Knowledge

I just had this moment where my entire mind exploded with the fact that I know absolutely nothing.

Yep, so I'm reading this intensely interesting article on colonizing knowledge, on how the West sees everything they do as right and everything other cultures do as wrong. Even now, the West has so colonized places like South America, Africa, and parts of Asia that only people who think like 'Westerners' have valid ideas. For example, we all need a University education to be smart. And the BEST university education is in the West, at the 'Ivy League schools' of England and the US. And so... the most respected people in the world today generally have a western education.

But, in all seriousness, why is that? Isn't knowledge which is rooted in their own culture equally valid, equally important? And what makes 'empirical data' any more valid than 'qualitative data'? In many ways, the emotional, the parts of humanity that are immeasurable, are indeed more important than the number of toes I have. Yes, quantitative data has its place - we can look at how many people made x decision and then analyze that. But then again, have you ever asked them why they made x decision? I'm 100% sure that varies from person to person, and it's a great deal more revealing to search out the heart of the decision than the decision itself.

Anywho, all this to say that perhaps everything I've studied is just knowledge because some weirdo says it is. In all seriousness, whose to say that Western thought is the correct way of thinking? Perhaps my lens is fogged and seeing everything wrong. Whose to say I know anything at all - all but a to-be-achieved degree and a transcript that says I got x grade in y class. hrm.

Then again, maybe the only truth we can ever be sure of is that of which we are unsure.