The Conspiracy Against Wisdom

Any parent knows the inquisitive nature of a three or four-year old child. Once langauge is in place look out!! 'What's this?' What's it for?' 'Why?' Endlessly pointing to things, picking things up, looking at things, wondering, asking, asking all those questions... Good Lord the questions!!

Many a parent is put to wit's end by a child's innate curiousity. It can be exhausting. And that may be the danger for the parent, the child, and the world of the future that the child will one day inhabit. Why? Well, when the parent grows weary of the child's questions the parent may be liable to snapping at the child and making the child feel some sense of guilt or shame relative to asking questions.

In short, the parent can send the message to the child that kills wisdom at an early age: Questions are bad! Don't bother Mummy and Daddy with all of those questions? Don't, in other words, bother endeavouring to better understand the world around you.

Obviously children are not comfortable with ignorance. Children have an innate bent towards understanding and wisdom. Children want to know. They are thirsty for knowledge. They have an innate predisposition to overcoming ignorance. And yet, if there is conveyed to the child a sense of the 'bothersome nature of too many questions,' then the child can quickly come to a place where he or she is forced to be content with ignorance. So the result is that very thing that the child aches to overcome, to dispell, to do away with--namely, ignorance--becomes the very thing that the child is forced to live with everday thereafter, lest he or she upset his or her parents with yet another question. And we all know that the child doesn't want to do that!

Then the child goes to school, where there is pressure to know and understand before one has even been taught. You know what I am talking about--the reticence on the part of children to ask questions lest they be seen as 'stupid' by the other classmates.

Again, be content with ignorance: Don't ask the questions because a) you will upset and bother the busy parent; and b) later in life you will ridiculed for being stupid by your peers.

It all tends towards a Conspiracy For Ignorance.... or, if you prefer, A Conspiracy Against Wisdom.