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KNOWLEDGE IS POWERFUL
A child takes her first faltering steps and her parents grin with delight and gather her up in their arms for cuddles. She says her first words, performs a new song, or makes the final of the school spelling bee – and she gains praise and respect. From the very beginning, we are valued, appreciated and rewarded for accumulating knowledge and mastery.
Sir Francis Bacon’s iconic phrase “knowledge is power” is so obvious that it doesn’t bear mentioning. We know from school, work and life that expertise – being seen to know – determines our status and provides us with influence, power and reputation. The mere appearance of knowledge confers dignity and demands our attention.
In the past few decades, developed and developing economies have continued to shift inexorably towards services and away from agriculture and manufacturing. An increasing number of us are now in professions where we “think for a living.” In many countries the attainment of a certain level of formal education increases average incomes through access to opportunities in employment. Higher levels of education are directly related to better health outcomes, lower fertility and longer lives.1
Beyond the practical benefits, the rank and power that we can draw from our knowledge and expertise can make us feel more important and more worthy. In turn this gives us more confidence. It may fuel our ambition as we seek to grow the status that comes with success.
Author and philosopher Nassim Nicholas Taleb tells us that we tend to treat our knowledge as “personal property to be protected and defended. It is an ornament that allows us to rise in the pecking order. We take what we know quite seriously.”2 Our thirst for knowledge is continuously fed by organizations that put a premium on competence and expertise. Performance according to specific criteria is evaluated and linked to promotions, remuneration, bonuses and other rewards. These reinforce the belief that the more competent we are, the more successful we will become, the higher up we will go, and the more we will get paid.
The rewards we acquire from knowledge, from certainty, are not only external – they are hard-wired into our brains. Recent studies in the field of neuroscience have shown that certainty is one of the key conditions we need to learn to function optimally and neuroscientist David Rock even argues that threats to our certainty can be neurologically as painful as a physical attack.3
This is supported by other research on the effect of uncertainty on the brain that shows that even a small amount of uncertainty generates an “error” response in the brain. It is debilitating to live with significant uncertainties, such as not knowing our boss’s expectations or having to wait for medical results to find out if we have a serious illness. Our brain is always searching for the answer.
Neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga, from the University of California, has researched this rationalization by studying those who have had hemispheres of their brains severed as a treatment for severe epilepsy. Applying the same experiment to each half separately, Gazzaniga was able to conclude that in the left hemisphere of the brain there is a neural network he calls “the Interpreter.” The left hemisphere’s capacity of continual interpretation means that it is “always looking for order and reason, even when they don’t exist.”4
It is little wonder we voraciously pursue knowledge in all its forms because knowledge is a wonderful thing. It promises that we will be rewarded, respected, promoted, and become wealthier, healthier and more confident.
Yet perhaps a little caution is in order. When was the last time someone tried to sell you something with many benefits, but no downsides? The problem with knowledge is in the very fact that it is so useful. We cling to it even in situations when it has the potential to limit us – to paradoxically get in the way of new learning and growth.
