The Art of Not Knowing

Abstract

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing --Socrates Since the beginning of the new millennium, the world has been experiencing profound change and uncertainty. The international order is convulsing socioeconomically and realigning geopolitically. This upheaval can lead to a sense of disequilibrium in which widespread concern, anxiety, discomfort, and disillusionment reach viral proportions. All, from local communities to large governments, are being required to work harder with fewer resources. This paradigmatic shift pressures us to alter or abandon established notions of practice and to develop innovative and effective strategies for responding to these changes on micro, mezzo and macro levels. Holistic, nuanced, social scientifically informed approaches to and analyses of these changes and stressors are vital to successful responses to these social challenges. The social sciences encompass several distinct intellectual and professional disciplines, including social work and anthropology. Methodological and theoretical differences notwithstanding, these diverse fields share an overarching goal: All seek to understand human beings and their lived experiences in the world and, thereby, to improve the human condition by investigating how individuals, group, families, and communities shape their lives within rich cultural backgrounds. Sometimes this is primarily an intellectual enterprise--describing, comparing, and contrasting extant societies to illuminate the unity and diversity of humankind. In other instances, social scientific research and practice has specific, applied aims--influencing public policy or advocating for clients. In either case, the emphasis on understanding people in context underscores why social scientific knowledge and practices are critical for navigating our changing social world. The quest for creative solutions to contemporary problems can lead down many paths, some familiar and others unexplored. Innovation usually occurs gradually, with established knowledge or policies and existing tools or techniques being refined and altered incrementally. Discovery, however, can and does happen suddenly. Whether pursued proactively by choice or reactively by necessity, this mode of change involves significant alteration, or even abandonment, of existing theories and favored methods. Thinking outside the box requires letting go, maintaining an open mind, and embracing the unknown. Yet it is often because of fear of the unknown, and the attendant fear of being (deemed) unknowledgeable, that we cling to the status quo in our fields of endeavor. Like knowledge and ignorance, knowing and not knowing typically are defined antithetically. Understood in this way, not knowing is interpreted as a threat to competency. This relationship, however, can be understood less dualistically. More resonant with certain Eastern philosophies is the of not which is a great opportunity for insight, growth, and development. The power of this way of thinking is exemplified in the following examples. Sign languages have existed since time immemorial, although for most of human history they were stigmatized as an inferior form of gestural communication. That changed in 1960, when William Stokoe, a professor at Gallaudet University, proposed the then radical claim that sign languages were full-fledged languages on a par with spoken ones. Until then, the perceived absence of phonology (the building-block system of sounds in a language) had prevented recognition of sign languages as actual languages. Stokoe, however, observed that sign languages indeed had manually expressed sublexical units analogous to phonemes (the units of sounds from which words are built). A prime example of the art of not knowing, Stokoe's insight was significant for several reasons. First, keep in mind that he was not a linguist but a professor of English, an expert on Chaucerian-era literature. …