LISTENING – “Ignorance Is a Self-Imposed Prison”
It was a surprising thing, my earning a graduate degree in theology. Since I did not fulfill the seminary’s entrance requirements, I was admitted on probation. But admitted I was. Regardless of the passage of time and the lifting of probation, the first few days of every quarter roused in me two reactions. I was thrilled by the privilege of school. Then hot on the heels of joy came fear. “This class is my Waterloo. The holes in my knowledge are massive. Here, in this class, I will fail.”
With good reason I felt that way the first day of Dr. Dan Fuller’s class, “Unity of the Bible.” He explained to the hundred or so students seated in lecture rungs that our grades depended greatly upon understanding Jonathan Edward’s publication, “A Careful and Strict Inquiry into the Modern Prevailing Notions of that Freedom of Will, Which is Supposed to be Essential to Moral Agency, Virtue and Vice, Reward and Punishment, Praise and Blame.”
Well, hey. I knew I was in trouble. I was unacquainted with Jonathan Edwards, knew nothing about this writings, and could hardly follow the Title of the Treatise Let Alone Plumb Its Depth, but I knew somehow in his ideas was vested my GPA. So when the professor invited questions, I said, “I may be the only one here who needs to ask this, but just who is Jonathan Edwards?”
The class cracked up. Funny was not what I meant to be, but apparently during the years I spent raising children my scholarly classmates (a great group of kids) had armed themselves with complete knowledge. For whatever reasons, they found my ignorance amusing. Maybe, I think, just maybe they made a mistake we all occasionally do make, confusing ignorance with stupidity.
Mine was a question of ignorance, but it was not a stupid question. It was not that I was incapable of learning about Mr. Edwards; it was only that, as yet, learn I had not. Ignorant I was, lacking in knowledge or training.Stupid I was not, lacking ordinary keenness of mind mentally dull. Ignorant I often find myself; ignorant I do not have to remain. Or, I can.Some things I cannot or do not want to know. Fortunately, Dr. Fuller respected my question, briefly introduced Jonathan Edwards (I was not the only class member taking notes, I noticed), and whetted my appetite for the task ahead.
I happily report earning an A in that class, and one on the difficult paper concerning Jonathan Edwards. Not too many people did. I admit, I never really understood the theology of Edwards, but studying him, I learned other things. I learned about eighteenth century America, the Great Awakening, religion of the heart; about smallpox and a new vaccine for it from which a brave Edwards died. I learned of a gentle man with imposing ideas.
Ignorance is a self-imposed prison, or it is only a bog to step through in a rutted field of learning. Many conditions of life are unavoidable, but ignorance is not one of them. I venture that if we choose to remain ignorant by avoiding information or questions that free us, then either fear or conceit rules our hearts. Interestingly, the motive of fear and conceit is often the same. Looking informed wins out over being informed. Appearances concern us more than realities. Knowing and learning matter less to us than seeming and feigning. It takes courage to live fully. It takes learning.
So let us say our courage wins. We energetically slosh though the bog of ignorance, and we escape our self-imposed prison. We are learning. Suddenly we face a new trap ignorance set: the strong jaws of certitude. Certitude knows. It is not fact necessarily but it is freedom from doubt. It does not say, “I am convinced” or “I think.” It insists and says, “I know and I am right.” It frames certainty, hangs it on a “think no more” wall of the brain, and shields it from any incursions of doubt. Certitude imprisons growth.
The truth is, to some degree, we all enjoy what Reinhold Niebuhr called “standpatism.” It feels good to think you know, absolutely. It fosters security. And arrogance, I fear. Certitude seldom concerns itself with noble character. It concerns itself with winning arguments and avoiding different points of view. It concerns itself with being right.
Perhaps certitude or standpatism, exist legitimately in mathematical equations, or in the declaration that water is wet or that humans are not gulls. But beyond physically verifiable fact, knowledge is at its best when tempered by humility and appropriate doubt. In fact, learning requires the suspension of certitude and the presence of doubt.
Doubt is not cynicism, and it is not skepticism. It is a means of testing beliefs and opinions. It is a route to accuracy. Like fire to iron, it tempers, shapes, strengthens our thoughts. In truth, not knowing is seldom the problem for most of us; the humility of not knowing is. Perhaps that is most difficult for those of us who are deeply religious people. People who feel certain they know.
Strong faith, we must learn, is not necessarily good faith. Human certainty is not what God requires of us. We are people, desiring to believe rightly and well. We may defend God’s existence, but we are not proofs of it. We are benefactors. Faith and certitude are not synonyms.Faith, by its very definition, means trusting without having all the evidence to justify trust. In The Clown in the Belfry, Frederick Buechner writes that, “Faith is a way of seeing in the dark.” We are in the dark, he says. “And God knows, the dark is also in us.” No wonder faith is a matter of benefit and of humility. Faith has room for doubt. Certitude has too often shaded the Light meant to guide faith.
“The crusades were carried out in virtuous bad faith,” wrote novelist Umberto Eco. How I wish he were wrong. Speaking of later centuries, Reinhold Niebuhr said, “We fair-minded Protestants cannot deny . . .that it was Protestantism that gave birth to the Ku Klux Klan, one of the worst specific social phenomena which the religious pride and prejudice of people has ever developed” (Richard Fox, Reinhold Neibuhr). I wish he were not so accurate. I wish the white Protestant church, the parent of my own faith, had swallowed a small dose of doubt to cure its devastating certitude.
Learning does not suggest abandoning deep beliefs. It only means being courageous enough not to confuse them with concrete, courageous enough to test them, courageous enough to be wary of certitude. Religious people are not the only people to believe deeply and cherish stubborn opinion, of course. Self-imposed prisons of opinion collect all sorts of characters.
I write in an election year. Even in the early days of campaigning, candidates produced political certainties enough to wallpaper the White House brown. Slogans and speeches flung certitude everywhere, hoping ignorant voters would remain so. Whereas, testing promises, protests, and assertions of even our favorite political people could summon greater integrity from them. Loyalty—political or otherwise—is not a commitment to ignorance of all but your own point of view. Loyalty is good but it is not a synonym for certitude,although if you stumbled onto a discussion of politics by my redheaded uncles and aunts you would say it is. Or you would think so if my late grandfather, Pop, were your counsel. He, in two or three colorful sentences, solved the problems of our nation by sinking one political party and anointing the other. Loyalty? Commendable. But, “Why”loyalty is an important question to ask if we hope to avoid a prison of ignorance.
Most forms of certitude rise above reason. Immovable idealism does. Faith systems and politics can produce this tendency, but nothing demonstrates this form of certitude better than young couples during the last trimester of a first pregnancy. Impending parenthood can call up certitude as fast as a beehive bids bear.
Most of us, before our child leaves the womb, are gleefully certain. We will not repeat the mistakes of our parents. Theirswe have catalogued. We are certain our child will be raised as well or better than were we, and our little family will neverbehave like the one we saw today at the shopping mall. Untested, certitude thrives. Predictably, the child arrives carrying with it a book-bag full of reality that, by its growing weight, smashes or at least distorts the shape of our idealism. So great an effect leaves us standing before the question of whether or not to learn. We have to decide.
Learning requires flexibility and humility. It means knowing the difference between secure and sure. It means hearing beyond certitude and occasionally resigning cherished ideas because more honest or reliable ones present themselves.
It is not easy to hear communications theorist Neil Postman say in Amusing ourselves to Deaththat our beloved “Sesame Street” is educational only in the sense that all television is educational.
“Just as reading a book—any kind of book—promotes a particular orientation toward learning, watching a television show does the same. “Little House on the Prairie,” “Cheers,” and “The Tonight Show” are as effective as “Sesame Street” in promoting what might be called the television style of learning . . .”Sesame Street” does not encourage children to love school or anything about school. It encourages them to love television.”
Can’t anything be easy? Not much is, really. But learning means escaping ruts; even good ones. Our daily habits can run so deep that we no longer ride high enough to see ifgrass is growing, let alone to notice where it is greener. I do not advocate prohibiting fine television programming. I do suggest caring about careless assumptions. Learn the difference between fine things and seemingly fine things.
Enough of heavy responsibilities toward such things as faith, politics, families, and preferred programming. I quickly add that knowing when and how to take a break from seriousness is also a part of learning. Responsibilities and relationships, stress and anxiety, can be relieved by wisely closing the mind down through a bit of television, entertainment, theme parks, silliness. Or by applying the mind to learn about trivial thins or ideas, the sort that matter very little to the overall shape of things in the world but matter to us.
The habits of dabbling and diving ducks help me escape for a while the question of whether my child will finish school. Wondering about how space can curve, or why penguins do not get frostbite on their wet feet in subzero temperatures, or why frozen yogurt swirls from a spigot, just broadens my day; it solves no problems. It only helps keep me out of ruts.
Learning to put play on my calendar as well as appointments and duties is important. Learning that learning is a gift, is a gift of learning. Learning about things and ideas can fill small spaces of time or pour through a lifetime. But we must begin.
One of my favorite ways to meet new ideas I am at least minimally interested in is to check from the library a children’s book on the subject. That is exactly how I learned about the power of steam and about periods of history I avoided learning about in school.
Children’s books on basic astronomy enlarge my love of the sky. Adult books on this subject either overwhelm me technically or basically bore me. Children’s books are usually well written, clear, fast, and laden with more than enough information for general curiosity—a good place to start.
I mentioned earlier that questions are indispensable to listening. They are also essential to learning. What is ignorance? It is the lack of knowledge, not a lack of intelligence. Questions seek knowledge. I have a lot of questions. Friends and books are good sources for answering some of them. But a most indispensable tool for the curious is the dictionary.
Pick up the dictionary, read about a rainbow, a cell, an elephant, or an eel. What interests you? Learn about it first in the dictionary; then if it interests you more, expand your investigation. Learn about things, ideas, and people. Learn your great-grandmother’s maiden name, how she played as a child, her favorite dessert, her greatest childhood fear. Make an appointment with the clerk at city hall to ask some questions. How doesa city operate? How many departments are there? What do they do? Where do garbage trucks get washed and repaired? How much do their tires cost?
No? Not the city hall? Then something, anything,that benefits your freedom. Ignorance is a self-imposed prison. Something always is the subject of our thinking, but the less we think about things outside ourselves the more we chain our minds to ourselves. A few people on this earth may be so utterly fascinating that they are adequate material for all their own thoughts. I just do not know any. Sorry, friends, I just do not.
COMING UP: Life is Always a Lesson, Whether or Not We learn It
Meet the man who called me a “dedicated gold-bricker.” The verb. Yep.
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