Knowledge and Innocence

    The debate about whether knowledge or ignorance is more important is one that does not seem to have one clear answer. On the one hand, knowledge can help you live your life with more honesty, but it can weigh on you and put you in uncomfortable situations that could be avoided if you just did not know the truth. On the other hand, ignorance can help you live a bit more freely, but it can also make a fool out of you and lead to your own downfall. Throughout Gilgamesh, Genesis, Oedipus, and Lone Star, I believe that knowledge is shown to be the more valuable asset of the two. Whether it be for peace of mind or for the improved lives of those around you, the benefits of the truth far outweigh the risks.

    Gilgamesh shows us that knowledge is more valuable than innocence because his ignorance keeps him from appreciating the greatness of the city he leads. At the beginning of his story, he is a demi-god king who takes advantage of the women under his rule and works his people to the point of exhaustion. Being the self centered main character that he is, his best friend Enkidu's death sends him into a spiral trying to find the way to immortality. However, the knowledge he gains on this quest is instead how valuable and everlasting our contributions can be to the world. This gives him great peace because it helps him to be more at ease with the harsh truth that Utnapishtim gives him about how he can never be immortal. In Gilgamesh's specific case, knowledge is valuable not only to him, but also to others around him, since he goes on to be a much better ruler. His newfound devotion to his people improves the lives of many, and it is all because Gilgamesh wanted to preserve his contributions to the world. 

    In Genesis, the knowledge of good and evil is valuable to Adam and Eve because it seems to be freeing to them. In the poem "Autobiography of Eve" it is implied that Eve ate from the tree on purpose so that she could escape the garden where Adam's favorite pastime were putting the blame on her. Not to mention, they were living in relative ignorance of how perfect their lives really were. This made it impossible for them to truly appreciate what they had been given. Knowledge, then, is extremely valuable to Adam and Eve since it is the only real way they can begin to live with gratitude for what they have. Eve, who is not told what will happen to them if they eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, is a great example of the problems that come with ignorance. When the serpent tells her to eat from the tree she does so, thereby getting Adam and herself expelled from the garden, because she has no reason not to. Adam conveniently never told her about what God said to him, and God never told her either. In this case knowledge could have prevented their eviction from paradise, so I think Genesis suggests that there is more value to knowledge than to ignorance.

    Oedipus Rex is an interesting story to prove that knowledge is more valuable than ignorance, since Oedipus stabs his eyes out and Jocasta kills herself. However, I think it still proves the point. This is because the famine that has come to Thebes from the Gods is lifted after he leaves as a disgraced former king. The knowledge that Oedipus and all of Thebes gains about the death of their former king and the rise of their new one is also valuable to the people if only to satisfy their curiosity about what happened to their previous ruler. In the case of Oedipus, ignorance was detrimental to the health of all the people in Thebes. Also, in the beginning of Oedipus Rex it is also discussed how Oedipus rose to power by lifting the oppression of the sphinx. Knowledge proved priceless for this task since it was the only way he could have solved the riddle and saved Thebes in the first place. On all fronts, it seems that knowledge is only beneficial for the people of Thebes in this story.

    The film Lone Star shows how valuable knowledge of one's past can be to living in the future through a few key characters. The two main characters, Sam and Pilar, come to the realization that they share a father at the end, but decide to remain in a relationship together. The two of them ultimately decide to pretend like none of it happened and to start from scratch; however, their new knowledge is certainly going to help put them at ease with why their parents were both so steadfastly against their relationship as teenagers. Also, knowledge of the past is important in the end for Pilar's mother, who finally agrees to help the injured immigrant crossing the border after remembering how it felt to be helped by Eladio when she herself was attempting to come to America as an undocumented immigrant. A third story arc that involves a flawed or incomplete knowledge of the past can be seen between Colonel Delmore Payne and his estranged father. Throughout the film, Delmore believes that Big O (his father) never really cared for him and that he had been totally abandoned. To be fair, the way it was presented made it seem like his father was extremely absent. But late in the movie, when Delmore stops in to see his father, he finds the shrine that has been set up in his honor. Its reflection of his past accomplishments throws Delmore for a loop because he had always been told that his father never cared for him at all. While we do not get to see any interaction between the two later on, we can assume that at the very least the son could be more open to improving father-son relations going forward.

    While it is true that knowledge put many of these characters into positions they would have rather avoided, I believe that they demonstrated they are better off with it than without it. Ignorance hurt all of them in one way or another, sometimes even physically in Oedipus's case, and was shown to not be an effective method of managing the uncomfortable truth. Knowledge is shown to be more valuable than ignorance through these stories because it allows the characters to live more honest lives and to avoid the consequences of avoidable mistakes. It also allows them to make decisions for themselves that they know are based on the honest past, which gives them more agency over their own lives.