Thursday, November 01, 2007

A giving of knowledge by taking knowledge away

So stuffed full of stuff that we cannot see

When a man has filled his mouth so full of food that for this reason he cannot eat and it must end with his dying of hunger [or eating himself to death], does giving food to him consist in stuffing his mouth even more or, instead, in taking a little away so that he can eat? Similarly, when a man is very knowledgeable but his knowledge is meaningless or virtually meaningless to him, does sensible communication consist in giving him more to know...or does it consist, instead, in taking something away from him? When a communicator takes a portion of the copious knowledge that the very knowledgeable man knows and communicates it to him in a form that makes it strange to him, the communicator is, as it were, taking away his knowledge, at least until the knower manages to assimilate the knowledge by overcoming the resistance of form.

Soren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments

Note: consider this prophetic insight in an age when all people, even the most dull of mind, have non-stop information -- a culture gorged on electronic info 24/7 and yet still so illiterate and non-seeing in spirit...

Selah.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

thanks for giving us more information on this subject...

Anonymous said...

lol... no problem... here to serve! take some food out so that you can digest this latest, ok?

:-)