Rescued from a Blogspot post published in September 2006
Jim says “Some things I just ‘know’ and believe in as fact without any proof.” He touches on a topic I wanted to speak about because it is vital to the understanding of all human culture: How we know what we know.
I’ve written elsewhere that Western civilisation is a prism: it splits the whole. If we want to be concise about it, we can say, “Blame Aristotle”, though Plato, and consequently Socrates, also deserve to be named and shamed. And if you are learned enough – or should I say, enough of a splitter – you might name a panoply of Greeks, and speak also of St Thomas Aquinas, who loved Aristotle but wanted to glue his philosophy on to the back of Christianity which he loved more.
What is splitting? You could point to the cumulation of “-ologies”. An area of study becomes so dense and unwieldy that it has to be subdivided. But let us go nearer to the source, and look at the problem of knowledge itself.
Western civilisation mines knowledge like gold. But its touchstone is evidence. All that fails the test is slag. This is the big divide. Jim’s knowledge is civilisation’s slag, and this is the great anomaly of Western civilisation, which is incomprehensible to Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist and more primitive or Aboriginal cultures.
Skyscrapers are built from evidence-based science and technology and that is their strength. But alongside, we find cathedrals and synagogues, and these are built from Jim’s knowledge, which civilisation is forced to acknowledge, so it calls it faith.
I don’t have any problem with a personal view, like Jim’s, for it stands on the rock of his own experience. It doesn’t matter what resonates in the hidden chamber of the heart: a passionate glance, a passage from the Kabbalah, Wordsworthian intimations of immortality from an excursion amongst mountains and lakes. When it is your own knowledge, you stand strong in it.
Knowledge = experience + interpretation
In the case of evidence-based knowledge, which stands in highest favour as the building-block of Western civilisation today, experience is not exactly required. All you need is evidence plus logic. A scientist in Auckland can moderate the paper of a scientist in San Diego without witnessing the experiment in the laboratory.
In the case of experience-based knowledge, “Some things I just ‘know’ and believe in as fact without any proof”, it is different. Unfortunately, Western civilisation is based on manipulation and greed: the urge to trade knowledge as a commodity, like gold on the stock exchange, is so high that cheating and corruption are endemic. Most of the time, the man in the street is forced to say, “I do not know for a fact, but I believe, because I succumb to persuasion masquerading as evidence or proof.” Actually the poor man in the street has a deep rich mine of his own, but he receives no encouragement to dig.
And where does this distortion start? In the education of children. At the weekend I went to see my grandson’s school, based on the teachings of a mystic and intuitive, Rudolf Steiner. No one attempted to persuade me out of my scepticism, but I saw with my own eyes, and understood the brutalising effect of conventional education upon a child’s mind.
a wayfarer’s notes 
More gold from the mine of your experience – but this is for infinite sharing! Thank! Best, rama.
P.S.: While studying in London, I had visited the Rudolf Steiner school in north London, somewhere near Baker Street. Later I learnt about his contribution to alternative education.
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Ooh, Rama, yes, I am glad this Steiner education is known to you.
It is a coincidence that the front page of the London Daily Telegraph today is devoted to the contents of a letter on its “Letters to the Editor” page on the defectiveness of children's education and upbringing in Britain today. Here is a link to the letter itself.
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You call the kind of knowledge that Jim says he just knows without proof as being based on experience.But wouldn't experience count as a kind of proof, even if it's a subjective form of proof?
And would things that someone “just 'know[s]'” really be considered something known from experience or just from emotional whim?
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Yes, personal experience is proof enough, but only for the person who has it. Not transferable! But that inconvenient fact is forgotten, as “New Age” & other beliefs get traded profitably.
And it's not at all surprising in today's multicultural world of global communication when you doubt my belief and I doubt yours.
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Vincent, basically I agree with your points. However, I find greed, avarice and all the accompanying human defects rife thruout the Eastern cultures as well. There is no culture on earth, no religion, no spirituality free from this problem.It is my view that the problem of character (which does certainly enter into our common lives) being flawed, cannot be properly addressed until there is a state of rest in the world regarding human freedom. Possibly that will take 'globalizing', even tho I am against such a thing, it may be necessary to get the 'character' agenda on the table more and do something about greed et al. I don't know.About knowledge being broken up, it is inherently divided, like facts are separated from each other, there is no fixing that, it is built in to 'knowing'. But 'knowing' rises up to larger segments of knowledge and these (like human organs) can function in a union of some sort, making then 'knowledge' fully useful and functional. The world is both, pieces, and wholes, and you have to have both, nothing can be excluded, but everything has to be refined and put together properly.I think my 'facts' by believe, based on my own personal experience, are beyond the permanence of 'scientific' facts. Meaning that I think mine are outside of Physics and matter. I don't know how strong others feel about their beliefs, but that is my feel for mine.
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Hi Vincent, today morning (Wednesday) I read the same letter reported in The Telegraph of Calcutta.http://www.telegraphindia.com/1060913/asp/frontpage/story_6739409.aspThere was nother disturbing report, about a survey in India, on boys' perception of “macho”:http://www.telegraphindia.com/1060913/asp/foreign/story_6738800.aspThe children of the world are in dire danger and need, and as dar as I can see, something like a “Noah's Ark”, or going away to a “remote” “secluded” island, is necessary to save the future of the planet and the human race.But does anyone think so, does anyone care …Bestrama
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Thanks for your comments Jim. Of course, greed exists everywhere but what I meant to say was that in modern western civilisation it has been exercised through forms of mass manipulation which have hugely distorted the realm of knowledge: PR, journalism, government propaganda, funding of science etc.
So whilst you say that something should be done about greed globally, I'm not sure it can, but it would be better overall if there was less centralisation of power. Big corporations unrestrained by high ethical standards do much more damage than the same number of petty crooks acting independently.
This can also be illustrated by your last point. The strength of your beliefs doesn't threaten other people, so long as you don't have disproportionate power over them.
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hi Vincent,if a wise man like you is saying something, it must be somewhat true (here i depend totally on my orient instinct).yes, i know westerners love to dissect the whole, they are the prism…but what a huge contribution and profound impact this fragmentation is on human civilisation. west and east is like two aspects of life. if west is adam, east is eve. you need both.but i must confess, beautiful writing. you have a god gifted pen in your hand.
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Thanks for your rmarks, Ghetufool. You are right to remind me of the contribution (positive) as well as the impact (perhaps not so positive) of western civilisation.
I think that living in it, I have to raise my head beyond it and see it in an historical perspective (it has not always been like this) and also a geographical one (it is not like this everywhere on earth).
The danger is if one powerful culture which has some huge blind spots drives out other forms of culture with a greater awareness of what's basic to human dignity. (I'm trying to avoid the word “spiritual” here!)
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What a tragedy!!! You are complaining about your education system and all wise men in India are complaining about our education system. Modern Indian education system apes western education completely. Not just that, most of the youngsters feel proud about the fact they are educated in reputed English medium schools. Indian youngsters working in BPOs feel proud about their fake American accent.
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If your education system is based on the British education system of say 30 or 40 years ago, you need not worry so much. It could be worse! My wife who was born and educated in Jamaica speaks & writes better English than the English because she was educated in one of the colonies, where learning was and is prized. In England, however, there is a mania to change everything and destroy what is good because the lunatics have taken over the asylum.
And perhaps I see it this way because I respect the days of my youth and resent the sweeping away of what I accepted as natural and good in my time.
What is this world? Comedy or tragedy?
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Full of comedy
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