Knowledge or Certainty
There are two parts to the human dilemma. One is the belief that the end justifies the means. That push-button philosophy, that deliberate deafness to suffering, has become the monster in the war machine. The other is the betrayal of the human spirit: the assertion of dogma closes the mind and turns a nation, a civilization into a regiment of ghosts — obedient ghosts, or tortured ghosts. It’s said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into numbers. That’s false — tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas — it was done by arrogance, it was done by dogma, it was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.
Science is a very human form of knowledge. We are always at the brink of the known, we always feel forward for what is to be hoped. Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error, and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we ‘can’ know although we are fallible. In the end, the words were said by Oliver Cromwell: ‘I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken’.
I owe it as a scientist to my friend Leo Szilard, I owe it as a human being to the many members of my family who died at Auschwitz, to stand here by the pond as a survivor and as witness. We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power. We have to close the distance between the push-button order and the human act. We have to touch people”
Jacob Bronowski. The Ascent of Man (p370-374)
Proposal
These words were spoken in episode 11 of Jacob Bronowski’s epic history of science and civilization. The Ascent of Man, published in 1973 and described by Bronowski as “A personal journey of intellectual history” and as “monuments of unaging intellect” here citing Yeats’ poem Sailing to Byzantium in which Yeats enunciates the anguish of old age and the imperative to remain active and vital even when the heart is “fastened to a dying animal” (the body). I am interested in these juxtapositions of art and literature, art and science and further intrigued by the philosopher’s use of art in their writing. Reflecting upon and questioning reality in different ways and seeking to depict the rational and the spiritual dimensions of this enquiry, in its relation to ‘being in the world’ helps to define my practice. Like Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger or Gaston Bachelard who said there existed two forms of thought: scientific and poetic. And when not seen as a binary it becomes possible, like in Bronowski’s writing and oratory, to exist in the confluence of both.
When he describes “Science (as) a very human form of knowledge”. Bronowski connects the mind and the soul, the tangible and the abstract, of what is and isn’t understood and how we are always stood on the brink of the unknown but reach and stretch forward “for what is to be hoped’. My own practice embodies this idea of the unknown and of guessing in order to visualise form, of working with the potentiality of the known in an attempt to depict what abstract intrigue exists beyond the veil. An extrapolation. But recognising also that there is always a degree of positive concealment. It is desirable to not know and to strive to discover, to be driven by the why? Rather than the how? We cannot know or expect to know, for as Bronowski says, as he kneels at the pond adjacent to Crematorium 5 at Auschwitz, “This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.”
I admire this writing because it is clear and it is emphatic. Whilst Bronowski had the outline (a sketch) of what he wanted to say to camera, it is clear he is responding to the poetics of the space. The embodiment and the assimilation of his thought ‘into’ and ‘of’ the space is what make it emphatic. In these few lines, Bronowski exemplifies how language can equate to and harnesses our intention to understand, that which is beyond.
His use of literary allusion in the form of a quote by Oliver Cromwell reinforces the power of the oratory, ‘I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, and think it possible you may be mistaken’. His language is structured simply. There is no affectation here, no pretence. It is language intended to communicate and not to obfuscate. His use of figuration makes accessible themes of destruction and waste. There is also fragility in his language, the language of one reaching and stretching for the tools to articulate the moment of his thoughts. This vulnerability bridges the gap for the reader / listener who sits outside of Bronowski’s lived experience, in that moment but who is invited to be present vicariously.
My proposal seeks to deal with the seeming binary of that which is tangible and that which is unknown and I am inspired by words like Bronowski’s that seem insistent that the burr of my voice should emerge – emergere - "bringing forth and bringing to light," that which in the words of cultural historian Raymond Williams, is my “art lived through experience”.