Knowledge: Liberator or Opressor?
Throughout all history, since the beginnings of academia, knowledge has been a tool for both liberation and opression. From the earliest schools of Greece and Rome to the modern United States of America, knowledge has been a powerful weapon weilded by the rich to opress the poor, and elevate the worthy from squalor to riches.
In Graeco-Roman society, knowledge was limited to those who could afford tutors, usually brilliant Greek philosophers. Plato founded an academy and wrote The Republic, inspired by the deeds and words of the brilliant Socrates. Plato suggested that in the ideal society, the ones who held knowledge -philosophers, literally bringers of wisdom- were to have the power. As we know, they would determine a man's role in society: knowledge was an opressor... but also a liberator, for if the philosophers deemed a man worthy, regardless of his rank- he could be elevated to the highest of heights in civilization.
Centuries lates, knowledge dragged Europe valliantly from the squalor of the Dark Ages: the wisdom of the ancients guided men to greater actions: all about, Republics were founded, art was made, and scholarliness blossomed outside of monasteries. During the Renaissance, Niccolo Machiavelli commented on the role of power through his most famous texts Discoursi en Tito Livio and Il Principe. The two adressed power in wildly different manners, but Machiavelli seemed to suggest that -through Principe- any ruler -even a tyrant- needed to be knowledgable in both academics and military arts; knowledge, in Machiavelli's mind, reigned supreme as an opressor.
During the life of Machiavelli and later, Latin and Greek were the languages of the academics, the rich and powerful. They who could carry out conversations in the ancient languages were brilliant indeed, and were reveered for their skill. That knowledge of Latin and Greek also served as a barrier between the rich and the poor, however. While that was then, and nowadays Latin and Greek are belittled rather than respected, and their retainers have devolved from brilliant politicians to impotent college professors and high school teachers, the language barrier -knowledge as an opressor- prevails. In English, there are many who are unable to speak their native language at all: Ebonics and Spanglish run rampant through our streets, and sepparate the educated from the uneducated: Those who speak well are commonly seen as superior, in the eyes of the powerful (no longer, though are the brilliant and the powerful one and the same, especially in the United States, idiocy has overrun the highest echelons of society and government).
So, is Knowledge a liberator or an opressor? I'd say it has the potential to be both, what do you think?
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Originally Posted by Phier
"knowledge is a deadly friend if no one sets the rules. " 
