elephants and Millions of Ants - I

1.

I do not know many things which I think I should know.

And I do know many things too which I think I should not know at all.

What should I know? And what should I not know as such?

The 'suchness' of things punch reality into the 'suchness of things'. That reality epistemologically is empirical and we take it for granted on a conservative scale of mind. But reality is not such a holy cow that should be worshipped for good without having pertinence to a frame of reference. Reality has its own frame of reference. Hegel says, attitude of thoughts determine the course and identity of reality and it is the prime mover of the dynamicity of history and historical reality. That is, attitude is the main thing and mainstay of dissecting reality to one's choice. And reality pays for it. Then what variant of reality I should know or I should not know?

So, as attitude is the main thing and determinant factor of our way of life, so our attitude only takes the saying power of what we should know and what we should not know at all about reality. We should know what our attitudes determine and what variant of attitude we generally cherish in our way of life so that we can accept reality as a thing-in-itself and as a thing-for-itself too as the case may be. To check reality whether it is a thing-in-itself or a thing-for-itself, we have to crosscheck our basic attitude.

Then, the subjective-objective duality aside, what is our general attitude per se? Attitude grossly is our vested interest and our vested interest is individual and universal as well depending on the objective of our interests. If it is individual, the individualistic attitude will create some closed space wherein lies our one and only ambition to create a set pattern of reality. In that set pattern, one determines the charter of his life. That life is individualistic and seeks for individual knowledge in quest of one's own vested interest in that set pattern. This opens a closed vista of power of knowledge, the knowledge that one knows is to reach him to a closed space allowing no opening for others. That is what individualistic knowledge is. One has the exclusive right over it and with that right he comes to the inference of closely monitoring his vested interest. This is simply regimentation of knowledge.

On the other hand, when the vested interest is universal, it transcends the closed-space reality creating openings for liberal knowledge which is not knowledge-in-itself but a plethora of ideas grounded in ‘suchness’ of reality. That reality is democratically and holistically determined and outsourced in universal objectives to the tenors of time and space. Thus liberal knowledge is positioned diametrically opposite to the individualistic ambition in dimension. When the ambition is universally propositioned, the liberal knowledge becomes more subtle and is disseminated in a wider area of cognitive reflexes. Thus the democracy of knowledge is always in perpetual motion and interactive and dialogical. It is paradigmatically well-behaved and anchored in democratic patterns of thoughts and beliefs.

So, in the case of knowledge being close-spaced, sparsely distributed in discrete particles, it becomes an epicenter of expertise of power, an exclusive power over others, never catering power to others. This is arrogance of knowledge per excellence. It flagrantly violates the democracy of knowledge and that concerned individual, without giving a priority of disseminating knowledge universally to one and all, crowns himself in the Tower of Babel brandishing his well-gotten weaponry to do away with all possible detractors. As a depository of power, knowledge knows no bounds to overcome and overwhelm anything and everything that come its way. Arrogance of knowledge does not tolerate any pothole in its quest of one imperial colony after another. It seemingly becomes an invincible force to reckon with in lust and lustre.

In common parlance, those who wield power of knowledge over others with the sceptre of arrogance of knowledge are the generally oft-quoted 'experts'. They colonise others' mind and enslave them with a purported authority. They do what the colonialists are supposed to do. Colonialists, we know, are the mercantilists. The 'experts' like their predecessors are wont to deal in expertise of their knowledge like any other merchandise. They sell their own brand of merchandise to the unknowledgeable and it pays. It pays them dearly in callous cash nexusas well as in terms of power and prestige But they never know and are never willing to know the feasibility of utility of their wares to universal demands. They just produce, sell and they flourish. And the colonised minds languish as ever like flotsam and jetsam in their own natural habitat, they remain as ever as the wretched of the earth.

(contd.)