Knowledge is Power?
I used to think that knowledge was power. That, if people’s perceptions were widened or their understanding deepened in some way, then life itself would change, that society would improve, that the world had a chance to reach a better place. It’s an easy thing for a scientist or an artist – someone who traffics in ideas – to believe.
But I no longer believe that. Knowledge is potential, yes, but it is certainly not power.
I have known too many people in my time who placed great stock in what they knew and yet had little effect on the world around them. I have spoken with too many “ivory tower” intellectuals who could create a decent argument but whose lives were no different than the lives of those with whom they would argue. I have known too many people who fought for certain ideals without incorporating them into their own lives.
Their presence in the world has been little more than sawdust scattered on dry ground. It has had no real impact.
Ideas are a dime a dozen. Everyone has some. But ideas are not the things that change the world. This is why so many people want to be writers, yet struggle with that goal. It’s easier to think about writing, to have ideas, than it is to actually write something down and then stake one’s reputation on it.
The commitment to the idea, not the idea itself, is what makes the difference between nothing and something.
You can push a rock to the top of a cliff, and it becomes a bundle of potential energy waiting to be released. This is knowledge.
But until you commit to pushing that rock over the edge, commit to taking the consequences for that push – until you commit to taking some irrevocable action driven by that knowledge – the energy is useless, dormant. It might as well not even exist. It has changed nothing.
In today’s world, we are inundated by knowledge. We are less often confronted with those who can make profound impacts because they have committed to basing their lives on the knowledge they’ve uncovered.
So the question is, what do you perceive to be true, and what are you willing to risk to see that truth become real?
But I no longer believe that. Knowledge is potential, yes, but it is certainly not power.
I have known too many people in my time who placed great stock in what they knew and yet had little effect on the world around them. I have spoken with too many “ivory tower” intellectuals who could create a decent argument but whose lives were no different than the lives of those with whom they would argue. I have known too many people who fought for certain ideals without incorporating them into their own lives.
Their presence in the world has been little more than sawdust scattered on dry ground. It has had no real impact.
Ideas are a dime a dozen. Everyone has some. But ideas are not the things that change the world. This is why so many people want to be writers, yet struggle with that goal. It’s easier to think about writing, to have ideas, than it is to actually write something down and then stake one’s reputation on it.
The commitment to the idea, not the idea itself, is what makes the difference between nothing and something.
You can push a rock to the top of a cliff, and it becomes a bundle of potential energy waiting to be released. This is knowledge.
But until you commit to pushing that rock over the edge, commit to taking the consequences for that push – until you commit to taking some irrevocable action driven by that knowledge – the energy is useless, dormant. It might as well not even exist. It has changed nothing.
In today’s world, we are inundated by knowledge. We are less often confronted with those who can make profound impacts because they have committed to basing their lives on the knowledge they’ve uncovered.
So the question is, what do you perceive to be true, and what are you willing to risk to see that truth become real?
posted by Fortunato at 12:47 PM
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