The Radical Responsibility Of Knowledge
By Romi Mahajan
08 July, 2015
Countercurrents.org
Knowledge and opinion are strange associates, at once friends and enemies. When friends, they work together seamlessly, kindling each other’s inner fires. When enemies, they are bloodthirsty rivals who give each other no quarter.
The relationship between knowledge and opinion is similar to that between responsibility and irresponsibility. Knowledge and responsibility are dyadic twins; they imply each other, impel each other, and compel each other. Opinion and irresponsibility are naughty friends who make a pact to create trouble together.
The world is awash in unfounded opinion and irresponsibility and therein lies the problem.
Opinions come in two forms- those which matter and those which don’t. The latter category is the wonderful stuff of human diversity- different foods, fashions, literary styles, musical inclinations, and types of celebrations. These are the opinions that “don’t matter” insofar as their payload, except in anomalous or extreme cases, is benign. The opinions that do matter are ones that create invidious distinctions the payload of which is manifest, material, and malignant. To have differing opinions about whether vaccines are worth using, whether religious minorities are equal to majority communities, whether women and men should share the same rights, whether the poor and the rich should be equal- this is the stuff of pain, humiliation and war. To have “opinions” about the formation of stars, about the perihelion of Mercury, about the average size of a human vena cava- this is the stuff of obscurantism, which denies rationalism and humanism.
Opinions are also a crutch; they let us off the hook. Knowledge, facts, and evidence imply responsibility. To have the “opinion” that rural India is awash in riches and that its citizens are well-fed is to justifiably do nothing about the abject conditions in which 600 million people live. To have the “opinion” that wars are just is to justifiably praise war and do nothing to bring about peace. To have the “opinion” that anthropogenic climate change is the concoction of radicals and fools is to justifiably fiddle as the Earth burns.
No doubt it is easier to do nothing versus expending energy, to praise not to admonish, to fiddle not to march but the easier route is almost always the irresponsible one.
When opinions are backed with facts, data, experience, and studied intuition, they are the most powerful force in the world- they can liberate, push us to innovate, and impel change. When they stem from intellectual laziness or abundant self-interest, they are the forces that shackle progressivism. Knowledge comes with a radical responsibility. Knowledge is welcome.
Romi Mahajan can we reached at [email protected]
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