"Forbidden Knowledge" was first published in 1996, long before debates concerning global terrorism and information theft began in earnest. Concerns over Al-qaeda and Facebook dovetail nicely with the theme of this book, namely: what can people know, and is there anything people shouldn't know?
A quote from Nicholas Rescher, near the beginning of this book, nicely frames the argument:
"'Some information is simply not safe for us - not because there is something wrong with its possession in the abstract, but because it is the sort of thing we humans are not well suited to cope with. There are various things we simply ought not to know. If we did not have to live our lives amidst a fog of uncertainty about a whole range of matters that are actually of fundamental interest and importance to us, it would no longer be a human mode of existence that we would live.'"
The author, a professor of Literature, frames most of this study of forbidden knowledge within the confines of works such as Genesis, Faust, Frankenstein, and Melville's "Billy Budd." While I won't refute any of the points raised during his discussions of these "great works," only the kind of person who enjoys having Literature decoded for them could possibly find this stuff interesting.
I found it all dreadfully boring and one-sided, and the author's exclusion of theology, economics, and philosophy (to name a few) from a discussion of forbidden knowledge is surprising, if not altogether incomprehensible. It's as if he thinks the entirety of Western viewpoints on this subject can be boiled down to a handful of authors, and to works of literature whose self-contradictory nature is a major stumbling block.
My biggest criticism of Forbidden Knowledge is the fact that the author never truly differentiates between forbidden knowledge and forbidden action. It is, after all, in the transformation from thought to action that questions of morality arise. I don't think that the author would condemn someone for thinking murder, but in actually committing murder, this is where the transgression surely lies. In failing to define this central point, Forbidden Knowledge is not unlike Abelard's description of Anselm, a fire that fails to illuminate, a fire that issues only smoke.
The second half of Forbidden Knowledge offers case histories to prove the author's point. But since no point has truly been made in the first half, I was left to wonder what he was really talking about, and why. Forbidden knowledge? Forbidden by who? Or what? And is it really knowledge he is talking about at all? Or something else? Experience? Action? A lack of empathy?
At the close of this book, I was left with more questions than answers. Questions of structure remain, as do questions regarding the terminology employed. Reading this book was like walking through a fog. Occasionally I would get glimpses of interesting concepts, but when I emerged from that fog, I found that I was no better off than when I started.
I found it all dreadfully boring and one-sided, and the author's exclusion of theology, economics, and philosophy (to name a few) from a discussion of forbidden knowledge is surprising, if not altogether incomprehensible. It's as if he thinks the entirety of Western viewpoints on this subject can be boiled down to a handful of authors, and to works of literature whose self-contradictory nature is a major stumbling block.
My biggest criticism of Forbidden Knowledge is the fact that the author never truly differentiates between forbidden knowledge and forbidden action. It is, after all, in the transformation from thought to action that questions of morality arise. I don't think that the author would condemn someone for thinking murder, but in actually committing murder, this is where the transgression surely lies. In failing to define this central point, Forbidden Knowledge is not unlike Abelard's description of Anselm, a fire that fails to illuminate, a fire that issues only smoke.
The second half of Forbidden Knowledge offers case histories to prove the author's point. But since no point has truly been made in the first half, I was left to wonder what he was really talking about, and why. Forbidden knowledge? Forbidden by who? Or what? And is it really knowledge he is talking about at all? Or something else? Experience? Action? A lack of empathy?
At the close of this book, I was left with more questions than answers. Questions of structure remain, as do questions regarding the terminology employed. Reading this book was like walking through a fog. Occasionally I would get glimpses of interesting concepts, but when I emerged from that fog, I found that I was no better off than when I started.
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