Julia asks, “why do we trust some knowledge more than other?” I realize one of the reasons I trust knowledge is that it makes sense to me. If it is outside my realm of reasonable it is hard for me to trust it.
I think that’s fair- I would never ask someone to blindly trust knowledge that seems unreasonable to them. But I do think it is important to stretch and interrogate our own ideas of what reasonable is- to try to see other perspectives, or at least to understand that other perspectives may place our knowledge system outside the realm of what is reasonable as well. I would argue that it is disrespectful to not be critical and rigorous about knowledges outside or adjacent to our ‘western’ knowledge system – many systems different to our own can stand up to critical scrutiny just as much as ones we are more familiar with.
You may not be able to get different systems to make sense to you, but you might be able to understand why they make sense to someone else. The times when I’ve been able to understand this have been very valuable to me.
The important thing to me is that we are honest about who we are and where we are coming from- we can argue, we can disbelieve, we can have conflict. I just really, really want us to stop pretending that we are neutral.
Julia asks, “why do we trust some knowledge more than other?” I realize one of the reasons I trust knowledge is that it makes sense to me. If it is outside my realm of reasonable it is hard for me to trust it.
I think that’s fair- I would never ask someone to blindly trust knowledge that seems unreasonable to them. But I do think it is important to stretch and interrogate our own ideas of what reasonable is- to try to see other perspectives, or at least to understand that other perspectives may place our knowledge system outside the realm of what is reasonable as well. I would argue that it is disrespectful to not be critical and rigorous about knowledges outside or adjacent to our ‘western’ knowledge system – many systems different to our own can stand up to critical scrutiny just as much as ones we are more familiar with.
You may not be able to get different systems to make sense to you, but you might be able to understand why they make sense to someone else. The times when I’ve been able to understand this have been very valuable to me.
The important thing to me is that we are honest about who we are and where we are coming from- we can argue, we can disbelieve, we can have conflict. I just really, really want us to stop pretending that we are neutral.