Weighty knowledge

Editor’s note: This letter was originally published 10 years ago today.

As I began dragging the contents of my library into my backyard, I gave silent thanks to Al Wilkes from Cave City, who wrote, “Knowledge just for the sake of knowledge is not very useful to us.” He knows this because everyone he knows—folks with common sense—agrees with him.

Some of the books were heavy. What has all of this done for me, this hodgepodge of knowledge? Stupid poetry, teaching me a love for the written word. Books of essays, history and science.

And it’s true, as the comrade from Cave City points out—we have few Mozarts, Picassos, Shakespeares and Einsteins—though we do seem to have produced plenty of folks like John Coltrane, Joan Baez, Jackson Pollock, Margaret Bourke-White, Mark Twain, Toni Morrison, Harlan Ellison, George Washington Carver, Vera Rubin and last of all, the ever-popular Ayn Rand. Looking over his list, it struck me that all of his examples were not only rooted in the past, but were … foreigners. The uncharitable “Why does he hate America so much?” crossed my mind, but I banished it. Common sense is the goal.

As I finally finished lugging out the remainder of my personal library and dousing it with gasoline, I understood his argument that education should be 10 percent scholastic and 90 percent vocational. All this book learnin’ can weigh a man down and cloud his mind when gut instinct is what should guide us. Common sense works best if there’s an even playing field, and we have all reached the same hallowed level of non-knowing.

“This is for you, Al,” I said as I lit the match.

RICHARD S. DRAKE Fayetteville