Desire to Know
Desire to Know.
I refer to Curiosity — curiosity rationalized into Desire to Know.
Desire to Know, while equally urgent for gratification, inherently lacks the undesirable and inappropriate qualities which render the other human Instincts unsuitable as organizing and strain equalizing factors in the social structure. Also it possesses qualities and attributes which make it peculiarly adapted to perform the rationally harmonizing function so irrationally assumed in all earlier social organizations under the guise of Forceful and Cunning Control.
Desire to Know is as imperative in its demands as any of the self-centered motor Instincts — to live, to make, to take, to control — but it is impersonal; while it is as aggressive as other Instinctive Urges, characteristically its energies and activities are directed at Nature, not in aggression on human opponents; hence it engenders no human strife; and while it drives furiously, it drives none but its possessor — in the pursuit of Knowledge.
Desire to Know, while profoundly interested in all that pertains to Human Life and living — to eugenics and racial development — characteristically its possessor would risk his own life in the pursuit of Knowledge.
Desire to Know, though urgently interested in Nature's Laws and in all that concerns the correct making and constructing of things, characteristically lacks desire to make or construct things, but seeks only systematized concepts of Knowledge.
Desire to Know, while deeply interested in all that pertains to the desirable things of the world and to economic affairs, characteristically lacks the thievish impulse — the Instinct to Take, to acquire _ physical possession: supremely acquisitive it craves only to acquire Knowledge.
Desire to Know, while surpassingly Masterful, desires no mastery of Men; it craves instead, God-like insight, pre-vision, prophecy—power in the boundless realms of Knowledge.
Notes:
A complex virtue, this passage presents it ambivalently.
Folksonomies: knowledge virtue
Taxonomies:
/society (0.524059)
/family and parenting/children (0.318611)
/science/social science/philosophy/ethics (0.299208)
Keywords:
desire (0.970477 (negative:-0.223529)), rationally harmonizing function (0.845367 (neutral:0.000000)), self-centered motor Instincts (0.844301 (negative:-0.505083)), earlier social organizations (0.810696 (neutral:0.000000)), Curiosity — curiosity (0.713199 (negative:-0.661372)), complex virtue (0.703610 (positive:0.355625)), inappropriate qualities (0.691861 (negative:-0.631873)), Instinctive Urges (0.687442 (negative:-0.268233)), Knowledge (0.685453 (positive:0.191045)), human Instincts (0.684743 (negative:-0.631873)), Cunning Control (0.675317 (neutral:0.000000)), surpassingly Masterful (0.672547 (positive:0.423088)), God-like insight (0.671056 (neutral:0.000000)), boundless realms (0.669768 (positive:0.510551)), social structure (0.669711 (negative:-0.631873)), racial development (0.668237 (neutral:0.000000)), human strife (0.667855 (negative:-0.337965)), human opponents (0.662786 (negative:-0.354170)), physical possession (0.660618 (neutral:0.000000)), thievish impulse (0.660148 (negative:-0.460180)), economic affairs (0.656591 (neutral:0.000000)), desirable things (0.656477 (neutral:0.000000)), Human Life (0.647458 (neutral:0.000000)), pursuit (0.578072 (neutral:0.000000)), possessor (0.564633 (neutral:0.000000)), Nature (0.564374 (neutral:0.000000)), gratification (0.548447 (neutral:0.000000)), Forceful (0.547090 (neutral:0.000000)), guise (0.543186 (neutral:0.000000)), passage (0.539102 (negative:-0.416184))
Entities:
surpassingly Masterful:Person (0.894577 (positive:0.423088))
Concepts:
Instinct (0.978088): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Human (0.632999): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Ethology (0.584240): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Behavior (0.580832): dbpedia | freebase
Fixed action pattern (0.544898): dbpedia | freebase | yago
Master (0.494396): dbpedia
Aggression (0.493808): dbpedia | freebase
Race (0.474406): dbpedia | yago