I don’t want to know what I know

Taken from: http://peterrollins.net/blog/?p=1188

‘It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this’ Bertrand Russell

It was Aristotle who first defined human beings as rational animals. Without getting too deep into what Aristotle meant when he wrote this we can see how the idea informs the popular understanding of how education can help people undergo change.

For instance, when it comes to issues like environmental crisis, animal abuse, persecution of minorities etc. it is often said that what we need to do is get the truth out to as many people as possible. There will, of course, always be some who don’t care. But those who seek to be kind and loving individuals will be challenged by what they hear and endeavor to change. In this way documentaries like An Inconvenient Truth, Food Inc, and The Lottery help to positively impact society.

There are two basic reasons why this view is held. Firstly, such documentaries do generally tell us something that we don’t already know. Secondly, to a greater or lesser degree they seem to make a positive impact. However I would like to argue that this explanation misses something vital and, as such, fails to explain the phenomenon of resistance. Namely the situation in which people refuse to watch such documentaries (or engage in conversation about the issues they raise) by offering lame excuses, a host of unformulated arguments and/or visible bodily discomfort at the mere suggestion.

Of course there are many situations that we are genuinely ignorant of. But by the time a major film or book is released on some ethical subject it is generally the case that there is some knowledge about the issues among the general population. So, while such documentaries do indeed offer us information that we may not have known before, perhaps understanding their real power requires a more nuanced reading.

It is difficult to deny that offering information to people concerning ethically disgusting practices can facilitate change. But rather than this being connected with the idea that we now know something that we were previously ignorant of we must ask whether it might actually be because we can no longer pretend that we don’t know.

Hard as it might be for us to accept, what if we already know that our desire for cheap food and clothes feeds gross cruelty and suffering? What if we already know that the way we live is excessive and that there are ways to consume that minimise our damage on this earth? What if we already know that some of the things we desire are not worthy of our admiration?

At a basic level we might wish to pretend to those around us that we don’t know about something that would require us to change because we don’t want them to witness our more callous nature. However, at a more fundamental level, we are often attempting to pull the wool over our own eyes. Pretending to ourselves that we don’t know what we already know. In this situation we want to maintain a certain self-image and thus seek to surpress anything that would challenge it. The difference between not knowing and not wanting to know that we know is evidenced in the psychological phenomenon called Resistance.

Resistance is seen when, as mentioned above, people emotionally react to something that does not, in itself, need to be responded to in an emotional way. For instance there is a huge difference between someone not seeing a film on some challenging issue because they are genuinely busy and one who offers up a range of ridiculous excuses and half-baked arguments for why they are not attending.

To take an example of resistance I recently witnessed a conversation about hybrid cars in which one of the people took visible pleasure in pointing out that the enviromental impact of driving a new hybrid was much greater than that of driving a large, previously built, SUV. What was interesting was not the information itself but the way that the individual delivered it. The information was not given as a means of seriously forwarding the discussion concerning how we minimise our negative impact on the environment, but rather as a means of shutting down a conversation that was making that person feel uncomfortable about their own desires and lifestyle.

We witness a similar logic happening when, after the Second World War many civilians in Germany said that they did not know what was happening to their Jewish neigbours. This is no doubt true in the sense that they would not have known the full facts. However there were enough hints around to point to the reality that people actively tried to avoid finding out what was happening for fear that they would then need to act. Something most of us would have done if we had been there (because it is what most of us do today concerning all kinds of injustice).

So the issue here is not that we fail to know something, but rather that we don’t want to know that we know. For when we know that we know then we are forced to change our behaviour, offer embarrassing counter-arguments that make it obvious we don’t really care or simply admit our lack of concern (which is at least to be respected more than pretending that we do care).

This also has its corollary in religious issues. Many people avoid reading books that question their ideas on scripture, sexuality, the afterlife etc. because there is a part of them that already knows that their views are wishful thinking or unfounded. While resistance, with a little training, can be easy to spot in other people, it is more difficult when it comes to ourselves. However, when confronted with something that challenges us we must be sensitive to our own reactions, working out whether we experience emotional resistance and, if so, what it is we are hiding from ourselves.