Knowledge Can’t Take You Powerful
Francis Bacon told that knowledge is power, a maxim that hangs in mid-air without deep speculation. If you have read Bacon’s book “On the New Instrument”, you can understand that when Bacon said this, he really regarded knowledge as a tool. That is to say, emphasizing that knowledge is power and emphasizing that knowledge is equal to the omnipotence of tools means that people try to solve current practical problems by using knowledge as a tool, and to a certain extent give up the deep understanding of the reasons for the formation of knowledge. The question awareness of the level of questioning has thus completely become the screw of knowledge.
Knowledge itself is never power, the real power comes from the enormous imagination within someone who discovers it. Even if the question is asked here, it is far from the ultimate answer. Why do humans have imagination, but animals and plants do not? Has the human imagination evolved? This answer is not convincing, because scientific textbooks have never explained why a stone has evolved to remain a stone today, while humans have evolved to have amazing imaginations. Moreover, in terms of the logic of internal causes, the theory of evolution assumes from the beginning that human beings have some kind of special evolutionary ability compared with other organisms. Does the presupposition of this special evolutionary ability also imply some kind of rationality of human beings? of pride and proud reason?
Returning to the dimension of imagination, people should also continue to ask where does the ability to imagine come from? Where did the original imagination come from? Why are some people’s imaginations so wild? Some people are numb, dull, and lack the most basic awareness of the problem?
The lack of an ultimate order of equality between people, the so-called explanatory framework of the survival of the fittest, and the so-called jungle society law of human beings don’t bring human beings back to the animal world again? If so, what is the significance of the theory of evolution devoted to thinking about the origin of human civilization? When we think beyond purpose, we have become human killers.
Rhetoric Similar to “knowledge is power” can soothe the inner world of Asians, because such rhetoric also satisfies the three major mindsets of the Asian elites’ neglect of ultimate questioning, emphasis on applying what they have learned, and the unequal order of the scholar-official spirit. potential. So much so that Confucianism has always been the vulgar value of “everything is inferior, only reading is high”, and the words are so blatant and shameless, which means that the scholar is nobler than other people, which is completely ignored and avoided. As a scholar, there is an incomparable dark human nature in the inner world of a person.
For a reader, where knowledge comes from is much more important than what knowledge does. It is necessary to spend a lifetime of time and energy thinking about the proposition of “where does knowledge come from”. A scholar can only discover new knowledge when he keeps pondering this question, asking questions forever, and expanding the details of the question. On the one hand, he truly knows his own human nature as a person, and finally, relying on his imagination of the ultimate order, he completes the mission of knowing himself.
Scholars who think about “what is the role of knowledge” spend their whole life just taking the matter of reading for food. They are estimating their value as a scholar anytime and anywhere in order to find a suitable price and sell themselves.
“Souls can be sold, but not so fast.” -Milton Friedman
Commit to thinking about where knowledge comes from, rather than thinking about how knowledge works. In this sense, we believe that Bacon’s statement about “knowledge is power” has lowered people’s thinking about knowledge to the level of consumerism, so that many readers learn knowledge only to consume knowledge rather than discover knowledge. This can be said to be the biggest trap in life faced by all knowledgeable people. Many people are busy day and night, making noise all their lives. Almost no word or word matches the approach to knowledge. All their knowledge and so-called thinking are just to satisfy their needs. Vanity, to satisfy their stomachs, to satisfy their genitals.
When the analysis of the problem has advanced to this stage, we can understand that the influence of reading or knowledge on human nature is extremely weak. to more traditional beliefs. Kant figured out this problem and must deny knowledge and make room for belief. Because he found that knowledge not only makes people stagnant but also prevents new ideas from appearing. If human beings lose the ability to renew their ideas, they will surely be buried by knowledge.
Sometimes we push all the causes of problems to the ruling interest class, which makes us even more invisible to the essence of the problem. Don’t blame a certain devilish character. Our ignorant and unfree life today is not only the result of the evil of some vested interests but the slow emergence of an ancient order of ideas. In this order, everyone is in it, and everyone is a perpetrator. The ignorance, the evil points directly to you and me.
