Knowledge Without Understanding: God Bless Toddlers!
“Knowledge without understanding is useless.” – Analects, Confucius (551 – 479 BCE)
Highlight of any toddler birthday-party is opening the presents. Mommy saved the best for list, a bills-and-whistles car-dashboard, working lights, windshield-wipers, the works.
We ask the three year-old if he knows how to use it.
“Sure, I do!” he replies confidently.
Leans on the horn with his right hand, raises his left middle-finger, turning to that side: “Where did you learn how to drive, you stupid mother-fuzzer?!”
(Mommy quickly removes it.)
50 years earlier, returning to my medical-staff-housing apartment from the hospital, after closing my door, someone immediately pounds on it.
I open it. No one there. Start to close it, hear “Uncle Ock!”
I look down. It’s the five year-old son of my next-door South African neighbors: “Uncle Ock, what’s a ‘Scumbug’?”
“Interesting question. Why do you ask?”
(Finally, my psychiatric training proves useful.)
“Homer called me that on the bus. I asked Mommy. She said she was busy feeding the baby. I should ask you.”
(Thanks a lot.)
I invite him in. He and I previously had a similar conversation when good ol’ Homer called him an ‘Assbowl.’ Then, I explained human anatomy, as well as the metaphor, and why we don’t use it. This time, that approach would be literally, premature.
Instead, I tell him the truth, not the ‘hole’ truth.
‘Scum’ is the foul layer forming on top of stagnant water that attracts bugs, once again, a repugnant metaphor.
I suggest next time Homer insults him, be assured there will be a next time, ask him if the reason he repeatedly does so is because he’s unhappy.
He reports back Homer was displeased with that response. They exchanged blows briefly, but subsequently, Homer never insulted him again.
50 years later, our 16 year-old dog Rorschach passes. Our five year-old granddaughter is distraught, instantly breaking into inconsolable tears screaming: “I want Mashiach (the Messiah) to come today!” (resurrecting everyone.)
(How obvious is it that she attends Chabad preschool?)
Toddlers pathognomonically don’t understand the significance of the adult knowledge they willy-nilly acquire.
Are they better or worse off for that? Do they really need to know what ‘Fuzzer’, ‘Scumbug’ or “Assbowl’ are? Or that (according to prediction markets) the likelihood of Mashiach arriving today is (approximately) zero?
Epidemiological studies reveal children who enter adulthood sooner (e.g., child-laborers) depart it (i.e., die) sooner, as well.
Confucius is correct. Knowledge without understanding is useless. But only for adults.
For toddlers, there’s a great deal of knowledge they are healthier off not having. If they involuntarily acquire it, it’s our responsibility to protect them from understanding it until they have to.
Revealingly, Pirkei Avot offer not one but two methods to acquire wisdom:
1- Learn from everyone. 2- Learn from newborns.
The former teaches us understanding, the latter, when it’s healthier to postpone it.
