In Search of Lost … Knowledge
A throwaway line in a TV drama referenced Marcel Proust and his definitive work, In Search of Lost Time. As indicated in the link below, that seven (7) volume work (which was completed posthumously) is considered by many to be among the most influential and critically acclaimed international novels of the 20th Century. Yet, I had never hear of it.
In and of itself, that revelation should not be surprising. I do not hold myself out to have an encyclopedic knowledge of literature, particularly French literature. Nevertheless, it reminded me how little any of us actually knows relative to all that there is to be known. Given the breadth and extent of my education, I am among the most privileged and educated persons on the face of the earth. Nevertheless, even with 22 years of formal education, including doctorate and post-doctorate degrees, and two professional licenses, I know nearly NOTHING.
The interesting and disturbing thing is how confident and certain many persons are today despite knowing even less. They know little of modern “history” much less the “classics.” Not infrequently, they act as though “knowledge” sprang to life with the advent of the internet. In having immediate access of unlimited troves of information, they mistake that access for personal knowledge just as they mistake their own limited knowledge for omniscience and perfect wisdom.
In demonstrations of arrogance and in fits of hubris, they act as though their flashes of insight and moments of lucidity are unique to them. The fail to recognize that what is “new” to them is most often the recycling, rebranding, and regurgitation of (failed) philosophies from the past.
Nevertheless, they feel obliged and empowered to impose their self-serving versions of right(eous)ness upon the whole of humanity. What they perceive to be good for them, must not only be accepted but affirmatively advanced by the entirety of our species for their benefit. Their arrogance is unbridled and their hubris is unabashed. In fact, these things are equaled only by their ignorance and naivete. Both individually and collectively, they represent what happens when one is educated well beyond his level of intelligence.
These terribly flawed and shortsighted human beings are often the persons to whom many of us turn in order to run our lives via government and other institutions. Too many of us expect them to have a certain enlightenment, insight, or intellect, which escapes the common man. However, all of us are limited and knowable by our commonalities and motivators: self-protection, self-advancement, and self-propagation.
These are among the fundamental traits, which define our bestial species, and we should endeavor to discover and identify those motivators in persons, who might now or in the future be in positions to lord over us. In doing so, we shall discover that we are more alike than different. For some, this will be both a shocking and disturbing revelation. Too many of us choose to believe in a fiction or fantasy — a Utopia — which does not exist and which could never exist in our singular but imperfect reality.
