Verrocchio's Workshop

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05/31/2018  

 

Information Literacy:  

Knowing What We Know; Knowing Why We Don't Know What We Don't Know. 

 by  

H. E. Drew 

 

  “Knowing What We Know; Knowing Why We Don't Know What We Don't Know.” is not a famous prayer by the renowned American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr but it is reminiscent of “The Serenity Prayer.” often attributed to him (5 Timeless). Critical thinking about knowledge, unknown knowledge, and knowledge on a need to know basis supports information literacy. By exploring Aristotelian Rhetorical Theory; Agnotology, evaluating personal knowledge, determining the validity of information, and critically comparing multiple sources establishing credibility contributes to information literacy. 

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  The meaning of critical thinking is captured by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle when he stated, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it (Philosophical).” Aristotelian Rhetorical Theory, a historically proven method of determining targeted truth from the minutia and fallacious noise has been practiced for millennia (Questing xviii). This theory concentrates on audience appeals through emotion, logic, and ethics which are referred to as Pathos, Logos, and Ethos appeals respectively. Critically thinking enhanced through understanding rhetorical elements creates a means by which truth and fallacy are separated within an information set. This leads to knowledge. Steve Inskeep of National Public Radio states, "What we all need, as citizens, is to develop more skill in applying our skepticism. We need to spot false narratives, and also turn aside those who would replace them with pure fiction (Questing xix).” Aristotelian Rhetorical Theory, a method of communicating and receiving information with criticality, leads to knowledge. When studying knowledge, known as epistemology one needs to compare what is knowledge to what is not knowledge. 

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  Ignorance, often thought of as the lack of knowledge has overtones of negativity. There is ignorance that can be and should be overcome by knowledge and there is knowledge that is suppressed for malevolent and benevolent reasons. The study of ignorance called agnotology deepens the understanding of ignorance role in society (Proctor 27). Robert N. Proctor, a Professor of the History of Science at Stanford University, and a well-known pioneering of agnotology states “One of my favorite examples of agnogenesis is the tobacco industry's efforts to manufacture doubt about the hazards of smoking. It was primarily in this context (along with military secrecy) that I first began exploring this idea of manufactured ignorance (Proctor 12).” Considering the manufacturing of doubt about the hazards of smoking and the need for secrecy by the military is quite logical in the quest for information literacy. These are excellent examples of contrived ignorance that have a negative and positive societal affect. Suppression of knowledge has a huge impact on society. Consider the 1562 BCE burning of Mayan royal libraries at Mani on the Yucatan by Diego de Landa. An entire culture’s literary significance obliterated purposely. Diego de Landa’s justification was fundamentally religious contempt conflicting with Christian virtue (Proctor 10). Compare this act of literary eradication with the story of the murder of the librarian and the burning of the library at Alexandria, Egypt in the 4th century AD. The story goes like this: Hypatia, a female scientist, astronomer, and mathematician was murdered by a mob of fanatical Christians. Christian politicians gaining popularity provoked this horrid act. Later the famed Library of Alexandria, Egypt where Hypatia studied was burned by a similar mob. The political justification was Hypatia, a female pagan represented non-Christian female virtues; the library was thought to contain a vast amount of pagan knowledge; and the clerics believed this knowledge to be threatening to Christianity (Grout). Carl Sagan, in the “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage.” documentary tells the account of the murder of Hypatia whereas her flesh was stripped from her body by a fanatical mob using the shells of abalone. Sagan confirms that within a year the famous library was burned to the ground (Who Speaks). When the two accounts are compared, the destruction of the Mayan library to the burning of the Alexandrian library; the justification of destruction in both cases demonstrate consistency whereas the recently achieved dominant society attempts to minimize their predecessor’s influence by destroying the culture's literary achievements. The eradication of knowledge to displace a legacy culture is not the only shocking form of contrived social ignorance. There are cases where modern day dictatorial governments use subterfuge to engineer ignorance.

  
   Fake news that creates false narratives is nothing new. According to an article called “Deceiving the Public.“ from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Holocaust Encyclopedia; in 1944 Danish Red Cross officials concerned about Danish Jews deported to Theresienstadt Czechoslovakia by the Nazi Regime insisted the International Red Cross investigate living conditions at the Theresienstadt camp-ghetto. Nazi authorities permitted a Red Cross inspection after considerable stalling. The results of the inspection released in US Newspapers and other international news organizations created fake news, and this is how it was done. The Nazis accelerated deportations from the camp to killing facilities prior to the inspection then forced the prisoners left behind to renovate the facility. They planted gardens, painted houses, and refurbished barracks. When the Red Cross inspectors arrived, the Nazis staged parties and cultural events creating the appearance of uplifting and celebrating the residence. The ruse was a success. When the inspectors were gone to publish and spread the fake news, the Nazis reinstated deportation to the death camps from Theresienstadt and a Nazi propaganda film named “Lens on Theresienstadt.” previously halted, continued production depicting prisoners enjoying concerts, engaging in soccer, gardening, lounging in barracks and relaxing in the sun all to deceive its intended audience. The Nazi overlords forced prisoners to write, act, construct sets, edit, and compose this work of propaganda. Even children prisoners worked in the film production; coerced to work by being offered tempting food, such as milk and desserts. The film was never released to the public, but it is clearly designed to deceive and pacify a concerned audience.  A film such as “Lens on Theresienstadt.” and the Red Cross deception demonstrate an emboldened regime benefiting from a general apathetic population’s unwillingness to comprehend the magnitude of a government’s crimes against humanity. The Nazis deported close to 90,000 German, Austrian, Czech, Slovak, Dutch, and Hungarian Jews from Theresienstadt camp-ghetto to the death camps until October 1944 (Grout). With all of this appalling engineered ignorance, is all imposed ignorance negative?

  

  In the article, “The right to know vs the need for secrecy: the US experience.” Michael Schudson, a Professor at Columbia University says, “There really are military secrets that should not fall into the hands of fanatics, practical jokers, or deranged people. There really is a need for government decision-makers to be able to trust in the confidentiality of their meetings and of their electronic communications if there is to be a free flow of conversation among them (Schudson).” Professor Schudson points out certain groups want to discredit professors and their research by demanding access to their e-mail regarding scientific agreement confirming climate change (Schudson). “Some states exempt university professors’ records from public records laws on the grounds that the preservation of academic freedom is a vital democratic good that, within limits, trumps the public’s right to know (Schudson).” On the page shared with this article, Professor Schudson discloses that "he received funding from the Spencer Foundation, US National Endowment for the Humanities, a fellowship awarded from the MacArthur Foundation, and contacted to possibly receive future funding for research from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.(Schudson)." This disclosure demonstrates a high degree of transparency, increasing confidence in the author’s ethics. 

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  I, the author of this article, have firsthand experience on matters of protecting government secrets on behalf of public safety and citizens need to know exemption.  Working as an engineer for a government owned potable water utility, I was the lead hydraulic potable water modeling expert when approached by Homeland Security to explore vulnerabilities within a potable water production and distribution network that serves approximately 1,000,000 people. I was asked to devise methods of mitigating found vulnerabilities with said potable system. The results is not to be discussed; the findings and solutions if published could bring harm to the public if used for malicious purposes. 

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  Let's end this exploration in Information literacy with an excerpt from “The Serenity Prayer.” “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference (5 Timeless).” Understanding what we know using reliable Aristotelian Rhetorical Theory, critical thinking, and understanding the many aspects of ignorance enhances information literacy. Considering sources of information, comparing and cross-referencing claims adds confidence to one’s research. Taking in account one's own firsthand experiences and how it relates to researched information gives validity to a conclusion. Critically thinking about when ignorance is to one's detriment and lack of knowledge is to one's benefit promotes information literacy.  

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Works Cited 

 

“Questing for Knowledge in a Post-Truth Era.” Questing for Knowledge, Edited    by University of North Florida, Fountainhead Press, 2017 pp. xvii-xx. 

 

Proctor Robert. “Agnotology: A Missing Term to Describe the Cultural Production 

           of Ignorance (and Its Study).” Questing for Knowledge, Edited by University of North Florida, Fountainhead Press, 2017 pp. 3-36. 

 

“5 Timeless Truths From The Serenity Prayer That Offer Wisdom In The Modern Age” Huffington Post. July 11/2008. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/18/serenity-prayer-wisdom_n_4965139.html. Accessed on [12 /06/2017]. 

 

Grout James. "Hypatia." Encyclopedia Romana. n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2010. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/greece/paganism/hypatia.html. Accessed on [5/30/2018]. 
 

“Who Speaks for Earth.” Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, created by Carl Sagan, narrated by Carl Sagan, episode 13, December 21, 1980. https://youtu.be/lGds93obhpM. Accessed on [5/30/2018]. 

 

“Deceiving the Public.” Holocaust Encyclopedia; United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.  www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007822. Accessed on [5/30/2018]. 

 

Schudson Michael. “The right to know vs the need for secrecy: the US experience.” The Conversation. http://theconversation.com/the-right-to-know-vs-the-need-for-secrecy-the-us-experience-40948. Accessed on [5/30/2018]. 

 

"Philosophical Insights from ARISTOTLE." Philosophical and Psychological Foundations of Education.  https://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/quotations/aristotle.html.  Accessed on [5/30/2018].