From Wilson Moses
Knowledge and Ignorance: Two Barriers to Learning
Wilson J. Moses†
Paris Bastille Day, 2007Yesterday in French class the subject of conversation was" complaining," and the teacher asked how we might react to a train's being late. I offered an anecdote, relating how many years ago, having boarded a train in Rome, I waited twenty minutes for the train to leave the station, and how throughout the carriage, one could hear people from many different nations, impatiently invoking the name of Mussolini. As I said in French,"It is lÈgendaire that in the time of Mussolini the Italian trains were always ponctuel." But it was clear that only the teacher understood what I had said.†
After class, I told the story again in English to two fellows in their twenties who"speak English," but neither of them understood, because they did not know the words"legendary" or"punctual" in French or in English. In fact the guy from Sri Lanka, had no idea of what I meant by Mussolini, but as the Arab guy explained to him,"Mussolini was a guy." Most of the ability to communicate in any language is dependent on shared cultural literacy and historical sense.†
I was at a Paris street bookstall on July 11, 2007, and on the first page of a two volume work on the relationship between Voltaire and Frederick II of Prussia. My current book project touches on the intellectual kinship between Thomas Jefferson and Frederick II. I came upon a funny line in which Voltaire, at the table of Alexander Pope, referred (figuratively) to being"sodomized by the Jesuits," and I burst out laughing. The street vendor a 6'4" tall very black and husky African of around 40 looked at me, so I showed him the line. From his attitude of anger and embarassment, it occured to me that the man might be illiterate. A book dealer, who has no interest in books! His spoken French is probably inferior to mine, but he probably understands the quotidien, the vernaculiare better.†
In Pennsylvania, I have difficulty communicating in English with some young women in their early twenties because the major things on their minds are whether they should get their first tattoo, or wondering if their boyfriend knows they have been cheating. Many minds are not able to grasp any concept that requires two consecutive steps of logic or a definition of terms. The typical American college student is interested in talking about how"oh-mi-god," somebody got drunk and puked in the piano. Last week, I overheard an American girl on the crowded Avenue Phillipe Auguste telling her friend in Valley-Girl-English how she had unprotected sex with somebody. And this is why 75% of my students have difficulty with my examinations. Even the brightest ones can be disappointing. One very smart kid said that Mozart's and Da Ponte's adaptation of Beaumarchais' The Marriage of Figaro, did not probe the darker side of human passions"because opera is concerned only with beautiful ideas." She said this after sitting with apparent interest through a lecture in which I discussed how the entire opera and the play on which it was based were protests against the sexual exploitation of women.†I dedicated an entire lecture to this opera of Mozart and even made a passing reference to Jefferson's presumable relationship with Sally Hemings. Nonetheless, I can predict with certainty that some students would report that my lecture did not address feminist ideas.† Regardless of what language people are speaking, they cannot learn anything if they are tormented by either or both of the twin hobgoblins– ignorance and knowledge. Nobody can understand an anecdote about Mussolini, if they are ignorant of the fact that"Mussolini was a guy." Nobody can grasp the irony and satire in an opera by Mozart if they possess the knowledge that the subject matter of opera is"beautiful ideas."†