Westerners have a strange relationship to knowledge. The best I can say about it is that it is by no means natural or organic.
Knowledge, for the typical Westerner, has a moral meaning above and beyond any other value. Its importance is not related to the realm of practicalities, to the ability to learn and/or perform new actions with greater capability.
It is very important to realise, that a typical Westerner will become very confused (ultimately leading to punitive behaviour) if he catches wind that gaining knowledge has changed you in any way. Instead of understanding that you have just confessed to intellectual growth, the computer of his mind will spew forth the data: "Either she lacked moral character before, or else she lacks it now." It's at this point that he will start his punitive behaviour, which he thinks you well deserve, due to what he considers to be your moral inconsistency of character.
He has merely misunderstood you -- but he is not in any position to know that. He is just trying to rectify your character, to make up for the fact that you have changed. Although he isn't sure if the change he hears about is good or bad, he thinks a certain amount of punishment is always good for restoring moral order. (And he is not to know any differently about that, since he has been taught that knowledge has a moral character primarily.)
It is extremely likely, too that such a person feels threatened by your additional knowledge. He feels that by claiming to have gained more knowledge in your travels you are casting subtle moral aspersions at him, to make him feel more badly about himself in comparison to you. He can't get to the bottom of these aspersions and what they might mean because, actually, they don't exist. Nevertheless, he feels them to be present. That is another reason why the typical Westerner, feeling you have a different basis for knowledge than he does, typically attacks. He becomes very aggressive and even vengeful -- but his feelings of inferiority are all in his head.
Westerners, most typically, view the possession of knowledge as something that assures the moral superiority of the one who has it. They are at one with Plato, in fact, equating knowledge with morality, with power. (This is typically why they make another error -- they assume that if you claim to have knowledge but do not also have power then your claim to knowledge much be spurious, morally reprehensible. Little do they know!)
Knowledge, however, is a practical affair. To claim I do not have knowledge in some areas does not signify me as morally weak. It signifies, more likely, a lack of education in a particular area.
Nobody should be made ashamed for admitting that they do not know something. A lack of knowledge has no direct relation to the integrity of one's character.
Knowledge, for the typical Westerner, has a moral meaning above and beyond any other value. Its importance is not related to the realm of practicalities, to the ability to learn and/or perform new actions with greater capability.
It is very important to realise, that a typical Westerner will become very confused (ultimately leading to punitive behaviour) if he catches wind that gaining knowledge has changed you in any way. Instead of understanding that you have just confessed to intellectual growth, the computer of his mind will spew forth the data: "Either she lacked moral character before, or else she lacks it now." It's at this point that he will start his punitive behaviour, which he thinks you well deserve, due to what he considers to be your moral inconsistency of character.
He has merely misunderstood you -- but he is not in any position to know that. He is just trying to rectify your character, to make up for the fact that you have changed. Although he isn't sure if the change he hears about is good or bad, he thinks a certain amount of punishment is always good for restoring moral order. (And he is not to know any differently about that, since he has been taught that knowledge has a moral character primarily.)
It is extremely likely, too that such a person feels threatened by your additional knowledge. He feels that by claiming to have gained more knowledge in your travels you are casting subtle moral aspersions at him, to make him feel more badly about himself in comparison to you. He can't get to the bottom of these aspersions and what they might mean because, actually, they don't exist. Nevertheless, he feels them to be present. That is another reason why the typical Westerner, feeling you have a different basis for knowledge than he does, typically attacks. He becomes very aggressive and even vengeful -- but his feelings of inferiority are all in his head.
Westerners, most typically, view the possession of knowledge as something that assures the moral superiority of the one who has it. They are at one with Plato, in fact, equating knowledge with morality, with power. (This is typically why they make another error -- they assume that if you claim to have knowledge but do not also have power then your claim to knowledge much be spurious, morally reprehensible. Little do they know!)
Knowledge, however, is a practical affair. To claim I do not have knowledge in some areas does not signify me as morally weak. It signifies, more likely, a lack of education in a particular area.
Nobody should be made ashamed for admitting that they do not know something. A lack of knowledge has no direct relation to the integrity of one's character.
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