DOES HAPPINESS RESULT FROM IGNORANCE OR FROM KNOWLEDGE?

On Vanity, Morality, and the Teachings of Voltaire

(Lately, I have been asking myself why I spend so much time reading about politics. There is no profit in it for me. I could make good money devoting my mind to other pursuits, or spend my time surfing, getting high and having fun. What advantage does my knowledge of politics offer me?

I suppose it is a sense of morality that guides me. I was raised Mennonite, and it is not lost on me that the way of life that I advocate for is clearly inspired by Anabaptist values. I am for a low-tech, collectivistic, secessionistic society based on principles of mutual aid, ecology, and voluntary simplicity. Clearly, the Amish and Old Order Mennonites are much closer to this ideal than train-hopping punks in Oregon or squatters in Berlin.

But perhaps it is not just morality that causes me to invest so much time in studying politics. Perhaps it is vanity. Perhaps I am committed to having the best political analysis for the purpose of gratifying my ego and proving the superiority of my intellect.

Or maybe it´s some kind of morbid curiosity. Or just a bad habit. Or some combination of all of the above. And if vanity is a factor, then does that mean that the pursuit of knowledge is not worthwhile? Where the will goes, so goes the ego, and what is activism if not for the deliberate use of one´s will towards desired ends? And how would one determine what ends were desirable without a sense of morality?

So it doesn´t seem possible to me to evict either morality or egotism from activism. But lately I have been inspired by Taoism and have been asking myself, what would it be like to relinquish both vanity and morality? What would it mean if I were truly to devote myself to the practice of wu-wei (effortless action)? Would that not mean surrendering my ideal of ¨The Way Things Should Be¨? Would that not mean renouncing both activism and the morality it is rooted in? Would accepting things as they are amount to accepting the techno-industrial-capitlist world order as a fait accompli? Does acceptance of an oppressive world order make one more complicit in it than they would be if they strove to oppose it, even if their efforts proved futile? Is it heroic to take arms against the sea of troubles, or just foolish?

The fact of the matter is that I am ill-suited for the role of the moralist. I am what an Old Order Mennonite would call ¨fallen¨, that is to say, mired in the sinful worldliness that the colony is meant to protect its members from. Am I really to be taken seriously as a moralist? In the eyes of society, words like criminal, delinquent, and degenerate would surely suit me better.

As for my vanity and my feeling that I understand politics way better than most people, perhaps I am simply deluding myself. Over the past few years, I have come to understand that many beliefs I formerly held were wrong. Does it not then follow that many beliefs I currently hold are also wrong? It is a well-known phenomenon that people tend to consider themselves more intelligent than they really are. Am I so vain as to think that I am not susceptible to such a cognitive bias?

So lately I´ve been wondering - do other people ask themselves these questions? Or do I just have a bad habit of psycho-analyzing myself? Am I smoking too much weed?

Anyway, I recently found some comfort when I came across a delightful short story by Voltaire called The Good Brahmin, which deals with these very questions, and decided to share it with all of you. Enjoy! You´re in for a treat.)

The Good Brahmin

by Voltaire

In my travels I once happened to meet with an aged Bramin. This man had a great share of understanding and prudence, and was very learned. He was also very rich, and his riches added greatly to his popularity; for, wanting nothing that wealth could procure, he had no desire to defraud any one. His family was admirably managed by three handsome wives, who always studied to please him; and when he was weary of their society, he had recourse to the study of philosophy.

Not far from his house, which was handsome, well-furnished and embellished with delightful gardens, dwelt an old Indian woman who was a great bigot, ignorant, and withall very poor.

"I wish," said the Bramin to me one day, "I had never been born!"

"Why so?" said I.

"Because," replied he, "I have been studying these forty years, and I find it has been so much time lost. While I teach others I know nothing myself. The sense of my condition is so humiliating, it makes all things so distasteful to me, that life has become a burden. I have been born, and I exist in time, without knowing what time is. I am placed, as our wise men say, in the confines between two eternities, and yet I have no idea of eternity. I am composed of matter, I think, but have never been able to satisfy myself what it is that produces thought. I even am ignorant whether my understanding is a simple faculty I possess, like that of walking and digesting, or if I think with my head in the same manner as I take hold of a thing with my hands. I am not only thus in the dark with relation to the principles of thought, but the principles of my motions are entirely unknown to me. I do not know why I exist, and yet I am applied to every day for a solution of the enigma. I must return an answer, but can say nothing satisfactory on the the subject. I talk a great deal, and when I have done speaking remain confounded and ashamed of what I have said."

"I am in still greater perplexity when I am asked if Brama was produced by Vishnu, or if they have both existed from eternity. God is my judge that I know nothing of the matter, as plainly appears by my answers. 'Reverend father,' says one, 'be pleased to inform me how evil is spread over the face of the earth.' I am as much at a loss as those who ask the question. Sometimes I tell them that every thing is for the best; but those who have the gout or the stone—those who have lost their fortunes or their limbs in the wars—believe as little of this assertion as I do myself. I retire to my own house full of curiosity, and endeavor to enlighten my ignorance by consulting the writings of our ancient sages, but they only serve to bewilder me the more. When I talk with my brethren upon this subject, some tell me we ought to make the most of life and laugh at the world. Others think they know something, and lose themselves in vain and chimerical hypotheses. Every effort I make to solve the mystery adds to the load I feel. Sometimes I am ready to fall into despair when I reflect that, after all my researches, I neither know from whence I came, what I am, whither I shall go, or what is to become of me."

The condition in which I saw this good man gave me real concern. No one could be more rational, no one more open and honest. It appeared to me that the force of his understanding and the sensibility of his heart were the causes of his misery.

The same day I had a conversation with the old woman, his neighbor. I asked her if she had ever been unhappy for not understanding how her soul was made? She did not even comprehend my question. She had not, for the briefest moment in her life, had a thought about these subjects with which the good Bramin had so tormented himself. She believed from the bottom of her heart in the metamorphoses of her god Vishnu, and, provided she could get some of the sacred water of the Ganges in which to make her ablutions, she thought herself the happiest of women.

Struck with the happiness of this poor creature, I returned to my philosopher, whom I thus addressed:

"Are you not ashamed to be thus miserable when, not fifty yards from you, there is an old automaton who thinks of nothing and lives contented?"

"You are right," he replied. "I have said to myself a thousand times that I should be happy if I were but as ignorant as my old neighbor, and yet it is a happiness I do not desire."

This reply of the Bramin made a greater impression on me than any thing that had passed. I consulted my own heart and found that I myself should not wish to be happy on condition of being ignorant.

I submitted this matter to some philosophers, and they were all of my opinion: and yet, said I, there is something very contradictory in this manner of thinking; for, after all, what is the question? Is it not to be happy? What signifies it then whether we have understandings or whether we are fools? Besides, there is this to be said: those who are contented with their condition are sure of that content; while those who have the faculty of reasoning are not always sure of reasoning right. It is evident then, I continued, that we ought rather to wish not to have common sense, if that common sense contributes to our being either miserable or wicked.

They were all of my opinion, and yet not one of them could be found, to accept of happiness on the terms of being ignorant. From hence I concluded, that although we may set a great value upon happiness, we set a still greater upon reason.

But after mature reflection upon this subject I still thought there was great madness in preferring reason to happiness. How is this contradiction to be explained? Like all other questions, a great deal may be said about it.