week 12 - How Can We Pretend To Be Puzzled About The Causes Of Conflict If We Understand The Unequal Distribution of Knowledge?

I was watching Conan the other night when they played a newly released video of Osama Bin Laden at his home watching TV. Conan prefaced the video saying that it reveals the simplicity of Bin Laden's lifestyle. The video that Conan aired however, was just a mockery, in which they dubbed in a roommate of Bin Laden's, trying to talk to Bin Laden and ask him questions. I forgot what the jokes were even remotely about, but it was the first time I had ever seen the video, and I thought that the premise of the unedited video was the same - just a video of Bin Laden sitting at home, vegging out and watching tv. So in my first encounter with the video I was mistaken into thinking that Bin Laden is strangely crude and lazy.

This is not exactly right though, as I understand now that in the video Bin Laden was browsing some sort of al-Qaeda news forum, or so I think. So Bin Laden is not as crude a figure as I thought the video was initially getting at - but still - the environment of the room does show the unrefined state in which he lived. And the concept still stands - this is the guy who leads al-Qaeda? The organization calling for global Jihad? Aren't these people supposed to be organized and informed at the least? How can he possibly be operating under informed pretenses while living like an ape?

But that's not what surprises me; no one is to be blamed for ignorance because ignorance is not a choice. It's astounding to think that we expect something more of those who cannot access the right knowledge. How can your ideals be pragmatic and sound if you have no access to the current world? It's no mystery why people act like lunatics when they are utterly misinformed! To me, the puzzling thing about circumstances like these are that we expect people to operate under a certain code of conduct despite having access to dramatically different (potentially rotten and fucking rancid) sources of information.

Digital with hand done type, 2 colors.