Every time and place is, in one way, at least, an epistomological dumpster fire. To be more philosophical, I’ll use latin and term it an epistomological fragor. In brief, the EF is when limitations in knowledge create or contribute significantly to a big problem or system of problems. It can be chronological or horizontal. A chronological EF is when knowledge does not exist because it has not been discovered or invented and a horizontal EF is when knowldge exists but is not accessed where it needs to be.
I have brought this up in the blog regarding my heteroromantic asexuality being grossly misinterpreted as being heterosexual and how there was a wide gap between public perception and reality. How I would say I had crushes when the neurotransmitters told a different story. There was no oxytocin-style attachment. I used that word to apply to anyone I found attractive rather than the emotional attachment which it descibes. That is an epistomological fragor. The lack of knowledge of psychology, sociology, and neurochemistry led to an epistime of false information.
On a much broader scale, balancing humors was an epistomological fragor. Epistomological fragors are sometimes the most impossible to fix problems since you can’t, for example, know germ theory before it is discovered. Yet, more EFs are preventable. I was working with an employee, a community manager, with Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project and I came to learn that he was unfamilair with Jane Jacobs or New Urbanism or TNDs or related concepts. It isn’t a tiny role and is at a major environmental nonprofit but he was unfamiliar with green urban design.
One would hope any major environmental nonprofit would have an entire department devoted to urban planning and design. Apparently, they don’t and a not minor employee was unfamiliar. That is an epistomological fragor. Fighting the carbon lobby is bad but it isn’t as sad as realizing a lot of our own people don’t know basic things about what would help the environment. This was someone who went to college with a degree in political science and environmental studies. Because of things like that, a lot of progress is not made. A lot of our oroblems are borne of epistomological fragors.
The Autistic Resistance 