[Perspectives] Epistemic dignity

“The opposite of love”, as the saying goes, “is not hate, but indifference.” That is, as intense emotions, love and hate are so close they can easily shift one into another—so close they belong together on the same side of a divide, with indifference on the other side. But the subtext of this saying is, really, epistemic. It is about knowledge, about knowing and not knowing. It is about the ethical responsibility to be aware, to pay attention, to not look away, to have respectful regard for the lives of other and othered people, to affirm their dignity as knowers, to attend to their knowledge, sensemaking, experiences, and aspirations, on their own terms.