Knowledge and Ignorance

     Once humans evolved enough to become self aware, we became curious by nature. We hear about something interesting that happened and the first thing we do is crave knowledge about the event. Why do we do this? Why am I even asking this question to myself? Because to crave knowledge of any kind is to also have a craving to better ourselves. We wish to know the truth because it is there to know, and we know that living a life without it in our grasp is ultimately wrong. It is written in our brains that knowledge is good, even if once we had it we may have wished we had never known because of the pain it brings.

    Knowledge has been what has pushed the human race further than any other species on this planet. The fact that we crave understanding is a perfect conduit for efficiency. Because of our craving for knowledge, I can speak to someone on the opposite side of the planet through a metal rectangle and we can and have put men on the moon.

    The tales told in the stories we have read this year perfectly show us the human condition of truth-seeking, and how it can lead to both mental enlightenment and emotional ruin. That ruin is the price we pay for our greatest tool: curiosity. In Gilgamesh our hero is constantly tortured through his quest to see if there was a secret to immortality, and in the end he found that there was none. He came to a new understanding of how "there is no permanence" and entropy consumes all. He had that knowledge, but paid the price. In the tale of Oedipus our hero is set on finding out his origins, no matter how horrible the messenger says they are to be. He finds them, and recognizes his wrongdoings. Surely if he had not found out this truth he would continue to bed his own mother. But this salvation comes at the price of the trauma he suffers so.

    But the stories of Genesis and Lone Star end differently, don't they? In a sense, when each of the characters come out of their ignorance, the true power and value of knowledge comes to light. The reasons why Socrates said "There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance."

    In Lone Star the character Sheriff Sam Deeds spends pretty much the entire movie looking for information on the previous sheriffs Charlie Wade and Buddy Deeds and what their relationship was with the county as a whole and not just the white population. Sam comes to know the hardships that both of his predecessors inflicted on the area's minority residents and the corruption that has infected his position. He learns of all of the terrible things his own father did. And at the very end, he even finds out that he is half-siblings with his lover. Even with all of this ugliness, Sam Still gains the opportunity to set the county right with his position as Sheriff by using the wrongs of the previous Sheriffs to guide his way. Sam, even though he paid the price of this terrible knowledge, he still has now the power to help the lives of thousands of people.

    In Genesis the protagonists Adam and Eve come to the understanding of good and evil, come to that knowledge, but now must be cast into the wastelands to fend for themselves. It is more a figurative demonstration on how we cannot be in the soft and perfect world of bliss like animals, but have to risk the damnation for our sins. But this price of having to be influenced by sin is in a way also a blessing. For what could be a greater virtue than choosing to do good instead of going to the alluring light of wrong? Genesis I believe breaks the price and gift of knowledge down to the bone.

    Craving ignorance, even though we may do it when we discover terrible truth, is a very ignoble thing to do. It is a reduction of the self down to the animal, and a resistance to recognize and understand the facts of life. Without that recognition, how can we seek to better it? The knowledge and understanding of the good, the bad, and the ugly is what makes us human.