Is Ignorance Bliss?

Philosopher’s Hall stands in downtown Philadelphia and I may not have time to blog about it, but I promise to at least post pictures. Established by Benjamin Franklin and now most widely recognized as the American Philosophical Society, I gotta say that peering at the bricks of this 270 year old place is going to be fun.

But what’s the point really? There’s been no shortage of deep thinkers over the bulk of American history, at least not until maybe the last forty years. It’s not like that highbrow stuff has opened very many doors to human progress – and what doors it has opened most find too grueling and tiresome to enter.

One of the most fascinating things about Whitman to me is his constant, absolute refusal to debate the deeper issues. For Whitman, the deepest philosophy was written into his body and into Nature, and their story existed not to answer any question – to Whitman there wasn’t much of a question at all – there was only the need to “be.” It was as if he knew the old Japanese proverb which states that, "A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song." Whitman is consistent in his debasement of thinking that runs too deep:

“Logic and sermons never convince – the damp of night drives deeper to my soul.”

“A morning glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.”

“I think I could turn and live with the animals, they are so placid and self contained;
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition;
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins;
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God;
Not one is dissatisfied-not one is demented with the mania of owning things;
Not one kneels to another, nor his kind that lived thousands of years ago….”

Philosopher’s Hall is going to be a real treat for me because I can’t quite side with Whitman here; however, I have to wonder if it isn’t the general malaise from exposure to metaphysics that spurns this trip to begin with. Whitman’s hold on me likely stems from this idea that too much thinking keeps a person from simply “being.”

Doubly fascinating for me is our old recorded story of man’s proverbial fall from grace, which detailed not some violent, unexplained outburst – nor some twisted sexual deviance. It wasn’t man's greed or his divorces or his bad parenting or his failure to build a church and worship… at the heart of it was eating from a tree that granted nothing other than knowledge. And God's warning was clear - that tree will ultimately devour you. Eden for Whitman wasn’t just the absence of suffering and sin; it was a placidity that comes when the mind isn’t overly preoccupied with knowing too many things.

I’m not sure I fully understand this, hence the preoccupation. I am fairly sure no one reading this rambling will understand it either as I have undoubtedly muddied the water. J

“Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself.

I am large. I contain multitudes…”

Walt Whitman