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READERS REPLY

Who Knows?
©Lleu Christopher 2001

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with knowledge –how we know what we know, or think we know what we know or assume we know what might in fact be unknowable…leave it to philosophers to complicate what most people take for granted. Sometimes we are faced with situations that bring such matters out of the abstract realm and into everyday life. Right now, the vast majority of Americans believe that Osama Bin Laden is responsible for the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center. It’s a fair assumption that the majority of the people who believe this had never heard of Bin Laden before Sept. 11. Their belief is based entirely on what they’ve heard, watched and read in the mass media, which, in turn, are passing on the words of George W. Bush and other high-ranking government officials.

Facts, especially those connected with life and death issues, do not exist in an emotionless vacuum. Those who believe in Bin Laden’s guilt, or "know" he’s guilty, don’t know this the way they know 1+1 = 2. When they hear the name Osama Bin Laden, or see his picture, they feel a surge of rage. Many, if they had the chance, would not hesitate to kill this man they’ve never met and of whom they have no personal knowledge. Likewise, many would kill, or support the killing of anyone closely, or maybe even remotely, associated with him. After all he/they killed 5,000 of "us," so isn’t it just that "we" inflict a similar punishment on "them?" Given the current state of affairs, this logic seems quite natural and reasonable to most Americans. But is it?

There are many perspectives from which we can explore this. We can look at is from a religious point of view –is retaliation a proper Christian response, or does a true reading of the scriptures call for forgiveness? Obviously, not everyone is Christian (I’m not); this is merely an example. The same question could be asked from a Jewish, Islamic, humanist, Buddhist or pagan point of view. We can also look at it from a political and historical perspective and ask to what extent, if any, American involvement in the Middle East may have contributed to the terrorist attack. I’m not implying that this in any way justifies the killing of thousands of people, but it’s a place to find a possible cause. For now, however, rather than asking why this occurred or what our response should be, I’d like to focus on the epistemological perspective –how do we know what’s going on?

By the standards of our justice system, the U.S. government has made public very little evidence implicating Osama Bin Laden. Most of what has been put forth is based on the alleged associations of some of the terrorists involved. Some of the evidence that conveniently surfaced the day after the attack seems rather dubious. Instructions on how to fly a plane and a copy of the Koran left in a rented car sound like the kind of clues found by Encyclopedia Brown in those old children’s mysteries. Bin Laden himself, while he has expressed approval for the attack, has not actually claimed responsibility. While we may not regard him as the most reliable source of information, terrorists are typically eager to claim responsibility for their actions. Besides, what does he have to gain by lying? He must know that nothing he says is going to change U.S. policy. He’s a marked man no matter what, so why not admit to masterminding the most lethal attack ever against his hated enemy? None of this proves his innocence, of course, but it’s something to think about.

It’s interesting to observe how quickly people can be mobilized based on so little direct knowledge. Mystics have always told us to doubt the reliability of our senses. Most of us, meanwhile, don’t only fail to question what our senses tell us, but are quite willing to commit ourselves based on secondhand (or third or fourth hand) hearsay. With each repetition, the mind can transform a possibly valid but unproven theory or a dubious assumption into an irrefutable fact.

There is a school of philosophy called skepticism, which teaches that we can know nothing, including who we are, or if we really are. Eastern religions, likewise, tell us that our experience in this world is maya or samsara, illusion. The problem with invoking such theories is that they seem impractical. They place everything on equally shaky footing. For example, if we can’t know anything, we can’t even know that the World Trade Center ever really existed, no less who destroyed it. If everything’s an illusion, our entire place in the physical world becomes murky and all questions become equally unanswerable. I believe that ultimately, the skeptics and mystics are right. I also believe, however, that to live in the world we need to take a middle ground between radical skepticism and simply assuming the truth of consensus reality.

If we choose to function in the everyday world of sense experience, social roles, money, nation states, religions and so forth, we must acknowledge their relevance, even if we believe that they are irrelevant from a greater, unworldly perspective. I believe, for instance, in the existence of the World Trade Center because I used to live in New York City and I saw it many times. I will go further and say that I know that, for approximately 30 years, these two buildings stood in lower Manhattan. I also know they were destroyed on September 11, 2001. I don’t know who destroyed them. I don’t know if Osama Bin Laden is responsible. I don’t even know if he’s a real person, having never met him. He could be what everyone says he is, or he could be an actor playing a part for…who knows whom?

What we know can often be overshadowed by how "facts" are presented. Today’s media has us conditioned to simply absorb names and images, along with convenient pigeonholes in which to place them. These pigeonholes may radically change from year to year, but this doesn’t trouble most people. In the 80s, both Iraq and the Taliban were our allies; now both are deemed worthy of decimation. In Orwell’s 1984, the brainwashed populace was told things like, "Oceania is at war with Eastasia; Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia," even though the previous week Eastasia may have been Oceania’s ally. In 2001 America, the media doesn’t even attempt to blot out our memory; it merely recites today’s agenda and explains how it contradicts yesterday’s, and most of us accept it without much fuss.

Another factor that influences "knowledge" is what is known as cognitive dissonance. When confronted with information that doesn’t conform to our prior knowledge, assumptions and prejudices, we are inclined to simply ignore it. We are so bombarded with facts and data that we can sometimes look at highly relevant information and simply disregard it, especially if it’s downplayed. For example, during recent wars, facts such as civilian casualties, domestic opposition to war and American responsibility for creating the war have not been completely suppressed in the media, but significantly downplayed. This makes these facts easy to ignore, even if our minds and senses do occasionally perceive them. The other side of this is that we’re inclined to accept "information" that is often repeated and presented in a compelling manner, especially if it’s in line with our prior knowledge and assumptions.

To take part in, or support the "War on Terrorism," one must assume quite a bit. We must, firstly, assume the guilt of Osama Bin Laden, taking the government and media’s word for it. Then we must assume that the places our bombs are falling are teeming with Osama’s co-conspirators. As for "collateral damage?" As with the wars against Iraq and Yugoslavia, it’s likely that many civilians will be killed in the present war. The media, for the most part, ignores or downplays this. Numbers of civilian casualties are often presented as statistics from the enemy camp, as "the Taliban claims 200 people were killed in today’s bombing," which is an implicit questioning of the figures’ veracity. We have the choice of simply ignoring this kind of uncomfortable "dissonance," or we can rationalize it by saying, "they’re probably all America-hating followers of Bin Laden." The most primitive rationalization, of course is, "they killed 5,000 of us, now it’s payback time." This kind of reaction, while seldom openly advocated by leaders and the media, is really the backbone of any war effort. For ultimately, it’s not reasonable arguments that drive people to violence, but raw emotion.

What this indicates is that when it comes to determining people’s opinions on world affairs, facts, information and knowledge usually take a back seat to feelings and assumptions. This is hardly an original observation, but one that is useful to remember when absorbing the glut of slanted "information" coming at us by the nanosecond.

What can we conclude from this brief examination of epistemology in relation to current events? Most significantly, we might consider that the very notion of knowledge as facts and information is misleading. What we "know" is inextricably connected to our prejudices and assumptions. It is also greatly influenced by questionable factors such as who tells us, how convincingly the message is presented, how often it is repeated and how well it conforms to what we’d like to believe.

This may be a good time to reassess our assumptions about what we know…about anything. It’s possible to have a fluid continuum of certainty. We might, for example, seek, or if we are fortunate, possess, a kind of transcendent certainty about spiritual matters, whether we understand this in terms of God, Goddess, Nature or the Tao. Under this, we may agree to accept the relative reliability of our senses to guide us through the tasks of daily life. We may also have certain people who we implicitly trust to tell us the truth, at least to the best of their ability. When it comes to impersonally transmitted "information," however, whether it comes from television, history books, newspapers, politicians or the internet, we might do well to practice a kind of cognitive agnosticism. Almost by definition, this kind of information is subjective, biased and manipulative. They, whoever "they" may be, invariably want to sell you something, get you to believe in something, get you to hate someone or get you to line up in some kind of formation. Even when they are "right," which isn’t often, you are losing out if you are merely a passive receptacle for assembly line factoids, clichés and ideologies. In these days of information (and disinformation) overload, it’s better to plead ignorance than to "know" too much.

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