Power, in the world of physics the word means how much work is done in a unit of time. It's also a temporal measure of how much ‘movement’ happened as a consequence of a certain force. We see this word thrown around a lot in daily conversations, personally I love to use it in contexts of political debates, power rangers, and anime mcs. The word loosely carries with it ‘power’ to be used in a lot of places. Pardon my attempt at humor. But more often than not, we are able to make it out, what this word associates itself with, even in largely vague contexts like, “When we grow up, we will have more power” and similar teenage discussions with your crush. And in many such contexts, the word directly translates to independence, authority, or maybe control of some sort, but without fail, there is an element of one’s self always present. Whenever served, the word is always a gradient or relational: ‘power over xyz’ or ‘power to do xyz’, may be the most common templates we hear. And it makes sense, we perceive the concept of 'power' only when we place or imagine ourselves within the impact zone of the word.
So why am I talking about ‘Power’ again? I am wondering myself, but I will continue regardless.
We have all been almost too familiar with quotes turned superhero phrases like “with great power comes great responsibility”, “HULK SMASH!!!”, and the like. One such phrase, which might as well be a household slogan by now, is ‘knowledge is power’, such a simple-looking 3 word arrangement that managed to give gen-x and millennial parents philosophical orgasms for decades, and still continues to. Guess some things just do not lose charm with age (I just remembered Angelina Jolie as I wrote that sentence). Getting back on track, what even is so special about this quote? How does it manage to appeal to the masses? I will tell you how, it's because it entails two super vague words, the extent of which is subject to the imagination of whosoever reads/hears it. Don’t worry, I won't make a ‘vague’ claim and run away; I will explain it to you like a 5-year-old. Let's look at it very systematically:
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What has the attribute ‘vague’ got to do with the phrase's popularity? It's very simple! Knowledge and Power, both these words are so context dependent that they can be beautifully switched for almost anything, anything at all as desired. It's a mental ‘justify-it’ machine for just too many scenarios in daily life, be it anything, frustratingly explaining tech to your mom? Knowledge is Power; bragging to your younger siblings? Knowledge is Power; singing your praises to the neighbour who thought her kid was smarter than you? Take a wild guess. The lack of specificity -- how it's so conveniently undefined is what makes it so special. Believe me, something like ‘Degree is Job’ or ‘Apple is Tasty’ -- would not survive a week in the phrase arena.
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Coming to the other thing ‘extent’ -- now you would be wondering how this fancy-looking word with a dashing x in it affects the phrase, don’t worry, you are at the right place. The measure of Knowledge and Power serves more of a personal justification to things; it's for you to believe what version of the extent you agree to. ‘Knowledge is Power’ does not entail how much power? Or, for that matter, how much knowledge? A happy-go-lucky dude studies for two days, manages to get a $100k job, and thinks, “Oh damn! Knowledge is Power.” At the same time, another dude fails his third attempt at a highly competitive exam, and thinks, “I need to study more... Knowledge is Power”. Never is it clarified along with the phrase ‘how much’ of Knowledge and Power are we talking about. Is it “12th-grade knowledge is Power to get into a University” or “Knowledge of Colleen Hoover books is Power to launch a rocket”? We justify the versions of this phrase to retrofit our situations, at many instances this phrase is whats fueling your philosophical bugatti, you may not stop to think about it or observe it, but it appears in those blank seconds, where its the only thought that prevails or matters, and interestingly the more it is said the more it sticks around.
So why am I talking about this again? I just remembered. The phrase has been so popular for so long, it now has parallels which are 'literal adaptations’ of the phrase, tropes built around it and characters which are representative of this simple 3 word arrangement. You guys would have heard of ‘Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’ or ‘The Leader’, or ‘Ozymandias (Adrian Veidt)’. If you have not heard of any of them, don’t worry, it's confirmed that you live under a rock and there shall you perish. Coming back to our trail, yes, these movies, characters, and similar plots, when rid of their cosmetic bells and whistles, have the cutest 3-word phrase at their core, “pants optional today”, just kidding, it's “you’re still ugly”, oh come on man, I am just messing around. But on a serious note, it's ‘Knowledge is Power’.
What prompted me to think so unnecessarily deeply on this phrase and write an about to be two-page ramble was drum rolls …… an anime! It should come as no surprise to the people who know me, but I will explain it nonetheless, ANIME IS NOT CARTOON… IT HAS A LOT OF EMOTIONAL ELEMENTS TO IT. Ah! I feel good, yes, now we can continue with our discussion. In this particular episode of one piece is a character with an ability to manifest the power of anything she knows to be real. You must be thinking ‘so what?’ or ‘that's it?!’ Well, my friends, it does not seem apparent at first, but read closely. ‘Ability to manifest the power of anything she knows to be real’, found the catch? Damn, you’re smart kitten. So yes, the catch is: ‘knows to be real’, the more she knows about the world, the less powerful she becomes. She could manifest the power of dragons, of gods even, only to later be limited by her knowledge of the world, which chains her power to reality. This was me witnessing for the first time a challenge to the ‘Knowledge is Power’ notion, very implicit and very subtle, yet resulting in an absolute destruction of the phrase’s inherent value. This sent me down a spiral of looking back at all the things of my recent past where the idea of ‘Knowledge is Power” can be plausibly challenged. To my surprise -- it’s literally everywhere (at least in my life) “I want to do a startup on xyz” .. “Oh, but abc’s company already does xyz” just kills the drive where I do go ahead and work on something of my own. Imagine if somebody had told the Wright brothers, “You can never generate an upward thrust of xyz with a bike and two wings,” would they have still attempted to build a plane? Who knows. The point is we often interpret reality in terms of things we know exist, sometimes the burden of knowing is what stops us from the attempts of ‘fuck around and find out’ and believe me -- humanity has exponentially more to thank those with a ‘fuck around and find out’ attitude than those indulged in the philosophical masturbation via our cutest ‘Knowledge is Power’.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not the flag-bearer of ‘Knowledge is not Power’ or ‘No Knowledge is Power’, if you reach any of those two conclusions, you have successfully farted on my now two-page-long ramble. Knowledge IS Power, or at least that’s where Power in all its vagueness stems from, but that's not the only or absolute truth. At times, it becomes necessary to cap either of those things or quantify and uphold in one’s life what the phrase even means. Repeat after me, “SPECIFICITY IS IMPORTANT”, yes, good job. It’s not easy to think of things that have not already been thought of; it does not happen instantaneously -- sometimes, a discovery is made in the process of finding something completely tangent. Knowledge at times unintentionally becomes the killer of curiosity, and that's where we have to call bullsh*t on the whole ‘Knowledge is Power’ parade and rally with ‘fuck around and find out’.
Now that you have a piece of my mind, I would request you to read my research works as well; they are fun too (for real). Aight then, until next ramble, stay cute!