Raju Korti
There is an old saying that an
empty vessel makes the loudest noise. I have always thought it was a little
unfair to empty vessels. At least they have the honesty to be empty. The people
who fascinate me are those who possess just enough information to mistake it
for wisdom, just enough confidence to pass it off as scholarship and just
enough vanity to believe they are the final court of appeal on almost every
subject under the sun.
Over the years, I have met quite
a few such people. They are everywhere. They flourish in drawing rooms, office
corridors, television studios, social gatherings and, quite spectacularly, on
social media. I have come to think of them as the neo-learned. They are the
self-appointed wholesale repositories of knowledge, ready with an opinion on
medicine, economics, geopolitics, quantum physics, climate change,
constitutional law and cricket selection, often within the span of a single
conversation. There is no subject too intricate for them, no discipline too
specialised, no mystery too profound. They have mastered them all, at least in
their own estimation.
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| A quote for Stephen Hawking's quote! |
The real challenge begins when
ignorance disguises itself as intelligence. It becomes almost impregnable when
wrapped in absolute certainty.
That is precisely why a remark
attributed to Stephen Hawking, who I had a chance to interact with from close
quarters when he was in Mumbai sometime in 200-2001, has stayed with me for
years. "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance; it is the
illusion of knowledge."
The first time I came across
those words, they seemed merely insightful. The longer I have lived, the truer
they have become. I do not claim to be an authority on sociology, psychology or
human behaviour. Yet after meeting enough people across professions and walks
of life, I have little hesitation in saying that Hawking was remarkably
perceptive. He was not merely commenting on knowledge. He was holding up a
mirror to human vanity.
The illusion of knowledge is
perhaps the most sophisticated form of ignorance ever invented. It is invisible
to the person afflicted by it. In fact, the greater the illusion, the greater
the confidence. That is its peculiar genius.
What makes the neo-learned so
exhausting is not what they know but their complete inability to entertain the
possibility that they may not know enough. Doubt never visits them. Nuance
irritates them. Qualifications weaken their arguments. Every issue is black or
white. Every opinion is final. Every disagreement is evidence of someone else's
intellectual deficiency.
The irony is almost delicious.
The genuinely learned often speak
with caution. They recognise the limits of present knowledge. Scientists
qualify their conclusions. Historians acknowledge competing interpretations.
Doctors discuss probabilities rather than certainties. Judges examine evidence
before reaching conclusions. The more one truly learns, the more one becomes
aware of the vast ocean of what remains unknown.
The neo-learned travel in exactly
the opposite direction. Their confidence grows in direct proportion to the
shallowness of their understanding.
Modern life has become their
natural habitat. A few online articles, a couple of videos, a podcast or two
and suddenly another authority is born. Information has become so abundant that
it has created the comforting illusion that acquiring facts is the same as
acquiring wisdom. It is rather like mistaking a tourist map for an intimate
knowledge of an entire country.
The internet has democratised
information. Unfortunately, it has also democratised intellectual
overconfidence.
I often wonder what one is
supposed to do with such people. Correcting them is usually futile because they
mistake correction for provocation. Arguing with them is equally pointless
because every counterargument merely reinforces their certainty. Presenting
evidence seldom helps because evidence has an annoying habit of bouncing off
firmly held convictions.
Perhaps the wisest response is
not confrontation but quiet detachment. One learns to distinguish between
conversations that enrich the mind and conversations that merely exhaust it.
Not every opinion deserves a rebuttal. Not every assertion demands an answer.
Some certainties are simply too deeply invested in themselves to be disturbed
by facts.
That, I suppose, is the tragedy
Hawking was pointing towards.
Knowledge thrives on curiosity.
It flourishes through questions. It grows by admitting that today's answers may
be refined by tomorrow's discoveries. The illusion of knowledge slams that door
shut. It replaces inquiry with arrogance, humility with conceit and learning
with performance.
History has repeatedly reminded
us that entire civilisations have been spectacularly wrong while believing
themselves unquestionably right. Every age has produced its own unquestioned
certainties, only for posterity to smile at them with gentle disbelief. There
is no compelling reason to think our own age enjoys immunity from the same
fate.
Perhaps intelligence itself is
one of the greatest illusions we cultivate. We often mistake confidence for
competence, fluency for depth and verbosity for wisdom. Yet intelligence, like
knowledge, is remarkably elusive. The moment we become convinced we possess it
in abundance; it quietly begins slipping away.
The older I grow, the more I
admire those three simple words that so many people seem reluctant to utter:
"I do not know."
There is more wisdom in that
modest confession than in the grandest proclamations of the neo-learned. It
leaves room for discovery, for correction and for growth. It keeps curiosity
alive.
And curiosity, unlike certainty, has never pretended to know everything.
