“…no man or body of men has ever been wise enough to foresee and take account of all the factors affecting blanket measures designed for the improvement of incorporated humanity. Some contingency unnoticed, unlooked-for, perhaps even unforeknown, has always come in to give the measure a turn entirely foreign to its original intention; almost always a turn for the worse, sometimes for the better, but invariably different.” (Albert Jay Nock, Memoirs of a Superfluous Man)
Experts
Where to Bury Nuclear Waste
“About twenty years ago, NASA or some other American government agency was trying to decide where exactly to bury the nuclear waste that, as we know, remains radioactive for 10,000 years or something astronomical. Their problem was that even if they did find suitable land, how could they warn the people of the future not to enter it? Because after all, over the last 2,000 or 3,000 years we’ve lost the ability to decipher several languages. If in 5,000 years’ time, human beings have disappeared and new beings have arrived from outer space, how will we be able to signal to them that they mustn’t use or even walk on the land in question? The government agency gave linguist and anthropologist Tom Sebeok the job of creating a form of communication that could overcome these difficulties. Having examined all possible solutions, Sebeok concluded that there was no language, even pictorial, that was likely to be comprehensible outside the context that had given rise to it. We are unable to interpret the prehistoric figures we find in caves with any certainty. Even ideographic language may not be properly understood. According to him, the only possible solution would be to create religious brotherhoods and have them circulate a taboo like ‘Don’t touch such-and-such’ or ‘Don’t eat so-and-so.’ A taboo can be maintained over generations. I had another idea, but NASA weren’t paying me so I kept it to myself. It was to bury the nuclear waste in such a way that the first layer was very dilute and therefore not too radioactive, the second a little more radioactive, and so on. If this being accidentally stuck his hand – or whatever he used for a hand – into the waste, he would only lose a finger. But then, we can’t be sure that he would not have persisted.” (Umberto Eco, This is Not the End of the Book)
The Desire of Knowing Future Events
“The desire of knowing future events, is one of the strongest inclinations in the mind of man. Indeed, an ability of foreseeing probable accidents is what, in the language of men, is called wisdom and prudence: but, not satisfied with the light that reason holds out, mankind hath endeavoured to penetrate more compendiously into futurity. Magic, oracles, omens, lucky hours, and the various arts of superstition, owe their rise to this powerful cause. As this principle is founded in self-love, every man is sure to be solicitous in the first place about his own fortune, the course of his life, and the time and manner of his death. If we consider that we are free agents, we shall discover the absurdity of such inquiries. One of our actions, which we might have performed or neglected, is the cause of another that succeeds it, and so the whole chain of life is linked together. Pain, poverty, or infamy, are the natural product of vicious and imprudent acts; as the contrary blessings are of good ones; so that we cannot suppose our lot to be determined without impiety. A great enhancement of pleasure arises from its being unexpected; and pain is doubled by being foreseen. Upon all these, and several other accounts, we ought to rest satisfied in this portion bestowed on us; to adore the hand that hath fitted every thing to our nature, and hath not more displayed his goodness in our knowledge than in our ignorance. It is not unworthy observation, that superstitious inquiries into future events prevail more or less, in proportion to the improvement of liberal arts and useful knowledge in the several parts of the world. Accordingly, we find that magical incantations remain in Lapland; in the more remote parts of Scotland they have their second sight; and several of our own countrymen have seen abundance of fairies. In Asia this credulity is strong; and the greatest part of refined learning there consists in the knowledge of amulets, talismans, occult numbers, and he like.” (Joseph Addison, The Spectator, Oct. 8, 1714)
The Third Dimension
“In times of peace, workers or employers or university professors unite for a while on particular issues, permitting temporary generalizations. But all statements based on national or professional classifications are always misleading. Even in constituted bodies that poll their members — a legislature or a medical association — there are always minorities of whom what is true is the exact opposite of the majority truth. Minorities may be overlooked in practical affairs, but in critical judgments, in histories, in anything resembling a desire to know, the recording of divergence is the third dimension necessary to a lifelike portrayal. The urge is strong to speak of groups as if their actions formed an indivisible whole, and it is hard to be sure which of the infinite number of differences are significant, but usually that discovery is the point of the investigation, as when Napoleon III consulted his prefects to find out whether France was ready for war with Prussia. More than half said no: he disregarded them in favor of the other, more congenial view, and so put himself back into the state of ignorance from which he had tried to lift himself by asking. The same error is committed in any assumption of unanimity.” (Jacques Barzun, Race: A Study in Superstition)
The Learned Ignoramus
“Previously, men could be divided simply into the learned and the ignorant, those more or less the one, and those more or less the other. But your specialist cannot be brought in under either of these two categories. He is not learned, for he is formally ignorant of all that does not enter into his speciality; but neither is he ignorant, because he is ‘a scientist,’ and ‘knows’ very well his own tiny portion of the universe. We shall have to say that he is a learned ignoramus, which is a very serious matter, as it implies that he is a person who is ignorant, not in the fashion of the ignorant man, but with the petulance of one who is learned in his own special line. And such in fact is the behavior of the specialist. In politics, in art, in social usages, in the other sciences, he will adopt the attitude of primitive, ignorant man; but he will adopt them forcefully and with self-sufficiency, and will not admit of — this is the paradox — specialists in those matters. By specializing him, civilization has made him hermetic and self-satisfied within his limitations; but this very inner feeling of dominance and worth will induce him to wish to predominate outside his speciality. The result is that even in this case, representing a maximum of qualification in man — specialization — and therefore the thing most opposed to the mass-man, the result is that he will behave in almost all spheres of life as does the unqualified, the mass-man.” (Jose Ortega y Gasset, The Revolt of the Masses)
Doctoral Ignorance
“It may be said with some plausibility that there is an abecedarian ignorance that comes before knowledge, and another, doctoral ignorance that comes after knowledge: an ignorance that knowledge creates and engenders, just as it undoes and destroys the first.” (Montaigne, I:54, 227, Frame)
The Measure of Our Capacity
“The more a mind is empty and without counterpoise, the more easily it gives beneath the weight of the first persuasive argument…. But then, on the other hand, it is foolish presumption to go around disdaining and condemning as false whatever does not seem likely to us; which is an ordinary vice in those who think they have more than common ability. I used to do so once; and if I heard of returning spirits, prognostications of future events, enchantments, sorcery, or some other story that I could not swallow, ‘Dreams, witches, miracles, magic alarms, \ Nocturnal specters, and Thessalian charms,’ [Horace] I felt compassion for the poor people who were taken in by these follies. And now I think that I was at least as much to be pitied myself. Not that experience has since shown me anything surpassing my first beliefs, and that through no fault of my curiosity; but reason has taught me that to condemn a thing thus, dogmatically, as false and impossible, is to assume the advantage of knowing the bounds and limits of Gods will and of the power of our mother Nature; and that there is no more notable folly in the world than to reduce these things to the measure of our capacity and competence.” (I:27, 161, Frame)
The Ability to Search Not Enough
“We know how to say: ‘Cicero says thus; such are the morals of Plato; these are the very words of Aristotle.’ But what do we say ourselves? What do we judge? What do we do? A parrot could well say as much. This habit makes me think of that rich Roman who went to much trouble and very great expense to procure men learned in every field of knowledge, whom he kept continually around him, so that when there should befall among his friends some occasion to speak of one thing or another, they should fill his place and all be ready to furnish him, one with an argument, one with a verse of Homer, each one according to his quarry; and he thought that his knowledge was his own because it was in the heads of his men, as those also do whose ability dwells in their sumptuous libraries. We take the opinions and the knowledge of others into our keeping, and that is all. We must make them our own. We are just like a man who, needing fire, should go and fetch some at his neighbors house, and, having found a fine big fire there, should stop there and warm himself, forgetting to carry any back home. What good does it do us to have our belly full of meat if it is not digested, if it is not transformed into us, if it does not make us bigger and stronger?” (I:25, 120, Frame)
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