Chiș-Ciure Robert-AndreiFacultatea de Filosofie, Universitatea București

Filosofie, Anul I, Grupa 350Limba engleză

Prof. Mirela Adăscăliței

Knowledge: power, defence and the power of defence

Motto:

"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." (A. Pope)

One determination of the concept of knowledge is measurability. The cognitive conscience

regards its object of study – and this does not necessarily imply the academic sort of study – in a

comprehensive manner that can be, at the end, quantified in a collection of propositions that

functions offering more or less accurate descriptions of the object taken into consideration. This

endeavour is not undertaken for the sake of knowledge itself or for the aesthetics aspects of it.

The most important function of the descriptions originated in the cognitive process is to conduct,

justify and, hopefully, alleviate the human life and behaviour – in one word, the existence.

What Alexander Pope said: “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing” refers exactly to this

measurability of knowledge and to its practical implications in human life. Thus, a deficiency of

knowledge regarding a specific object or situation might determine perilous actions and,

obviously, consequences of the same nature. On the contrary, a cognitive horizon in a permanent

enlargement is more likely to determine adequate decisions and enterprises in a given situation.

From a historical point of view, the examples of dangerous lacks of knowledge are to be found in

every century or period. It seems rather superficial and even ignorant to bring into discussion the

Antiquity or the Medieval Era in order to sustain such a thesis. The 20th century gives more

relevant symbols of ignorance that brought carnage into being. The infamous Nazis truly

believed in the Arian race superiority, theoretically legitimated by various anthropological biased

studies and absurd hypothesis sustained by German “intellectuality”. There were organized

scientific expeditions in the Tibetan Mountains to prove the Arians provenience and their

conquest through the entire Asia to Europe. The Reichführer-SS, Heinrich Himmler, was

obsessed with this kind of “scientific” groundwork for race superiority and he was anything but a

poorly educated man. Later studies confirmed what anybody beside the Germans suspected: the

racial theory was a complete absurdity. Alas, such nonsense provoked the massacre of six

million Jews in concentration and death camps or in public executions by military squads called

“Einsatzgruppen”. Nowadays, any moral condemnation seems superfluous, but this historical

example of ignorance dangerousness should seriously shake everybody’s belief in humanity and

its dazzling and purposeful development.

The most powerful argument in the favour of the thesis sustained here is based on Foucault’s

vision on bio-politics and power technologies. Foucault's concept of bio-politics is largely

derived from his own notion of bio-power and the extension of state power over both the

physical and political bodies of a population. The French philosopher described it as "a new

technology of power... [that] exists at a different level, on a different scale, and [that] has a

different bearing area, and makes use of very different instruments."1 Bio-politics acts as a

control apparatus exerted over a population as a whole or, as Foucault stated, "as a global mass."2

In order to extend its influence and control over global masses, the mechanism of power,

represented, of course, by a specific group of people, has to use adequate means in the middle of

democracy, because totalitarian actions would never have any success. In this way, such means

have to be subtle, undetectable and in plain sight. Now it becomes clear the huge importance of

knowledge and, in the same time, of ignorance: they are the inhibitor and the catalyst of

manipulative tendencies brought upon the individual by the control apparatus of bio-politics in a

particular technology of power. It is much easier to control and manipulate an ignorant person

than an educated one, so a little knowledge is indeed a dangerous thing. Notwithstanding those

naïve opinions that ignorance is the key ingredient of happiness, it is beyond doubt that

education and thus knowledge is a shield against many forms of oppression.

1 Foucault, Michel (1997). Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975-1976. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press. p. 242.2 Foucault, Michel (1997). Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975-1976. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press. p. 243.

On the whole, it has been sustained that history is the theatre where the absence of knowledge

plays the role of executioner as in “Execution of the Defenders of Madrid” by Francisco Goya.

This metaphor stands for the pernicious actions that usually originate in ignorance, pernicious

both for the subject of action and for the ones affected by it. Moreover, it has been brought into

discussion the moral and political aspect implied by the thesis, based on a conceptual enginery

designed by Michel Foucault. Bio-politics constantly tries to control larger and larger groups of

population by using manipulative methods (the “politically correct” orchestration of mass-media,

political discourses, mass culture etc.) which become more effective when they aim people with

insufficient thinking defence mechanisms.

One might argue, following Einstein, that if little knowledge is a dangerous thing, so is a lot.

Such an argument is easy to refute since it is nothing more than a sophism. Einstein referred to

the disaster provoked by the bomb he designed through his brilliant mind and his extensive

knowledge of physics as the parlous consequence of knowledge. The danger in this case was not

his intellectual capacity, but his lack of anticipation regarding the imminent using of his

invention, therefore, needless to say, nothing more than a knowledge deficit.

In conclusion, I consider that our society developed a peculiar self-defence mechanism against

the oppressing knowledge of those who are in power: today it is not sufficient just to know some

basic information about the world – today the quantity and the quality of the knowledge must be

so high as to overcome most of the dangers coming from those who want to take advantage of

the lack of information of a certain group. Nowadays is more obvious than ever that Alexander

Pope was right by saying: "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing."