How Do We Know What We Know?

         How do I know what I know? I don't actually know what I know. I am the nearly-complete product of the American educational system, and I realize that I truly KNOW very little, even though I have been taught plenty. The fact is, almost nothing that we learn is learned first-hand. Since we are receiving all of our information from indirect retelling and referential educational material, that which is being put into our minds was first processed by others. On a systematic, grand scale, whole nations have been indoctrinated in this way. However, conflicting interests and malicious government interests aside, if each of us were to know only what we ourselves could directly prove, our society would make painstakingly slow progress. The base of human knowledge is constantly expanding because new generations are constantly schooled in the existing knowledge so that they can grow up to further it. So, we learn from others. Until we have enough life experience to KNOW certain things with surety, we have to exist as nothing more than learned know-nothings. But there is no rule that says we know-nothings can't be aware of our as-yet limited perspective and question the things we are told.

One of the questionable things I've been taught is the geographical position of each nation and continent on our planet. Nobody can prove it to me, and I have yet to chart the world for myself. When I fly home to Belarus, the big screen on the plane shows the aircraft moving across from the US to Europe, but who is to say that the entire concept of the world as the US government sees it isn't a fabrication? The screen is a lie!!! My teachers, my grandparents, my tutors. They all hammered this conception of the larger world into my head, and I have no way of knowing if it corresponds with reality. Bummer.