Non-rational knowledge creation

The readings this week concerning the creation of knowledge in political arenas and the give and take associated with that usually democratic process of creation helped inform my understanding of my own major subject and made me begin thinking about how this knowledge creation process commonly plays out from day to day. The articles predominately focused on scientific knowledge creation, and left relatively untouched the non-scientific methods of knowledge creation that are being used today.

Somewhat different to Wynne’s English sheep farmer example, in that their knowledge was seemingly developed through a rational but non-scientific process of historical trial and error, American political discourse has developed and refined the capacity to generate and deliver seemingly non-rational (or at least non-logical) knowledge narratives (think conspiracy theories). Instead of simply criticizing the mainstream consensus in an attempt to show internal flaws or lack of evidence, these new knowledge narratives present claims as a whole creation, providing an alternative to the knowledge narrative that they are meant to rebut. Although this type of knowledge creation has existed for most of history, it has become much more standardized in American political discourse recently, and may present an interesting problem to explore through the epistemological lens that was discussed specifically in Miller’s articles.

How would one begin analyzing this type of knowledge creation? An examination of the story, internal logic, and the ways that it draws on prior accepted knowledge would yield an understanding of its ability to gain adherents. It’s likely that many non-rational knowledge narratives contain elements of “truth” mixed with exaggeration or non-verifiable statements, and this can be a large factor in how attractive the new narrative is.

Discovering the process by which it’s created would help reveal the site of knowledge creation and possibly the motivations that led to its forming. This type of knowledge, at least from my understanding, used to be created through a relatively informal process of agglomeration; a story would be told from person to person, gradually gaining explanatory force as it moved like a snowball rolling down a hill. Nowadays, it seems to take a more formal route to creation. Being more organized, it may be easier to follow and more intelligible to an outside observer.

Dissemination of this type of knowledge has also changed over time. Delivery has grown from mainly word-of-mouth to mass media, and a study of the delivery characteristics and methods of presentation may yield valuable insights.

At this point, it looks like this post has changed into a call for a media studies research paper, but I couldn’t help but think that a politically influential type of knowledge was being left unexplored in the readings for this week. Non-rational knowledge can influence the creation of scientific knowledge in much the same way rational criticisms can, especially in the political arena with which the articles dealt. In fact, I’d wager that this type of dialectical competition between rational and non-rational knowledge will continue to grow for some time in American politics, and future research of the vein in Week 5’s articles should at least cursorily address the impact that it can have.