The Curse of Knowledge

00:00
Ryan Tinetti
The more information you have, the more stuff you have going into your head, the more things you know. It just distances you from that naive perspective. The challenge for us is to be able to try and get back into the best of our ability to think of what it’s like not to know it. 

00:16
Rich Rudowske
Welcome to the Essentially Translatable Podcast brought to you by Lutheran Bible Translators. I’m Rich Rudowske. 

00:31
Emily Wilson
And I’m Emily Wilson. And today we’re going to be talking with Dr. Ryan Tinetti on the podcast. But before we dive in, I want to encourage you all, if you haven’t yet subscribed to the podcast, to get updates as to when we release a new episode, want to encourage you to do that. We’re on Spotify, iHeartRadio, Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, anywhere you can find your podcast. Want to subscribe to that? That would be super. Also, we would love to hear your feedback. So if you especially like a particular episode, or if you wanted to hear more of particular content, you can write to us at info@lbt.org and let us know what you think. 

01:14
Rich Rudowske
Yep, email is very effective. Much more effective than homing pigeons. 

01:18
Emily Wilson
That’s true. 

01:18
Rich Rudowske
You could write us a letter if you want. 

01:20
Emily Wilson
There are phone calls that can happen. That’s right. 

01:24
Rich Rudowske
Anyways, we’re going to talk with Ryan Tinetti about the curse of knowledge, this insidious factor of communication that pervades all aspects of it. So if we haven’t duly wet your appetite for that, I don’t know what else we can do. But Ryan Tinetti graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in sociology, then went on to Concordia Seminary in St. Louis for his Masters of Divinity and has a Doctor of Ministry from Duke Divinity School. And he is the pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Arcadia, Michigan. 

Okay, we are here in the studio today, and we’ve brought in our good friend Dr. Ryan Tinetti online, and we’re going to talk some about the curse of knowledge. So welcome to the podcast. 

02:06
Emily Wilson
Welcome. 

02:07
Ryan Tinetti
Hey, thanks so much for having me, guys. It’s a pleasure being with you. 

02:11
Emily Wilsom
So we want our listeners to get to know you a little bit better before we just dive into this big topic of the curse of knowledge. So can you share a little bit about your background in ministry? 

02:23
Ryan Tinetti
Sure. Yeah. And maybe especially as relevant to your organization and your listeners. I started out my ministry journey really as a missionary after going to Michigan State. I didn’t go planning to be a pastor, much less a missionary, but the Lord really took hold of my heart during those four years. And as I was closing up my college career, my undergrad thought, you know, what do I want to do? And I didn’t really know. I ended up serving overseas with the mission branch of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod to LCMS World Mission as an ESL teacher and missionary in Bangkok, Thailand. Incidentally, it was through that process that I also met my wife, who was American, but she was doing the same thing and she went over to Taiwan. 

03:06
Ryan Tinetti
And so it was a really good choice on many layers, but we spent about a year overseas there before coming back to the states. I went to seminary in St. Louis, and then I had the privilege to serve my vicarage in Tucson, Arizona. So in the desert, my first call was in Seaside, California, on the ocean, Monterey Peninsula, and then a few years in Spokane, Washington, up in the mountains. And now I’m delighted to be on what we call the fresh coast of Lake Michigan, in Arcadia, Michigan, aka the Third Coast. So I’ve been fortunate, privileged to serve in many places, both internationally and here at home, and just have a heart for sharing God’s heart for the world, for our neighbors. 

03:53
Emily WIlson
I love it. There’s so much diversity, not only ecologically and the environment, but also culturally. There is a lot of difference there, and pivoting and being able to speak truth, the Gospel is translatable across culture, but being able to say what is happening in this particular place at this particular time, and how do I speak to the community? With truth and love. 

04:19
Ryan Tinetti
Yeah. No, Emily, you’re so right. And everywhere I’ve gone, I found the importance of translation not just literally like in Thailand, but in California. Being able to, in a very kind of post-Christian kind of setting, being able to communicate and convey the message in a way that made sense to people there. And yeah, in each spot, I might be speaking the same national language of English, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t concepts and ideas that need to be communicated in a way that’s going to be more accessible to the hearers. Which gets to some of what we’re going to talk about today, I’m sure. 

04:53
Rich Rudowske
Yeah, with that, let’s just kind of jump in on the curse of knowledge. So, to get us started, what is the curse of knowledge? What are we talking about when we talk about that concept? 

05:03
Ryan Tinetti
Yeah, so at the most fundamental level, the curse of knowledge is this idea that once you know something, it is devilishly difficult to remember what it’s like not to know it. I mean, at the most basic level, you learn something and it’s like you pass through this gate. And the further that you get from that gate, the harder it is to remember what life was like outside of it. The concept of the curse of knowledge actually comes from social scientific research. Economists coined the phrase to describe some interesting phenomena where they would notice. In the first article about it, they actually gave the example of people who were selling a used car. So say you’ve got a used car that you’re selling, and you know that it’s got some pretty serious issues, and yet they’re not things that are easily recognizable. 

05:52
Ryan Tinetti
Somebody couldn’t just glance at your car and be like, oh, it doesn’t have a hood. It would be more things like under the hood. And that being said, when you sell it, since people don’t know that there’s those problems, you could still sell it at the full market value, but in your mind, you know it’s got these issues. And so subconsciously or consciously, you reduce the price in order to compensate for that, even though nobody might really actually know those issues that affect it, affect the value. Economists call this the curse of knowledge, because it’s like you are cursed by your knowledge. 

06:27
Ryan Tinetti
Even though somebody else might not have any idea that there’s an issue with this car that you’re selling, and you could get away with selling it for the standard market value, you lower it even though the person who’s coming might not have any idea, right? That was kind of the origination of it. 

06:43
Ryan Tinetti
But that concept has application to lots of different areas of life, because the fact of the matter is, for any of us, when we learn something, it becomes hard to go back and put ourselves in those shoes of someone who doesn’t have that knowledge, whether it be kids, as they’re just first learning how to read, or whether it be pastors, preachers, missionaries, who have an understanding of the Bible, of theology, of the scriptures, and aren’t able to then convey it to others because they’ve forgotten what it’s like not to know it. 

07:16
Emily Wilson

I wouldn’t have thought about it from a negative perspective with the economy. Like, oh, I’m learning, like, okay, here’s what’s the issue. But ultimately, from a buying selling sort of perspective, I can see, oh, you’re not making quite the profit that you thought you would be. 

07:39
Ryan Tinetti
We hear that and we’re like, well, so maybe it’s not such a bad thing pulling a wool over my eyes as much. But when it comes to communication, it has real ramifications, especially for the life of faith. 

07:52
Emily Wilson
So how did you actually initially get started in studying this phenomenon of the curse of knowledge. 

08:00
Ryan Tinetti
Yeah. So I first came across it in a book called, “Made to Stick” by authors Chip and Dan Heath. And I really commend this book to your listeners, anyone who’s trying to communicate a message. And so that’s the first place that I picked up on the concept and then delve deeper. It hasn’t gotten, nearly, in my estimation, the kind of publicity and wider knowledge that it should have, because it does have so many areas of applicability. But I first learned about it, and this book just happened to come across it. And even within the book, they don’t make a huge deal out of it. But for me, especially as a pastor, as a Bible nerd, I hear the word curse and curse of knowledge, and immediately my mind, those bells start going off, like, oh, wait a second. What about Genesis 3? 

08:45
Ryan Tinetti
What about the curse of Adam and Eve and how that came about when they were looking at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? And I can dive really deep on all of those things, but suffice it to say, it was just a passing reference in a book. And since then, it’s really become a key way that I think about ministry and mission today. 

09:06
Rich Rudowske
Right. Because it’s kind of the core reducible idea of it all is that once you know something, I think you already said this, but once you know something, you can’t remember what it’s like to not know it. And thus, when you communicate it, you act or communicate as though the people you’re talking to also know what you. Right, yes. Right. 

09:24
Ryan Tinetti
That’s right. And that’s especially problematic for teachers or preachers, folks who are trying to get a message across, because as Chip and Dan Heath say, anyone that is trying to communicate a message, there’s kind of two stages. There’s, first, the answer stage, and then second, the telling others stage. And in the answer stage, you’re trying to accrue knowledge. You’re trying to build up your understanding of whatever your subject might be. Say you are learning another language, and you’re studying, you’re reading books, you’re doing all these things in order to build up that knowledge. That’s good. It’s all good. But then when it comes to that second stage, the telling others stage, this is where it gets a little bit trickier, because now that I’ve assimilated this knowledge, I’ve taken it in. I need to be able to tell others. 

10:09
Ryan Tinetti
But the curse of knowledge makes that difficult because, well, all that knowledge that I have now, it causes me to forget what it’s like not to have it. It’s almost a baggage that I’m carrying along, and where it becomes really problematic is if I don’t recognize that I have that baggage. It’s something that I’m just bringing along, and it’s holding me back and keeping me from being able to communicate as clearly and effectively as I otherwise would. 

10:35
Emily Wilson
Wow. And I’m thinking about church speak or churches like that. We very quickly throw out terms that are no longer present in the secular understanding, like grace. That is something poise and being able to walk or speak in a certain way, not an abundant blessing that we don’t deserve. And how do we talk about the church and key principles and foundations for our faith in ways that are understandable for the lowest common denominator? As you’re approaching people who have no concept, or maybe they have concept, but it’s know true, it’s not quite on the money. Right. They know who Jesus Christ is by the word, like the words of, I heard that in pop culture, Jesus Christ, but they don’t know who he is. So it’s enough knowledge maybe to make it a little dangerous. 

11:44
Ryan Tinetti
Yeah, exactly. Well, in the famous line from the Princess Bride, right, where it’s like, “I don’t think that word means what you think.” That happens all the time. And you mentioned the word ‘grace’. And I recall a funny anecdote from the sociologist Christian Smith. He has written a lot on emerging generations knowledge or lack of knowledge about the faith. And he was kind of just doing some of his research. He was going back through interviews as he was having, because he really had this intuitive sense. Like, man, all these young people I’m talking to just don’t have a basic awareness, understanding of the Bible or any of just fundamental faith concepts. He was doing a search. This was about maybe 15-20 years ago. He looked for the word ‘grace’. He’s like, I’m just curious, how often does grace come up? 

12:30
Ryan Tinetti
And as he searched, he was surprised, actually, to see that it came up quite a bit. But then he dug down a little bit further into the data, and he said, yeah, they’re mentioning grace a lot because they’re referring to the show ‘Will and Grace’, if you remember that tv show. And so, yeah, it’s important, Emily, as you say, to think about what’s the background for folks when they are thinking about these words? Jargon is like, that’s the enemy number one when it comes to the curse of knowledge, when we’re just using insider lingo. And it doesn’t mean that there isn’t ever a time and a place for technical vocabulary, but you need to know your audience. When we’re talking amongst others, I’m talking with fellow pastors. 

13:11
Ryan Tinetti
I know that there’s a kind of vernacular to use, a fancy term that we can use among one another, that we have a common dictionary, so to speak. But you can’t assume that. Can’t assume that from folks who are outside the church and many times can’t even assume it of people in the pew, or certainly as you’re crossing cultures, that the words are always going to be clearly apparent what they mean for others. 

13:34
Rich Rudowske
Yeah, I kind of want to double down a little bit on this. Can knowledge be bad idea? Because it’s called “curse of knowledge”? The thing that first caught my eye, I was reading the article that you wrote is in the fall 2019 issue of Concordia Journal, and you wrote there, “It is a pervasive, if tacit tenet of our age. More is better, more money, more status, even more Twitter followers. As pious christian people, we may resist some of the more consumeristic manifestations of this, calling into question the spiritual value of ever increasing material goods. What we are less likely to question, though, is the value of more knowledge. Knowledge is often viewed as an unmitigated good.” Just unpack that a little bit. I mean, isn’t more knowledge better? 

14:21
Ryan Tinetti
Right. So, yeah, this was the thing that really struck me in reflecting on this idea of the curse of knowledge, because, yeah, knowledge is always good. And I think I go on to mention in the article, like, when I was a kid, that we used to have those commercials, more, you. “Knowledge is power.” Yeah, you always want more knowledge. And broadly speaking, it’s true. Knowledge is good. We want to know more things. What the curse of knowledge concept is just helping us to recognize is that, not that knowledge is bad or can be bad per se, but that it has limitations and that there are other challenges that come with it. 

15:00
Ryan Tinetti
And precisely the fact that the more information you have, the more stuff you have going into your head, the more things you know, it just distances you from that naive perspective or from that perspective of ignorance. I don’t mean that in a negative way, but just. I didn’t know what this was like, and now I do. And the further I get from that position of not knowing it, the harder it’s going to be to get back into that previous position. And chip and Dan Heath say that it’s like, you can’t unring a. Okay, you can’t unlearn, short of some catastrophic memory loss, like, you can’t unlearn what you’ve already learned. You have that knowledge. And so the challenge for us is to be able to try and get back into. 

15:45
Ryan Tinetti
To the best of our ability to think of what it’s like not to know it. And it’s really tricky for all of us. But I guess I take some heart. I’m heartened by the fact that this is just. It’s a human problem. It’s not just a particular Christian problem. Like, I. I see it in my kids. I see it in any of us. It happens in. In all sorts of disciplines. And so it’s just there. And we’re not trying you know.. curse of knowledge. We’re not trying to cast aspersions on anyone you know, struggling with this. We all deal with. It’s just a question of how can we try and most clearly communicate to others. 

16:21
Rich Rudowske
Yep. I’ve been actually watching Emily the last few days. We have a new team member on our team here, and we all just talk about stuff. And I’ve been watching Emily sort of unpack, like, okay, here’s what that means with the new team member. And just to fill in. Background is really good and helpful because, yeah, you can just get, as you mentioned, subsets of culture, organization, culture. You just have your assumptions and presumptions and acronyms for things and all that stuff. 

16:45
Emily Wilson

The acronyms are abundant. 

16:48
Ryan Tinetti
Yeah, exactly. I mean, if you hang out with military, like, this is their stock and trade all kinds of acronyms. One thing I did want to say that I think, Emily, you probably naturally are good at just kind of sensing your personality, is that when you’re talking to somebody and you are aware of the curse of knowledge, neither are you assuming, okay, this person is an idiot, and I need to talk down to, like, that’s not the idea. It’s not like, okay, now let me explain this for you. Stephen Pinker, who’s a guy that, there’s a lot of things I don’t agree with him about. He’s kind of a famous atheist, but he has written a really nice book on writing that he gets the curse of knowledge. 

17:28
Ryan Tinetti
And what he says is basically, look, assume that your audience, the people you’re talking to, are as smart or smarter than you are. They just don’t happen to have the specialized knowledge that you do. 

17:39
Rich Rudowske
Right. 

17:40
Ryan Tinetti
So it’s not about talking down to them or anything like that. It’s just recognizing. Yeah, you know what? For whatever reason, I happen to know about this particular thing that other people don’t. And so I need to unpack it a little bit more. 

17:53
Emily Wilson
Yeah. No, that is so important. Thinking about the context by which a conversation or a concept exists. Thinking about scripture, of how there’s so many layers that I’ve heard of people visiting the holy land and being able to fill in, and once they know it, once they’ve experienced it creates this beautiful picture in their mind, but also in the way they talk about scripture. And for those who aren’t able to experience it, we’re like in wide eyed wonder of what does this look like? And being able to, as best as they can, try to describe and put into that context of this is what you’re looking at. And that’s really throughout not only gospel proclamation and ministry, but just thinking about mission, God’s mission and how we’ve been called into being able to share the truth and the good news we have in Christ. 

18:56
Emily Wilson
But there are spaces where the curse of knowledge finds its way in. Can you share maybe some of the scenarios of what are the distinctions here as we’re thinking about the task of mission and gospel proclamation and being core to communication? 

19:16
Ryan Tinetti
Yeah. So I want to pick up on maybe analogy as you’ve just used it. You think about someone who’s visited a holy land or even who’s gone on any vacation, and you come back and you want to describe it. And there’s always that level like, I have not been there, so I don’t know. And maybe they show some pictures or what have you, but it’s like, I don’t know what you’re describing. I can’t possibly understand it as well as you do, having been there firsthand. And for us as Christians and as we grow in our own faith, there’s a sense in which whenever we’re trying to convey that message to someone who doesn’t know, who doesn’t have that biblical background, who maybe is not a believer, it’s like we’re trying to describe a country to which they’ve never visited. Right. 

20:04
Ryan Tinetti
And so how do we do that? How do we convey it in a way that is not only understandable but compelling? And I think you kind of hit on it already in the sense that you’re going to use more vivid and concrete language. You’re going to speak in terms where, wow, I’ve just got to tell you what. When were there in Jerusalem, and I’ve never been there myself, so I could just be saying something patently false here, but you could smell all of the street food and just hear the din. But now we could also hear the Muslim calls to prayer at the same time. It was this multicultural kind of place now. 

20:43
Ryan Tinetti
And so you were hearing that in the background and people are speaking in all these different languages anyway, you start to get vivid and concrete in those details, and that makes it more accessible. So also, when it comes to communicating the gospel message, I find that the more that we can stick to the stories, if we go right to doctrines, that’s usually really tricky. Then a lot of missionaries know. What do you do first is just tell stories of Jesus. Right? Tell stories of Jesus. And to the best of your ability, try to find analogies and metaphors that are culturally relevant, make sense for the hears, which takes a lot of work to find and derive. What are the things that are going to make sense for the folks that you’re talking to? 

21:27
Ryan Tinetti
But that kind of concrete language helps the hearers to visit a country to which they’ve never been in the country of faith so that you can more clearly and compellingly communicate it to them. 

21:40
Emily Wilson
That’s so powerful, having that storyteller and then thinking about that is what Christ used, his story. 

21:48
Ryan Tinetti
Well, that’s a great point, and I don’t think that was merely a coincidence because Jesus is trying. What’s he trying to convey? He’s trying to convey the reality of the kingdom of God, the royal realm and reign of God, a nation, so to speak, a country, a place where people have not visited, have not been a part of. How can I do this? And so you constantly see Jesus saying, well, let me tell you what it’s like, right? It’s like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed. And now he’s speaking in a way that they can understand. Now he’s not going to tell them just common sense. He’s not going to say, and it’s a small seed and you plant it and it grows, but he’s going to also twist it and invert it. 

22:28
Ryan Tinetti
He’s going to say it’s going to grow to become the biggest of all the trees, which is like, really it is. Does it? But he’s telling them something mysterious about the way that God’s reign and rule are going to work. And so you always see this, I’m going to meet you where you are, and then I’m going to lead you into deeper mysteries that you can’t fully grasp just yet. 

22:49
Rich Rudowske

Yeah. And so then when you’re thinking of the task of communication, because I contend that a core, or maybe the core task of mission and gospel proclamation is communication. Ultimately, when you boil it down. I mean, you can learn about a lot of different stuff. And in the mythology program I teach in, and there’s a lot of different classes, there’s only one on communication. And I always get my turn and say, this is the one, guys. I mean, if you want to talk about the core mission. 

23:14
Rich Rudowske
So when you think about maybe some of our listeners are in context where again, you mentioned sort of post-Christian or more secular or folks that just aren’t really deep in their faith and they’re having to kind of describe their experience and what they’re going through, how do you start even trying to do that, given a whole different worldview and understanding of how things actually are? 

23:39
Ryan Tinetti
Sure. I think the first thing you can do is it’s a lot of listening. Right. And so almost approaching, I ended up actually studying sociology as an undergrad because I didn’t want a job. But when I started to have this sense that maybe I wanted to go into mission work or ministry, I thought, you know what, understanding about people and in the fields of social science, whether it be sociology or especially anthropology, you get the sense of, okay, what does it look like to be out in the field? I’m going to be doing some field research. I’m just going to try and get into the life of my neighbors and my community. How would I do that? I think the most fundamental way to do it is to have conversations, right? 

24:28
Ryan Tinetti
So taking out a spot, hanging out at the local coffee shop, and just visiting with folks who are there or at the library. Library. Sometimes they want to be quiet, but I find that people just hang out just being in the community and having those conversations, not with an agenda, not with like, okay, I’m going to straight away just start evangelizing you. Maybe the Lord opens those doors, but that’s not your agenda right off the bat. It’s just, I want to get to know you. I want to understand you. I want to understand what it’s like for people in this neighborhood, in this area. So doing that, subscribing, this is an old fashioned thing, but subscribing to the newspaper, the local newspaper, what are the stories? 

25:10
Ryan Tinetti
What are the top-of-mind issues for the people in the community, the things that are keeping them up at night. Take a look at that. If you’re on social media, following local social media feeds to see what’s the stuff that people are discussing and how do they do it, what’s the language that they’re using. I mean, this was a big thing for me in California of just kind of seeing. Okay, yeah. What’s important to people here? And a big thing was like, well, they would say the environment, I would say creation. That provided a natural opportunity for us to have some conversations because, hey, you care about the environment. I care about creation from a perspective of faith. Let’s talk about that. How can we take good care of the world that God’s put us in? That’s a touchstone for both of us. 

25:56
Ryan Tinetti
And so finding those places where how people are talking, the things that they’re interested in, what matters to them, to the extent that you’re able listening, opening your eyes and ears to what’s being said in the neighborhood, that’s where it starts. That’s just good missional perspective. Whether you’re in Thailand, California or Concordia, Missouri, that’s the way we ought to go about it. 

26:20
Emily Wilson
I love those practical suggestions. They’re not hard. And being able to just pare it down of what’s the common thread? What is it that people value to be able to integrate into the conversation? Because God created us for relationship and being able to say, what does it look like to build that bridge in that relationship and to shine his light naturally from that avenue and how the Holy Spirit can work and use that. 

26:51
Ryan Tinetti
Right. 

26:52
Emily Wilson
So we’ve talked about some of the signs. Know the curse of knowledge is present using jargon or diving straight into what is the area of familiar without really understanding our audience. But what is it that we can do if we’re aware that maybe the curse of knowledge is permeating my life or my ministry? What is it that we can do to reverse the curse, as it were? 

27:23
Ryan Tinetti
Yeah, in our own lives. First of all, it starts with the humility to acknowledge, like, okay, you know what? I am afflicted by, infected with, this curse just as much as anybody. And this is how it started for me with this and continues to be is because I realized I was starting to get feedback from parishioners, even just in the receiving line after the service. And so I would get these kind of side comments from folks who had listened to the sermon and then they would just kind of ask me, God bless them, they would say, hey, you mentioned something about some golden cow or something. What are you talking about? If I had alluded to the story of the golden calf from Exodus and it’s like, oh, everybody knows that, right? No, not everybody does. 

28:16
Ryan Tinetti
What that provided for me what those little receiving line after worship conversations provided for me is something that I think for any of us who want to take this seriously as missionaries, as preachers, is we need to do intentionally is to seek feedback, to close the loop is the way that Stephen Pinker puts it, of eliciting from other people, if you’re a preacher, being intentional about asking your parishioners, whether it be from lay leaders or just from folks in the pew, like, is this connecting? Could you follow what I was saying? There were the things that you didn’t understand that just weren’t clear. None of us like getting this right. Every constructive criticism feels extremely deconstructing to our ego as well. But it’s really important. And so I think that’s one easy place. 

29:04
Ryan Tinetti
Well, it’s maybe not so easy, but a natural place to help, to combat, to reverse the curse is by getting that feedback, getting it from others, hearing where am I not connecting? That will help us then to be more mindful of it going forward. 

29:22
Emily Wilson
Honest to goodness, I feel like you have talked to our other podcast guest from a few weeks ago, Michelle Thompson from the Concordia University Irvine Thompson Institute. We were talking about emotional intelligence, and she was talking about how do we make steps for growing in emotional intelligence? And number one was humility. Asking for feedback, asking someone to be present and honest with us. But I love how you said it. It’s so true of deconstructing our ego and being able to say, okay, there’s room for growth. And how is it that I can more naturally connect with my brothers and sisters in Christ and those who do not yet know him? 

30:08
Ryan Tinetti
Yeah, no, I think it’s a really good point, too, to tie in emotional intelligence. I hadn’t thought of it that way. But really, at the most basic level, what we’re talking about, this curse of knowledge, is, of course, a manifestation of the curse of sin in all of our lives. Right? I do not do the good that I would do. And so instead, being able to have empathy for others rather than just imposing myself, but trying to get into their shoes and to understand is an act of humility and a necessary one to really communicate. 

30:39
Rich Rudowske
Well, yeah, that’s right. I think when you look at the story of the fall of mankind in Genesis, you can discern that the first effect is the lack of ability to see others anymore. Right. Or to pay attention to them anyways, naturally, like, our first instinct is to be turned in on ourself, to pay attention to ourselves. So they never noticed they were naked before. They were so into whatever, everything going on around them and each other, they didn’t even notice. And then that’s the first thing, is it’s on me. Right? So with that in mind and thinking of the curse of knowledge and emotional intelligence, besides being an effective minister. And when I say minister, I mean as a Christian, we’re called to, again, using technical terms from the Bible, but a ministry of reconciliation, right. 

31:26
Rich Rudowske
We’re reconciled to God through Jesus, and we’re given the ministry or the ability to be reconciled to each other and to share that reconciliation. Right. So to just be more present for each other. So besides ministry, what are other aspects of life that could be helped by anybody recognizing and contending with the curse of knowledge? 

31:46
Ryan Tinetti
Thanks for that question, Rich, because I do think there’s a wide area of applicability for this concept of the curse of knowledge beyond ministry. The most natural one for me, one that I’m knee deep in right now, is being a parent. And for our kids, the opportunities for communication and miscommunication are daily. I had a funny instance of this with my youngest last year. She’s six now. But I remember last summer about this time of year, we have a dog, a puppy, a golden retriever named Theo, and we’ve got one of those invisible fences. Now, Theo is like 95 pounds. He’s big. He doesn’t realize it. He thinks he’s like 15 pounds, but he gets into trouble anywhere he goes. So we have this invisible fence, and we try to keep him in his particular area. 

32:32
Ryan Tinetti
Well, my youngest, Ellie, we had filled up the little kitty pool for her, and we set it in the backyard, but it was within Theo’s invisible fence, and so he was still getting into it, and he was annoying her, and now he’s all wet. It’s a big problem, everything. And I said to Ellie, she was frustrated, and she’s like, “Daddy, why does this happen?” I said, “It’s okay, sweetie. In the future, we’ll be sure to put the kiddie pool outside of Theo’s invisible fence line.” She said, “Okay, that sounds good, but, Daddy, what’s the future?” And I was like, oh, okay, yeah, let’s take one step back. There’s so many. As parents, we’re just communicating to our kids where there’s things that sometimes we can maybe assume ill intent or that they’re just being disobedient or trying to cause trouble. 

33:27
Ryan Tinetti
And many times they don’t understand. It wasn’t clear to them what we wanted of them, and then, conversely, what they want from us. And so I think curse of knowledge can be really helpful when it comes to parenting. For sure, if you’re a business person, this for sure has, too. Just because ministry is not the only area that has jargon by any means. And if you’re a business person, you want to communicate, is I know you had our friend Seth Hinz on here recently on the podcast, too. And Seth really gets this in terms of being able to communicate the message as a story. Right. And why is it that you’re telling me this? Right. There’s that old Dr. Seuss book, and that’s the question, why are you bothering telling me this? Business person, make clear. What do you have to offer? 

34:21
Ryan Tinetti
If you’ve got a website, don’t put on your website just a picture of mountains if you’re actually a plumber. Right. We don’t need beautiful vistas. We understand. You might make water fall more clearly, but make that plain. And then maybe just the third one closest to ministry would be in the academy. So if you’re a teacher, if you are a professor. I had professors like this. You guys did. Where they’re like, no, you need to just meet me where I am. I’ve studied this stuff for a long time, and my job is just to be super smart. And if you want to be super smart like me, you got to figure it out. Okay, that’s an approach, but that’s not a good one. 

35:02
Ryan Tinetti
If you really want to teach, whether you’re teaching high school history or college algebra or whatever it is, you need to recognize that there’s a lot of distance between what you know and what your students know and to do to the best of your ability to meet them where they are. So, yeah, this is a concept that has wide applicability, and I hope that wherever your folks are coming from, they could find an area of their life that they could use it. 

35:29
Rich Rudowske
Yeah, for sure. I’ve, as a longtime leader as well, and I think this can apply in so many different realms, but just even one simple, concrete thing, such as I get a result from some member of my team or a team that is working with me, and it’s not what I expected. The first thing I do is say, how is what I communicated directly tied to this result? And almost always, I can find it. 

35:55
Ryan Tinetti
Wow. Yeah. That’s a great question, for sure. I mean, there’s a wonderful line in the Augsburg confession, which is like our Lutheran confession of faith, our core Lutheran doctrine, and the author of it, Philip Melancthon, he says in there at one point, “Nothing can be said so clearly so as to avoid misunderstanding.” Just recognizing, like, you might think that you’ve said this clearly, but there’s a good chance there was still some room, some gap for misunderstanding, for miscommunication. Drill down on that. That’s like the lowest hanging fruit when it comes to issues, conflicts or what have you. Where was there some miscommunication along the way? 

36:39
Rich Rudowske
Yeah, absolutely. I think of my kids who have had trouble with an assignment and then say, the teacher said, do you have any questions? And I didn’t know that I had questions. Like, I thought I got it right. So, yeah. If you experience that at any point in your life, you are just part of humanity. Dealing with the complexity. 

36:56
Ryan Tinetti
Exactly. Communicating the club. 

36:57
Rich Rudowske
That’s right. 

36:59
Emily Wilson
So for our listeners who are looking to dig in deeper to this topic and to really grow in their understanding and their perception of, oh, I am falling under the curse of knowledge, how do I grow? And how is it that I can kind of rectify how we communicate? And would you recommend certain resources or podcasts or anything that is in your line of what you listen to or read? 

37:31
Ryan Tinetti
Sure. Yeah. Great. So, yeah, when it comes to books “Made to Stick” is a great starting place if you’re interested in writing and, you know, put up with, like, the anti-Christian barbs. Stephen Pinker’s book is good, too. It’s called the sense of style. Both of those would be good places to kind of start to familiarize yourself more deeply with the concept. There’s a great podcast, which occasionally they might invoke the concept of the curse of knowledge, but a lot of it is helpful with addressing it. And the podcast is called “Choiceology”. It was actually started by one of the Heath brothers originally, and it has a different host now named Katie Milkman. 

38:07
Ryan Tinetti
But it’s really about recognizing how a lot of these kind of cognitive biases, which is to say these sort of faulty ways of thinking and understanding, affect the ways of the choices that we make, the decisions that we make, as well as just how we communicate. So that podcast Choiceology is a good one. It’s often kind of story driven, but has some good practical takeaways. So those would be some good places. And then, like I say, if you’re a Pastor, if you’re a missionary, if you’re somebody who has to communicate as a core part of your living, if you’re a teacher, find a circle of folks who can give you honest feedback. Part of that circle might be if you’re married, your spouse, because nobody’s better at giving you honest feedback than your 100%. 

38:51
Ryan Tinetti
But again, being intentional and when you’re trying to communicate, there’s no better resource for this thing than other folks who actually is like, is the message getting through and if we can hear from others that it is or it isn’t, that can be really helpful as well. 

39:09
Emily Wilson
It’s awesome. Thank you so much. So, we want to thank you again for taking the time to unravel the curse of knowledge, how we can identify it, how we can grow in our understanding and to be able to rectify our communications and to bring people in for the sake of the gospel. So thank you so much, Dr. Tinetti, for joining us. 

39:33
Ryan Tinetti
Oh, it’s been my, you know, it’s a curse that we’re never going to fully buck in this age, but Jesus himself is reversing it. That’s where we stake our claim. And we can take heart knowing that even when we fail to communicate as well as we want, the Lord is still working. And that’s what helps me to sleep at night. 

39:50
Rich Rudowske
Amen to that. 

39:51
Ryan Tinetti
Thanks. 

39:56
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. I’m just struck about even during the course of the interview, thinking about all of the different ways that this thing, the curse of knowledge, just completely pervades relationships, communication, just. It’s astounding. 

40:10
Emily Wislon
It’s amazing to me, too, of just even within your life experience. I remember starting out and here at Lutheran Bible Translators, and I would even just begin a conversation without building up the context. And I’m asking a question, and I remember I would come up to your door and I would start asking a question, but there was no context attached to it. And you’d just be giving me this look like, I don’t know what you’re talking about. So being able to build that professional skill of building context so that we aren’t experiencing that curse of knowledge, certainly it’s going to weave itself into our life because we live in a broken world, and communication, it can be halted. 

40:55
Emily Wilson
But how is it that we can build bridges with the people in our neighborhoods, within our families, and with our colleagues, but also thinking especially about how God has called each one of us to serve in his mission, what does that look like of being able to share our experiences authentically, but also sharing God’s Word for those who may never have experienced it before, and to let it be known that just because we have that knowledge doesn’t mean that our neighbor does. And how is it that we can reach out in love and just in good communication? 

41:34
Rich Rudowske
Yep. And as Ryan said, in many different ways, and a lot of people who have written about it have written as well. It’s the number one thing you can do to begin is to recognize that this is a thing that actually exists and you fall prey to it in many invaried ways. 

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42:16
Rich Rudowske
You can find past episodes of the podcast lbt.org/podcast or subscribe on Audible, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Follow Lutheran Bible Translators’ social media channels on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. Or go to lbt.org to find out how you can get involved in the Bible translation movement and put God’s Word in their hands. 

The Essentially Translatable Podcast is produced and edited by Andrew Olson. Our executive producer is Emily Wilson. Podcast artwork was designed by Caleb Rodewald and Sarah Rudowske. Music written and performed by Rob Veith. I’m Rich Rudowske. So long for now.