There has probably never been a society that did not erect barriers to certain kinds of knowledge. Moralists since Greek and Roman antiquity have frowned on busybodies who pry into their neighbours' private lives; medieval Christian theologians condemned necromancers who wanted to discover the secrets of demons; today we fret about state surveillance of citizens and certain kinds of scientific research on human subjects. Curiosity has never been allowed free rein: there has always been a distinction between good and bad curiosity, legitimate and illegitimate knowledge.

LRB 23 June 2005 | PDF Download