Profession of Ignorance vs. Actual Ignorance

[As I prepare for this project, I'm struggling on paper, or 'on blogger', with my approach. I figure that for awhile, perhaps even throughout this process, I should document my struggle with the project, as well as write the 'paper', in parallel. We'll see how that works.]


I read, with insight, a reflection on HF that posited that one must read the novel with an understanding of Socratic irony*.

Socratic Irony:

Profession of ignorance and of willingness to learn, used as a ploy to spur others to discover their own ignorancethrough their attempts to explain a word or concept.

The insight has caused me to think about my approach to this project: to look for the spiritual evolution of Huck (and perhaps others) as directed by Jim.

Why would I, as a relatively uneducated academic (B.S., Engineering Physics) be able to offer insights into one of the most complex novels in literature? Isn't what I'm proposing a Masters thesis or even more? What qualifies me to begin this endeavor?

My hope is that my profession of ignorance, or more accurately, my ignorance, will serve me well as I look for clues into this story of the oppressed, the orphan and the widow.

I think it is too sophisticated a task for me to take on- to approach the project using Socratic irony myself. Pretending to not understand something like Huck's moral revulsion to playing a trick in order to make my reader understand their own feelings about such, is beyond my ability.

Still, the point here is that actual ignorance may give me some insight that others might miss. At least that is my hope.

That said, I do think I have some learning that may distinguish me when it comes to spiritual direction, and the process which unfolds as one awakens spiritually. So I will not come from a place of complete innocence.

But I think that I will have to navigate through a theme that I can't avoid, racism. A theme that, as a white male, will be difficult for me. I'll do some reading to get myself prepared (Howard Thurman's Jesus and the Disinherited for starters). But I want to try to see this book as the journey of two humans. I'm prepared to fail.

Addendum 2/1: Twain is deconstructing doctrine and superstition. But probably not Gospel.

Chapter 12
Here is an example of ignorance, actual ignorance. Huck doesn't understand that Pap is completely evil:
"Pap always said, take a chicken when you get a chance, because if you don't want him yourself you can easy find somebody that does, and a good deed ain't ever forgot. I never see pap when he didn't want the chicken himself, but that is what he used to say, anyway."



*Teaching Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Shelley Fisher Fishkin
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/teachers/huck/essay.html