Nobody Knows Anything

Thursday, May 29th, 2014

Today, Colonel Ardant Du Picq says — speaking of the late 19th century — nobody knows anything unless he knows how to argue and chatter:

A peasant knows nothing, he is a being unskilled even in cultivating the soil. But the agriculturist of the office is a farmer emeritus, etc. Is it then believed that there is ability only in the general staff? There is the assurance of the scholar there, of the pedagogue who has never practiced what he preaches. There is book learning, false learning when it treats of military matters. But knowledge of the real trade of a soldier, knowledge of what is possible, knowledge of blows given and received, all these are conspicuously absent.

Comments

  1. Al Fin says:

    “Everything you think you know just ain’t so.” Why? Modern thinking is intellectualised and separated from real world impacts. No one gets hands-on experience, everything is learned second-hand and third-hand, or worse.

    The real world may not tolerate this top-down incompetence much longer.

Leave a Reply