What is a man without knowledge?

If you’ll forgive me for a bit of l’espirit de l’escalier for a moment, I would like to point out a problem I have with an argument from an earlier chapter. Namely in “Class-Room”, in which Hermione argues that the children of the class room would be better off if they were not forced to learn, but rather to experience life without knowledge.

            Ignoring how much knowledge is important to Hermione, despite the claims she makes to the contrary, I simply feel that to abandon the pursuit of knowledge altogether, and to live only to experience, would be, in a word, suicidal. My problem with this argument is that knowledge, ie learning how to craft and use tools; what can be used to cure illness and what to avoid like the plague; what creatures are beneficial to us versus what species are harmful and dangerous, is the only thing that has allowed mankind to survive as a species throughout the ages. Without this knowledge, this understanding of the world around us, we would have died off centuries ago.

            Look at yourself in the mirror. Do you possess the claws and fangs that allow carnivores like the lion and the wolf to bring down their pray and take their meal? Can you breath underwater like a fish? Perhaps you can see in the night like a cat, or fly through the air like a bird? Do you possess some form of tortoise like shell that protects you from predators, or is their some venom coursing through your veins that deters predators from turning you into a late night snack?

            The answer? No. Humans have none of the natural characteristics of other species that have aloud them to survive on heir own throughout the years. Physically, humans are weak in the grand scheme of things. We have survived purely because of knowledge, because we were able to craft tools and machines that are able to make up for our lack of natural defenses and to perform the functions that we lack as humans. Take those away and we are fairly weak.

            Hermione wonders if the children in the school would be better off as “animals, simple animals, crude, violent, anything, rather than this self-consciousness, this incapacity to be spontaneous” –(40). While the ability to be spontaneous, to be able to look beyond the mere facts of something and see it in a different light is definitely important, I am not saying it isn’t. A world that was entirely mechanical, entirely based on knowledge without art or color would be grey indeed, and things such as art and music are important elements of every culture around the world. But knowledge is still an important, deeply rooted aspect of our society