Tuesday, February 04, 2014
Tragically false
BBC interviewing David Miliband, former Brit politician, now heading some left-wing organization. Speaking of the "necessity" of education:
"The most precious thing about knowledge is that once you've got it nobody can take it away from you."
Noble sentiment, but strictly untrue if we're talking about fact knowledge or more generally verbal knowledge, which seems to be his focus.
Let's review the How-What-Who sequence:
Three types of knowledge: How, What, Who. All three types are necessary, and everyone uses all three types all the time, but the dominant type strongly influences the form and the success of a culture. = = = = = How-ism is based on skills, on knowing the way. How to build, how to cook, how to repair, how to keep people happy, how to keep them under control. How-knowledge comes directly from the senses, tempered and conditioned by comparison and proportion, with a constant awareness of feedback and cycles. (Does this work better? How can I tell when it's better? When does it repeat?) How-knowledge can be passed with no words at all from mother to daughter, father to son, master to apprentice. What-ism is based on facts, on knowing the data. What-knowledge requires language, symbols and formulas. You can acquire what-knowledge (and some how-knowledge) by reading a book. Who-ism is based on identity and quotation. Who-knowledge requires a strong sense of status, an up-to-date reading of comparative authority, and a tape-recorder mind. If the high-status person says "2+2=5" and wears Prada, we must say "2+2=5" and wear Prada. If the low-status person says "2+2=4" and wears J.C. Penney, we must mock "2+2=4" and discard everything with a J.C. Penney label.Miliband is talking about What-knowledge. It's dead easy to take away What-knowledge. This is the sole purpose of Satan's media. When you're locked into TV, your entire stock of What-knowledge is under the constant and total control of the producers and advertisers. One half-hour show can whiplash your logic circuits into servile submission, and the next half-hour show can fill your memory with Who-knowledge. How-knowledge is an entirely different proposition. When your body knows how to ride a bicycle or knead a loaf of bread or play a trumpet or jump a battery, your body knows permanently. More complex tasks may require some rehearsal after a long absence of practice, but the details will return. Television cannot destroy how-knowledge.
Labels: skill-estate
¶ 2:37 AM
