Johnson's Quote on Learning

"Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it." ~ Samuel Johnson

I wish he weren't right about this. I wish I could Pollyanna up and say, "No! People are constantly looking for knowledge and questing for truth!" However, being a believer in the truth, I can't quite lie to myself about this one that much, can't quite twist it into the positive. Johnson was a curmudgeonly old dog, and much of what he said sets my teeth on edge; I think of him as a "glass decidedly half empty" sort of fellow. Though it breaks my heart, I have to concede this point to him. Most people really don't want to know.

I guess I can understand it somewhat. It's not always comfortable to know something. It causes the world to shift and stretch sometimes when something new is learned. You can't always go back to looking at a person or a place, a group or an event, in the same way. The surface illusion is shattered and all the things that were hidden down in the quiet still depths come roiling up to the top, like a foot stepping in the silt of a clear pool. What richness can come from that, though, once a person gets used to the changes! And not every change has to be a bad one...

I keep thinking about Prometheus bringing that holy fire down from the mountain, the price he paid for it, the sacrifice always associated with knowledge. Today, would mankind even look up at the burning brand, or would they continue to huddle in the darkness and cold when the Titan descended? Worse yet, if he didn't sing and dance for them, amuse and entertain them, would they be the ones to punish him, cast him out?

I keep thinking of how everyone says things were better "in the good old days." I wonder if that was ever true. Clearly, Johnson thought people as a lump whole were fairly uninterested in knowing during his time, and he by frak lived in a period called "the Enlightenment." If he was writing this then, when were these "good old days" in which everyone was studious, everyone interested in learning, in knowing? I suspect they are as much a myth as the Titan who defied Olympus to bring down the gift to man.

I suppose now, as then, those embers of the holy fire have to be tended by the few who see their value, whose eyes are caught, entranced by the flickering light of its jewel-like coals. Those who value learning and knowing are like Prometheus, I guess, willing to brave any punishment to seek it out, to keep it alive, whether it's isolation from the culture as a whole, the inability to keep up with financial obligations, or whatever other eagle waits circling above. It's ironic to me sometimes, ironic and overwhelmingly heartbreaking, that so many are warmed and provided for by the very thing they eschew, that they shut themselves outside its true radiance and allow themselves to be satisfied with only a faint reflection.