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Auto-didactic? | 9 comments
[new] The triumph of ignorance (Avg. Score: none / Raters: 0) (#9)
by joerabie on Tue Apr 6th, 2004 at 07:18:04 PM EURODISCORDIA TIME
(User Info) http://www.magelis.com/joezone/

A diplomat who once dealt with George W Bush said that he is not stupid at all, extremely quick in understanding, just extraordinarily igonorant. This is for me the triumph of capitalism over everything else: knowledge is subsumed to its strictest minimum of utility. It is assigned market value, no other. The discussion about violin making here is revealing. It is about different forms of knowledge, in the most human sense. Thus knowledge that goes beyond "know how", the ability to do things. About craftsmanship, which I suppose is a symbiosis between mind, hands, materials, and things much more subtle, an aesthetic expectation in the research for sound. About understanding in the profound sense, of music, which is (for me) the sublime metaphor for the human soul. This brings us back to value. Why is a Stradivarius so valuable? Most people probably cannot hear the difference. For them, a Stradivarius is valuable because the market says so. Like Gold. What makes gold more valuable than lead? Ask the market "why", and all the knowledgeable stock exchange jockeys will take out their spreadsheets and point at graphs, but you will be no nearer to any form of worthwhile truth. The problem with information and knowledge, today, in consumer society, (of course I am generalising!) is that one is no longer expected to learn, in the sense of any search for wisdom, one is meant to purchase, in the sense of gaining skills that can negotiated in the market place. What frightens me most in this system is that all human wisdom and spirituality that can no longer justify market share will be pushed out. Intelligence will no longer be a human attribute - just a tool, just about as smart as "Microsoft Office".



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