MY FIRST ARTICLE PUBLISHED 30 YEARS AGO

Half Knowledge is Worse Than Ignorance

First Prize in Essay Contest

(CSR-January 1992 Issue)

  

Knowledge upon its brimful waters holds the mirror of Narcissus and the unwary upstart is enamoured of his own glorified reflection. It is a will-o-the wisp to the untrained eye that from the marshes of ignorance shimmers illusively only to end in a deeper quagmire of confusion. Its revelation to a novice, (as once Shakespeare wrote in a different context) is as:

 

“Brief as the lightning in the collied night,

That in a spleen unfolds both heaven and earth,

And ere a man has power to say ‘Behold’

The jaws of darkness to devour it up

So quick bright things come to confusion”

 

The early draughts of the Pierian intoxicate, and sober only towards the last dregs of its perennial spring. Thus, wisdom lies not in self-assumed omniscience but in the continuing realization and thirst of one’s ignorance.

All errors committed by humankind are, in fact, a direct consequence of the improper understanding and application of knowledge. The steady rectification of faulty innate perceptions and their execution has led to human progress and development. Yet as man has gained in the understanding and influence over his environment, he has at the same time risked the hazards of his still primitive and evolving socio-scientific growth. His half-knowledge in the realm of science has been unable to offset the contrary side-effects of his advancing technological prowess.

Environmental disorders which were hitherto unknown are ominously engulfing the world in a pall of dismal gloom. The intractable and untamed giant of science is running amok, bringing in its train the ills of industrial pollution, accompanied with acid rains and inordinate heating of the globe, chemical and nuclear disasters, depletion of forest cover and wild life reserves etc., that could well nigh bring the world to the brink of doom. Man has yet to graduate from and master the challenges and dynamics of science.

In the province of polity, we find the confused and tumultuous journey of the ‘Idea’ struggling to attain its dialectical consummation. It has evolved and run through many calamitous wars, trying to reconcile with the tenets of despotism, feudalism, theocracy, dictatorialism, capitalism, communism and now it has tentatively reached to the ideals of welfare state and democratic secularism. Whether it has reached its ultimate destination, it is difficult to say, but in its ongoing search for a better political order, it has left behind many indelible blots on the pages of human history. It unrealised pursuit for a utopian system of governance has cost mankind a very heavy price.

From time immemorial, the misconception of national, racial or communal superiority has prevented or throttled the creative faculty of man. It has been the cause of many undesirable feuds and shameful acts of exploitation that has deprived many humans from the full development of their potential. The whims and bias of seasoned and supposedly civilised minds has waylaid the course and purpose of knowledge and brought more misery to mankind than in the primeval days of existence.

The cult of religious fundamentalism rising all over the world is another glaring example of half knowledge and misapprehension of the true religious essence. The growth in materialistic outlook towards life has developed a sense of guilt in the hearts of religious communities. Incapable of rising above the snares of the flesh and unable to attain new heights of spirituality they find their respective faiths in danger of extinction. Instead of rejuvenating the spiritual and ethical cause of their religion by practising it themselves they put the blame of their decadence on other communities. The fundamentalists of today must take heed from the common axioms of every religion, i.e. fraternal love and peace, mercy and generosity, subjugation of baser instincts, and subservience to the universal Benefactor. They should follow the example set by their religious leaders who suffered great tribulation at the hands of the depraved and ignorant men without any ill-feeling or retaliation, and who came as the saviours of the whole world and not of any particular community.

If ignorance would have been the lot of Man, Nature would have continued on its gradual yet often erratic ways. But the greater awareness of Man has made him interfere with the ways of the world, so much so that he now bears the world’s weight on his Herculean shoulders and could least afford a Hamlet-like vacillation. Thus, we have found that unmastered knowledge could prove worse than ignorance.