Student 51

Our values are able to influence and change the knowledge as it is produced. They are also responsible for the final state of the knowledge that is produced. Because values don’t just affect knowledge once, but it affects knowledge throughout its process of production. For example, this leaf that I plucked from a plant that I helped grow in my room was affected by many factors until it reached its last form/state. For example, if the environment was too dim, then the plant wouldn’t be as green as it would’ve been if it was brighter; if there wasn’t enough carbon dioxide, then the leaf wouldn’t be able to grow very much and wouldn’t get as green as it would’ve,... This is similar to how we produce knowledge, the values of a person will affect the production of knowledge until its final state, just like the leaf.

Values also dictate the perspective which the knowledge will support at the end of creation. Our perspectives are generated from our values, hence, our values decide which perspective the knowledge we produce will support. This notion is actually parallel with the leaf example. This leaf has grown because the environmental conditions allowed it to. Just like we can produce knowledge because our values allow it to. However, there is more than that. The fact that the leaf grew from the specific place it grew from can represent how our perspectives shape our knowledge. If this leaf grew from another part of the plant then the leaf would maybe look very different (for example, due to the sunlight exposure or proximity to the soil). This shows just how knowledge would’ve been different if our perspectives on that knowledge changed. And one of the biggest stimulators or influencers of this change is our values.

Therefore as we can see our values can change our perspectives and the final stage of the knowledge we create or produce just like how a leaf is affected by its environment and how a plant decides where a leaf would grow from.

Our values manipulate the knowledge in production to be pertinent with our values. Our values want the knowledge produced to be aligned, matching with themselves. This is because our values are like inflexible guidelines that we follow through the process of producing knowledge. Therefore our values will force us to align our knowledge with (which is something we are unaware of most of the time) our values. Take this lighter that I bought in Turkey as an example. When I ignite it, a small spark turns the fuel inside into fire, just like how our values turn (collection of) knowledge we possess into a new knowledge that shares the characteristics of our values. And in this case, the spark turns the fuel into something similar to itself - fire. But, again, these alignments, agreements between our values and the knowledge about to be produced happen on an unconscious level, so we can’t notice how our values affect the knowledge, similar to how we don’t generally see that first initial spark when we ignite the lighter.

With the lighter example we can see that our values shape/form the knowledge we produce and how our values also make sure that the new knowledge we create is aligned, parallel to each other.

Furthermore, values we possess have a tremendous effect on the production of knowledge. For example, our values had the power to change the tone of the knowledge we produce. Our values often cause our emotions to be employed in the process of producing knowledge; this is because we have emotional attachments to our values. When we feel they are threatened, we feel uneasy due to an internal conflict we experience between knowledge we hold and the values we have. And therefore, when we produce a knowledge we tend to support that knowledge due to our beliefs and values which causes our values to change the tone of the knowledge. For example the knowledge produced can be very assertive, sad, aggressive, sympathetic,... This is similar to playing a guitar with picks made of different materials or playing it with your finger. When you play the guitar with picks made of different materials or just with your fingers, even though the note may be the same, the tone will be different which would change the sound of the music.

However emotions aren’t the only factor that our values produce to impact the knowledge we produce. Our values also control, or at least influence, the balance of the knowledge we produce. By this, I mean our values can cause us to talk more about one thing and less about one thing in the knowledge we produce. For example, if a person has strong religious values, he/she would talk more about the religious impact of, let's say, the migration of jews from Germany to Israel or of muslims from Mecca to Medina than the geopolitical effect of it. This is because our values are strong supporters of our ideas and the more the knowledge we are producing has to do with, or comes from, our values, the more we are inclined to produce more of a certain knowledge than the others. Therefore our values affect the emphasis on knowledge during its production. This is consistent with the vibrato effect on a guitar. Vibrato is a technique guitarists use to vibrate the sound (they generally vibrate their fingers on a note very fast, side to side or up and down). This emphasizes the notes just like our values cause us to put more emphasis on certain knowledge when producing it.