“The problem is ignorance. » Would I have heard this mantra, most often followed by the other usual incantation beginning with: “The school should…”
These clichés always have the same effect on me. The first of the two leads me first to think of all those people I knew and loved, who were ashamed of their lack of education and who were nevertheless exemplary humans while educated and cultured Nazis designed and implemented the final solution. The second painfully echoes my empathy for the teaching profession, who are constantly blamed for saving entire generations of little humans abandoned by a civilization of short-term profit and technological change.
Far be it from me to devalue knowledge, science, education. But it seems to me that a certain number of ideas inherited from the era rightly called “the Enlightenment” are no longer really there, as we have towards them the attitude of the believer who extinguishes his brilliance of truth by making it a dogma which is no longer debatable. Believe in science, in education, in technology, in progress? But isn’t believing in science a contradiction in terms?
Despite my propensity for doubt, I would like to state it here without nuance: the problem is not ignorance. The problem is not not knowing. No. The problem is believing you know. This belief is the problem. And this belief, the academic can be affected as much as the illiterate.
What do we know? What do we not know?
The universe being what it is, the extent of what is to be discovered is infinite. Consequently, so is our ignorance. Which amounts to saying that, on the side of ignorance, we are equal: each and every one, ignorant of an infinity of things. On the knowledge side, of course, it’s different. Some people know a lot more than others. Moreover, this disparity, this diversity and this complementarity of knowledge prove to be as essential as they are very useful.
But there is certainly nothing to be proud of or humbled by, between those who are more learned and those who are less knowledgeable; in the kingdom of the blind, one-eyed people remain one-eyed, even if they are made kings! And of all knowledge, is there one more precious than good manners, which is not particularly academic? We also remember that if this concept of good manners exists, it is because it implies the presence within the word live of another word: together. And this is the founding challenge of our species, which is as gregarious as it is predatory.
I don’t know.
These four words form neither a mantra nor an incantation, but one of the most beautiful sentences that can be uttered by this anxious show-off that is the human being. I don’t know. When said sincerely, this short sentence is the most powerful sesame to resound before the cavern of all knowledge closed by the stone of our beliefs. These four brief words bring forth the frail candle that defines darkness.
What is saying I don’t know, other than silence? And it is in this silence that we will finally be able to hear. That we will let a little light, movement, the intuitive, the other, trace the path to us. The taste for discovery, the desire to know, the desire to understand will finally have free rein!
All this being said, it is easy to understand the origin of the phrase in quotation marks at the very beginning of this text… If, for example, you do not know the other person, this ignorance can actually encourage the emergence of distrust without foundation. But then all you need to do is get to know each other: I don’t know who you are, you don’t know who I am, let’s introduce ourselves. With a little bit of good will, the thing is very simple. The problem, I repeat, is believing you know. The ignorant person who thinks he knows will project his a priori and prejudices onto the other, who becomes nothing more than a support for fantasies.
Any point of view is valid and enlightening, to the extent that it admits what it is: an incomplete vision characterized by a particular posture, angle, moment. It can of course contribute, in this capacity, to the knowledge and understanding of reality. Collaborate. No more no less. However, we are an anxious species whose individuals are very keen to be right: the thing is reassuring, comfortable and very economical mentally speaking. It is neither speaking nor intellectualizing that is most tiring, it is questioning what we believe: reflection. People with little education are, however, entirely capable of doing so, while some scholars struggle to achieve it, often out of attachment to a heavy body of knowledge, the acquisition of which demanded a lot from them. Nevertheless, the quest for truth, justice and beauty comes at this price.
Patriarchy, clearly, has not finished its crackdown in this area: it is allowing its spores to deeply colonize the world of thought. What does the patriarchy have to do with this? I agree with you, it deserves an explanation.
The phrase which is, in my opinion, the most representative of patriarchy, its cornerstone, is uttered very ingenuously in a successful film from the 1980s (the entertaining Highlander), and it’s “There can only be One”! The meaning of this phrase which was first genetic (a single progenitor) became political (a single leader) before religious (a single god) then philosophical and scientific. Because this sentence pollutes both science and all reflection, by dangling the dream of an univocal, exclusive truth. In short, “there can only be One”! The refusal of nuance prevalent in our time illustrates this eloquently. And sadly. Besides, seen from this angle, even wokism is patriarchal slag!
This is perhaps why I wanted to praise today this precious state of grace and openness: the translucent ignorance, happy and full of appetite in the face of the infinite to discover. As Pierre Bertrand sang in a famous song by Beau Dommage, speaking of the birds of the undergrowth: “I don’t know them by their names. Made me sit down without saying a word. »
This is somewhat similar to Rainer Maria Rilke’s advice to the young poet: be in front of this tree like the first man facing the first of trees. This ignorance leads to wonder and then to encounter. Let us not make her responsible for the errors of those who think they know so much that they demand the silence of others. AndConversely, let us not make a panacea either of the acquisition of an academic corpus or even of the scientific method. The latter has given us infinitely, it is undeniable and it will remain so. However, the isolated knowledge that it produces is not unrelated to the current chaos either.
But I think about it: shouldn’t an important academic background enrich this state of open and self-conscious ignorance?