The school year is rapidly coming to a close, and besides being increasingly excited for summer and supremely irritated at Binghamton’s inconsistent weather patterns, I’ve tried to organize the knowledge I have, and have not, accumulated during the past several months in preparation for final exams.
The tedious process has made me question the books, lectures and documents that many students numbly internalize for the sake of good grades (although for some, a passing grade will do). After all, out of all the knowledge I have learned, what do I actually remember, value and believe to be true?
With seemingly endless sources of facts available these days — not to mention the extensive hours we’ve spent in the classroom, having knowledge shoved in our ears and minds — the fine line between mere factual information and authentic knowledge may have begun to blur in the minds of those who were born in the Information Age.
To illustrate my point, I will refer to the Internet. Over the years, with the astounding progression of technological sophistication, the amount of information available for a person to consume has become limitless.
For example, type in “cheese” into Google and within seconds, 161,000,000 page results will be at your fingertips. Does that mean we should all seek to learn every minute fact about queso? And would it be a valuable way to invest our time?
Probably not. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that we’ve been clouded with way too much data.
Would anyone forgo the chance to firewall our computer and set up the kind of software that protects our computers from malicious viruses and hackers?
Obviously not. Why? Because worded differently, protective software weeds out the information on the web that is useless and ultimately harmful to your computer. It helps protect our identities on the web by making sure our private information, passwords or documents can’t be easily stolen by the millions of other people on the Web.
Likewise, maybe humans need to “firewall” our systems. No, I’m not promoting self-censorship and denial, but merely wondering, have we become nothing more than sponges that absorb absolutely everything without caution or thought?
Let’s not walk around like brainwashed zombies and believe everything that seems to be true, or just as bad, blindly follow everything that claims to be “anti-mainstream.” What happened to a bit of discernment and the ability to think? Everything taught to us by professors, parents, bosses, politicians or news guys may not be important, but you damn well better be able to pick up on it when it is.
I still have three weeks left until school is officially over, and three years left until I’m finished with my undergraduate studies. So maybe it’s not the best time to come to this conclusion, but screw it. I’m going to take a breather and be realistic about what I am humanly capable of learning because after all, as Henry David Thoreau once said, “To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.”