Ignorance can be useful

    In mentally Sauntering through Thoreau’s essay “Walking,” I couldn’t let this idea of his go:

We have heard of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. It is said that knowledge is power, and the like. Methinks there is equal need of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Ignorance. . . .

    Myths are lies, and some of them have the purpose of making us do the right thing. I’ve heard that in slash-and-burn agricultural regions of Central America, the Ciba tree can suddenly snap as it is being felled, the recoil killing or injuring the cutters. Leaving them in ignorance of the scientific truth -- “The data show that if you cut it it’ll probably kill you”-- is less effective at stopping them than is telling them a falsity -- “Your ancestors live in the tree. If you cut it you’ll kill them.”

    Myths aside, can you think of a benefit from being ignorant of any aspect of one’s work? The next post will bring you one.

   

A picture of the sacred Ciba tree is a click away

Comments

[dave iverson]

* Myths are lies, and some of them have the purpose of making us do the right thing.

Joseph Campbell once talked about an interviewer who never understood that "myths are metaphors," and kept insisting that myths were lies. Interesting choice of words, lies v. metaphors.