Between Unknowing and Conviction

The alternative is an opening up to a continual wrestling with conditions and contingencies so that we can learn to remain on that edge between unknowing and conviction. If we only see this as a linear path going from a situation of lacking to one of having, then we are doomed to reel from paralysis to self-inflicted catastrophe. Unknowing is not a lack, it’s a relationship to reality. It’s the opposite of Know Nothing, that perennial reactionary stance so popular today. Unknowing is the realization that the most we can do is “salvage reality,” to use Berger’s terminology, extracting bits of reality from out of the surrounding mysteries.