Knowledge (Theory)

I suppose I've thought a lot more about the idea of knowledge, and what makes people smart, since my last blog. Indeed, in college I've got so many chances to see both the smart and the stupid in action, and they are at first superficially similar. This, I hate.

Our society is one that places a premium not on real knowledge, not on the ability to quantify facts or even to produce new ones, but rather to take facts that we have and pretend that they are different ones. We are encouraged to read between the lines, but this is not always good. Let me explain.

Every book that has been written, by any author, since the beginning of time, has had one single purpose. The author has thought of one message for the book, or perhaps several, but they are all that the author has put forth. However, in every class today, every student can think of about 80 things the author might have been trying to say, and seems smart for doing so. They act like books are a mystical source of theme and plot, and like all these new messages have simply grown out of the book. They have not. You have just fucking made them up.

Most of the themes produced by students about the books that they have read in the classroom are false. If any author had the capacity and intelligence to actually think and consciously add all the themes that these idiots are thinking of, then I would worship him as a grand and powerful man. The problem is, he cannot. Our society thinks it is smart to read between the lines. THERE AREN'T ALWAYS LINES TO READ BETWEEN. Sometimes, a book is just a book. Sometimes the author only means to say the things that he is written. Intelligence is not the ability to bullshit your way into believing that the author has given you some brand new and powerful message. Intelligence is the capacity to quantify facts and produce new ones.

For this reason, it is not necessarily that smart to be a doctor, either. There are men who are thought smart because they can regurgitate facts endlessly. They do not think about these facts, do not produce new ones. They simply become a storage drive on a computer. That is not intelligence. Intelligence is the ability to think critically, to derive facts and USE them. A doctor may use his knowledge to cure a patient, and that is smart. But being a doctor does not make you smart. You are made smart by your mind, which is not a part of the physical world. There is no way to prove in our physical world, that you are smart. So why keep doing it?

Another story comes to me. After reading our summer common reading book, our college invited the author to visit us and discuss it. In a grand assembly, the entire class asked questions. One boy stepped up and said that he had seen one of the characters as a Christ allegory. Was this so? Of course, in my pew, I burst out laughing. (to myself, that is.) Anyone can think of a Christ allegory. It's the simplest template, the stupidest thing a person can do to look smart. The author responded similarly. He told the boy, that as a society we are obsessed with Christ, and should get off our high horse. Yet, to everyone, that boy looked smart. Why?

Knowledge is not the ability to regurgitate, nor to record. Knowledge is the ability to see, and then create.