On Ignorance

I was party to an interesting conversation the other day and it centered on a theme that I’ve heard before in various places and by many people. It goes something like this according to the proponent:

If I don’t understand how something works, then nobody does and nobody can. Anyone who says they do understand this can’t be right and is therefore not to be trusted.

-A corollary of the above statement may also often be this: -And although I’ve nothing but hearsay and (wild) speculation to back up my position, I won’t try to find out if I’m wrong or if they’re right.

This sort of perspective can relate to any number of topics and in my experience, is extremely difficult to change. Adopting a different perspective would necessarily entail acknowledging ignorance in that area and accepting that someone else may know a great deal more about the topic of interest and that that’s okay.

For some people this different approach is a wonderful perspective to have as it allows one to challenge oneself to learn more. How else can one expect to learn and grow unless one recognizes that they don’t know everything and that they don’t need to be personally threatened by someone who knows more than they do?

As in the conversation I listened to, this can present serious challenges for the knowledgeable party who must inform (for various reasons) a less knowledgeable person about the relevant topic. If this occurs in an academic situation, usually no one bats an eye, as this is the typical state of affairs between an instructor and a student, but out in the public sphere authority isn’t so easily granted and may be challenged even when it is deserved. How to answer that challenge without making a bad situation worse may take no small amount of finesse or the challenge may be dismissed or avoided altogether. Sometimes, it’s just not worth it.