Know that you don't know! / Ecclesiastes as Taoist confession (chapter 71)

A Christian Reads the Tao te Ching

Chapter 71 is cryptic, obscure, and one of my absolute favorites. This chapter continues the theme on knowledge from the previous chapter, but focuses especially on ignorance - the fact that we are all ignorant in so many ways, and that not knowing that we don't really know is not just bad, it's a spiritual sickness. I open with a confession of my own ignorance, then divide my interpretation into three sections:

1. Simple knowledge and personal development - Know how much you don't know, or you will stagnate

2. Social/relational knowledge in a world of information-overload, echo chambers, polarization, and confirmation bias

3. The spiritual dimension - I draw in a few passages to show the Bible's ambivalent stance on "knowledge", and then do a short analysis of the book of Ecclesiastes as sort of a Taoist confession/tract/autobiography. This is my personal favorite part!

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