've won, I've always kind of enjoyed it.