A PLEA FOR IGNORANCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23500, 14 May 1938, Page 11

A PLEA FOR IGNORANCE

By W. G. N.

Let us plead the cause of Ignorance. It may not be politic to do so just when thousands of children re-enter our State schools and our universities promise again to be overcrowded. Once more knowledge is to be wrongly sanctified, and a protest must be lodged. For knowledge, considering the consciously cruel world it has created, has been greatly over-praised, while the past glories of elegant ignorance have been under-estimated.

Despite our educationalists, it can be quietly affirmed that ignorance is the source of more joy and comfort than knowledge. It can be further claimed that ignorance will be as carefully nurtured in the State of to-morrow as knowledge is sponsored to-day. Now this sounds like a very rash statement, and yet it stands analysis. In support of the first part of the claim, that ignorance is the source of more joy and comfort than knowledge, let us consider faith. Faith is perhaps the most invigorating and comforting thing in this world. But faith is the natural sequel of ignorance. If there were no mysteries, if all the facts were plain for man to understand, then there would be nb need for faith, but rather for interpretation, and in interpretation you find so often the cause of discord and anger. No, faith is the result of certain known facts and a great deal of ignorance. In the Old Testament there were many mysteries and prophecies that men could not understand. They were ignorant, and so had to believe. The New Testament, so rich in miracles and mysteries, confounded the philosophers, so that, lacking facts, they had to revert to belief. They could not radically explain the raising of the dead or the satisfying of the multitude with a few loaves and fish. They could not comprehend the promised glory to come. Their very ignorance led to a fanatic faith, a faith that carried them through exiles and persecutions, led them rejoicing to martyrdom, and created happy, vigorous heroes out of drab characters.

For two hundred years Europe trembled to the thunder of the marching armies of the Holy Crusaders, armies eager to take part in perhaps the most unholy wars ever waged. Greed, lust, politics, and personal animosity combined to launch these mockeries of holy wars; yet there were men who went into the wilderness believing that they were fighting for their God. That was their ignorance, but at the same time it was their joy and comfort. There has been an outcry lately that fear Is the greatest evil in the world. Now knowledge does not always disperse fear. On the contrary, it often increases it. Two men who served in the Great War came back believing that they had helped in a war to end war. The first was a manual worker, content with physical construction. His religious beliefs were strong. His political beliefs were as uninteresting as they were unemphatic. To-day he is still happy in the belief that the European nations, with the memory of the last great war before them, will never indulge again in such horror. He blissfully ignores Spain, with its German and Italian co-patriots. He looks on rearmament as a rather stupid solution of the unemployment problem. He goes on taking a pride in his work and his home, a happy man. The second man, a scholar, is not happy. He has read too much. He has read of Hitler being financed in his initial coup by the Skoda armament firm, and then, reading further, he has learnt that this firm of Skoda is under the control of a French armament firm. He shakes his head at such iniquity when he reads of the huge expenditure on armaments made by both France and Germany as a result of this neat piece of finance. His consternation over Spain and the Mediterranean is pitiable. He is even worried over Russia joining in the Sino-Japanese war, with the consequent interest of Germany and even Italy. The knowledge he has is an unhappy thing. He cannot settle down to anything. He argues that another war of any size' will totally upset the economic arrangements of the world. What is the use of building up what will surely be pulled down within a few years, maybe a few months? And when the scholar lectures the labourer on these horrors he openly scorns the labourer for his laughter and happy ignorance. But in his heart he envies him.

New thought is always disquietening and rarely leads to an improved total of happiness in the world. Certainly when Lord Rutherford split the atom he did not simultaneously split the world into warring factions. Luther, on the other hand, when he challenged the Pope and tradition, kindled a series of bloody wars that inflamed Europe for centuries - Henry VIII learnt enough during his religious essay writing as Defender of the Faith to warp that faith to his own sensuous ends, and so commence an unhappy series of persecution. A politician is a good politician so long as he is ignorant. Let him become practical and he is dubbed either a reactionary or a revolutionary. Few would call our present Government revolutionary. None would call it reactionary. The Englishman venerates tradition because if saves him thinking. The State of to-morrow will go beyond that. It will nurture ignorance. Be the State reactionary or revolutionary, it will leave its constructive thought to a small council. The people will be trained to follow blindly Germany Italy, and Russia are but a taste of the future. Under such rule, if the public were granted the liberty of expression of free thought, the welfare of the State would be interrupted. Karl Marx thought out a revolutionary programme It would be dangerous to think beyond that. Then let his book bo the bible of Communism. Mussolini created a Fascist State, and still holds down the job of dictator. Most satisfactory! Then let his be the model for all Fascist States. In both creeds organs of public thought must be nationalised. The public must not think It must believe. And so we get back to the old definition of faith

To-night I called on a friend. “ Why have you come to see me ? ” he asked.

“ I am writing an article on ignorance,” I explained. The visit was not a success. Why must people deny their happiest heritage ?