What is the ratio, in academia and in life, between
a) the amount of times people cite the virtue of knowing what it is you don't know and
b) admitting in some kind of public forum that, frankly, they don't know x?
I think a lot about intellectual honesty, and it's driven by a Philip K. Dick-esque ("Dickian?" "Dick-like?" "Dick-esque?" lolz) suspicion that reality, or at least much of human behavior, is much more fragile - and sometimes much more of a scam - than people are generally willing to let on.
It makes sense, sure, but it doesn't cease to shock me. For example, I never seem to remember what the hell "dialectical materialism" precisely is, but I'm afraid of admitting this in conversations with friend who really know their Marx. I mean, I have a vague idea - cycles of history, thesis/antithesis/synthesis, Hegel, etc. - but during little debates I generally stand there, sweating, secretly praying no one asks me if I know. I don't know. If I were more virtuous, so the sayings go, I'd have no qualms about saying that, but the sheer animal drive to not feel like an idiot in public is much stronger.
This is all a long way of saying that I want to become more comfortable with saying "I don't know," which itself is a longer way of saying that I want to become more self-confident.
Later, less whining and more history. I'm in Paris right now; perhaps we talk next about the Commune, or 1848 or something?
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