Knowledge and Innocence

 We’ve all heard how ignorance is bliss. Without the knowledge of some pressing matter, how is one able to worry about it? Many people find comfort in not knowing all the scary and real parts of life, and believe living this sheltered life ends up making life easier and almost more calm. This may be true in some minor and insignificant cases; for instance, three different species of helpful dust mites live in your eyebrows and eat your dead skin/debris. These bugs are good for us, but that fact doesn’t soothe us. Most of us are just disturbed learning about these face-dwelling critters, and thus in this case, ignorance truly is bliss. However, when it comes to relevant parts of life, I believe knowledge will always trump ignorance; living in ignorance makes it much more difficult to plan your future, find your purpose in life, and embrace your true identity. 

One may make the argument that Adam and Eve would have been better off if they remained in their state of ignorance and did not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The consequences that ensured were not in the slightest pleasant and they were removed from their paradise, so how could eating from the tree have been beneficial? I believe there are a few reasons why this caused more harm than good. Gaining this knowledge of good and evil, from a Christian perspective, allowed the rest of humankind to flourish. Adam and Eve possessed such a naivety within the Garden that they quite literally knew nothing; only after they received their knowledge, or punishments, were they able to be the first two real humans in the world. By this I mean procreation was now an option, death was unavoidable, and they’d both have to harvest the materials of Earth to live and succeed. This was the first step forward for all of humanity; if Adam and Eve had not eaten from the tree and thus gained a sense of the world, no other humans could have been born as they knew nothing of childbearing. It’s hard to know for sure, but I believe if they were to remain in this state of innocence and ignorance, their lives would be utterly purposeless; many consider finding one’s purpose in life to be the ultimate goal, and it is only possible when there exist things in life to drive us. In Eden, there was nothing. In a more real sense, if we are unaware of the world around us and who we are in it, there exists no way to discover what truly brings us passion and fulfillment. Adam and Eve had no responsibilities, no motivations, no desires, no nothing, therefore lacking the purpose component; nothing existed to help the two better themselves, and they had no future plans. They knew no one else, and thus had no idea what their identities truly were. Without these three things, purpose, future, and identity, it’s hard to say you are truly living. I don’t just mean breathing in and out and circulating your blood, but truly experiencing life for all its ups and downs, and beauties and horrors. This is something Adam and Eve would have never been able to achieve in their neutral environment; they knew of nothing, and therefore they could experience nothing. In the real world things are much less dramatic, but there is a lesson to be learned: sometimes with knowledge comes hardship and pain, but there is always a silver lining. Even in the most pure and happiest of places, knowledge overrules ignorance.

Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden are the most obvious examples of pure ignorance and naivety; they knew of nothing before eating from the tree. This situation is quite different from that of Oedipus’s, who only thinks he has knowledge (spoiler alert: he doesn’t). The same goes for Sheriff Sam Deeds. In their quests to discover knowledge about the past, they learn they've been living in ignorance their whole lives. These two show the worst of what may happen when one prefers ignorance to knowledge, albeit accidentally sleeping with a relative is probably pretty rare in real life, I would think. However when it’s broken down, there’s many other reasons having knowledge like this is crucial to living one's fullest life, unhindered by obstacles. When unaware of crucial information such as this, our future becomes all the more unpredictable. Most people have some sort of vague plan for their life they intend to follow, and not possessing all the relevant knowledge needed to carry out this plan ends in surprises and confusion. Oedipus provides many examples of this: he intends to live as the King of Thebes with Queen Iocaste, but unaware of his true lineage he marries his mother. He attempts to find the murderer of Laios, only for him to realize he killed Laios and thus his father, again unaware of his identity. Sam Deeds’ story tracks similarly. He tells Pillar he only came back to Rio County for her, obviously showing his desire for a future with her; his lack of knowledge about his family’s history came back to haunt him when he learns his high school sweetheart is actually his half sister. In both cases it’s clear their ignorance prevented them from achieving the future they had hoped for. This ignorance, furthermore, prevented both Oedipus and Sam Deeds from truly knowing who they are and caused them to change the previous thoughts/ideals they held. This in turn set back their chance at finding their purpose in life, as it’s quite hard to do once they hold a new mindset and must discover their true identity. Both stories teach us ignorance can have dire and horrid consequences; again, these two outcomes are of fantasy and unlikely in the real world, but still demonstrate how having knowledge before setting out on some task can help avoid many mistakes that may be made.

The story of Gilgamesh and Enkidu is an example of how gaining knowledge can serve to help one discover their purpose, identity, and future. The beginning reveals Gilgamesh to be a crude leader who regularly abuses his virility to command his people, both workers and women alike. The gods make his equal, Enkidu, to be “. . . as like him as his own reflection, his second self, stormy heart for stormy heart. Let them contend together and leave Uruk in quiet” (62). It is also revealed Enkidu was originally no more than a wild animal who had yet to be civilized. This transition from ignorant to knowledgeable is what gave him his purpose in life, as planned by the gods: to tame Gilgamesh. This purpose could only be achieved once he learned how to live as a man, and left his naivety behind. As strange as it may have been to Enkidu, gaining this knowledge allowed him to plan his own future, as well as figure out who he truly is. Of course he didn’t plan for his death (as almost no one can predict when divine intervention might strike), yet executing his plans and future would have been near impossible in his previous innocent state. Again, this knowledge further helped him discover the true Enkidu; he previously believed himself to be a beast in the wild, but upon learning of human customs it’s clear he was made as a human being and not an animal. It’s possible he may have gone his whole life believing he was like the creatures he lived with, always wondering why he didn’t fit in. Many of us move through life as so: he associates with groups because of our social nature, but many times we are left wanting more or feeling like we don’t fit in. 

When attempting to navigate through life, living in ignorance will only cause problems further down the road as illustrated by Sam Deeds and Oedipus. Adam, Eve, and Enkidu teach us the value of knowledge, and how even when it may not be pleasant at first it will pay off much more than ignorance in the long run. As I mentioned before, it often seems quite appealing to simply avoid the information that will stress us out or cause problems. We avoid the headaches and confusion, and take whichever route makes our life easier and more simple. Yet all these characters show us exactly why that’s such a bad idea. I believe it’s best to gather all possible and relevant information before beginning some task or journey within one’s life. We can anticipate the mistakes we may have overlooked without knowledge, plan what's to come more accurately, and be prepared for the curveballs ignorance throws at us. In any case, learning the truth will always hurt less than the mistakes that may come from one's ignorance. We can choose to take the easy route in life, or choose to take the path that fulfills us and shapes us as humans; knowledge is something uniquely human, the one thing connects us all, and it is vital humanity does not lose sight of this.