Is Knowledge Power?

Is knowledge power? To me, knowledge is such a double-edged sword. Knowing more does not mean being superior, first of all, as there are only certain things that humans need and can know about, and plus, if we are only talking about knowledge in and of its own, it is useless. This article is inspired by the fact that I have just finished my end of year exams and I have gotten the results for my math exam and because they weren't that ideal (but I still got top 4 in the grade which my teacher said will still be an A*), I decided that I want to write this article to reflect on it, and see if even if I had known the answers to the questions I got wrong or didn't answer, if anything would actually change for me.

First of all, to me, knowledge is a blessing and a curse. It teaches us the discoveries of humanity and the ways the world work. However, once we know it, we can't forget it, which means our brain is now fixed in this way of thought and that we can't go back and think from scratch ever again. Why is this dangerous? Doesn't this show us that we are moving forward in terms of our progress in society? However, the creativity and the space that we have left for ourselves before knowing the current reality is then filled, and we won't be able to question the "why" and "how" from ground-up anymore. Just like how people thought the Earth was the center of the Solar System before, thanks for Galileo Galilei's discovery, we now know that the Sun in the center and the Earth is merely the third planet of the Solar System. Sure, the people knew that the Earth was the center of the solar system, but their knowledge was invalid and that limited their open-mindedness to the current discovery of what is reality. Thus, knowledge is a benefit for us because it tells us why things are the way they are, but it is also a curse because of the frameworks that it puts us into.

Secondly, knowledge is not power. Simply knowing something does not mean authority or the ability to improve oneself from a situation. It is the choice of whether or not we utilize it. For example, a few years before, there was a Chinese student who excelled in his studies and his teacher said that he could get into a top university easily with his skills in the Gao Kao. However, on the actual Gao Kao exam, he chose to not answer any question and submit an empty paper, because he thinks that our society's current way of selecting the elite through knowledge and the memorization of facts is not good enough, thus, he thinks that this system is invalid and he wants to find another way to climb up the society. He had the knowledge and ability to obtain "power" in our society, but he chose not to. Thus, for him, knowledge was no where near power.

Thus, I chose to be a bit too rushed and not pay too much attention to my calculations and unfortunately lost too many marks on my errors in calculation (because it was a NO CALCULATOR TEST). So, after all this thought and reflection--it is our choice to use knowledge and make it our power.