Does everybody have something they’re ignorant about and believe is true when it’s clear they just haven’t looked into it enough? Is ignorance simple stupidity, or is it lack of knowledge or lack of understanding? A lot of people seem to say people are ignorant as if they decided to be that way or something. I think we can work on the problem of ignorance that all of us have if we realize that we all probably have some of some kind. And does the degree of ignorance matter?

I know a lady who flat refuses to learn the facts about a certain aspect of religious teaching. Though I point her in the right direction again, and again, and again - she opts to remain ignorant never going to read up on the subject.

This is self imposed ignorance and is more than just ignorance.

Stupidity is when you know about something but go ahead and pretend you don't, or say do something like drinking and getting behind the wheel of a car where you know you really shouldn't ought to drink and drive but do so anyway.

True ignorance (which I have a lot of that) is not knowing. For instance you don't find me posting in the TV section of AP because I am pretty much ignorant of all of those programs, I never really watch that much TV and what I do watch is about 5 channels - the rest I know nothing about.

Believe it or not many do opt to be ignorant about certain things. They purposefully place themselves in the position where they do not learn the fact behind a thing or they cling to their myth-conceptions (far worse than just ignorance) and upon the myth they build their reality. Many opt to not learn about a thing, a self imposed ignorance of a thing so they can continue cherishing those beliefs that they are most comfortable with.

One is not ignorant if they do not understand a thing. For instance one does not need to understand how math works to know how to add - all you need to know is that 1+1=2 (most of the time, I have a theorem which demonstrates that 1+1=1) to do math. Here you are not ignorant of math, you just do not understand why it works.

For the most part we can say we all are ignorant to different degrees on many things. No man can know everything - thus he must by default be ignorant of some things. The motives of ignorance are varied, and we must use a bit of wisdom in discerning if our ignorance is self imposed or willful, or if we have been hoodwinked into believing a myth-conception.

Does the degree of ignorance matter? Well tell you what, would you rather have a heart surgeon with years of schooling and many hours of actual experience giving you a double by pass, or would you prefer a man who has read up on the subject with a little mechanical ability. If the latter, I will be most pleased to give you that bypass operation, for a fraction of the cost mind, I have read up on the subject and understand the mechanics enough to where I can most likely to a bang up job of it. Mightn't be completely correct, but that is due to only a small degree of ignorance on my behalf.


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12-27-04, 07:52 AM
MrsS
David, You break me up!Big Grin

quote:Mightn't be completely correct, but that is due to only a small degree of ignorance on my behalf.


12-29-04, 05:51 PM
honilov
Ignorance falls into two catagories...stupidity, or a lack of understanding. Stupidity is the worse kind because there is usually hate involved. There is a degree of innocence attached to a lack of understanding. I believe we all, at one point, have been guilty of one.

12-30-04, 09:13 PM
aminator2002
Ignorance is not stupidity or based on intelligence in any way. We are all ignorant of so much. Wisdom is knowing when you are ignorant or not.

Ignorance is when someone can not find Australia on a map because they've never taken the time to look and learn.

Ignorance is what some people are isolated in because they lack the resources, the time and/or the motivation to learn.

Pride sometimes leads to ignorance by way of people who think they know everything without ever studying or thinking carefully about the subject. People who think they know everything are the worst examples of ignorance because they tend to lie and pretend to people that they are an authority.

People who accept that they know very little can at least prevent ignorance from causing a lot of damage.

Obviously some people focus their lives on learning so their ignorance is less than the poor couch potato that is only interested in football, soap operas or talk shows. I think that ignorance comes in degrees but it also can be dangerous. It can be very dangerous for instance to be ignorant of people of the world because you would be vulnerable to someone telling you that you are superior and different... this could lead to any number of problems. It is easy to manipulate ignorance and that is what makes it wrong to knowingly remain ignorant of important subjects.

Ignorance and hatred go hand in hand.

02-09-05, 02:02 PM
MommyTimesTwo

quote: A lot of people seem to say people are ignorant as if they decided to be that way or something.



I believe that some people--a lot of people--choose to be ignorant. I call this intentional ignorance. It is when someone ignores evidence that is readily available to them, in order to cling to their preconceived ideas.

For example, a while back there was a discussion about starvation in African countries. One person kept saying that it was their our fault for not using birth control, and if they had children they couldn't feed, oh well.

Even when it was pointed out to this person that, aside from all of the other factors involved with starvation in African countries (such as the government taking all the food, etc...) that condoms and birth control have been available in the United States for upwards of 50 years, and yet we still have unplanned pregnancies and starvation, they claimed this was "different".

This is intentional ignorance. Yes, it is true they do not know. But they do not know because they choose not to know, because it would violate their preconceived ideas of how the world is.

As Ami said, this kind of ignorance is hand in hand with hatred. The Africans are to blame for thier starvation, because they are not "us". We, of course, are NOT to blame for starvation in our own country.

02-09-05, 02:17 PM
jusork
I agree about all you guys' points about two different kinds of ignorance.

But in reference to your last point, Times2, is it necessarily hatred? The them and us mindest isn't necessarily the same as a hating mindset, is it? What about just generalizing unsympathetic separation?

02-09-05, 06:29 PM
MommyTimesTwo
I do believe it is hatred, Jusork. The reason being that, in general, most of the same people who have the "them" mindset against Africans or Arabic people have an "us" mindset for British people, or Australians, etc... . In other words, people who look and act and speak like we do. We are just as separated from Australians as we are from Africans. We are just as distant (no, I am NOT going to figure out the exact distance, as it is irrelevant). But we see them as "us".

Deep inside, it boils down to ethnocentricity, which is hatred given a $0.50 name. In order to be "us", we have to be better than "them". To be better than "them", we have to hate them.

Example: The United States is bordered by Canada and Mexico. Immigrants move to America from both countries. Some people from each country live here as illegal immigrants, some become legal; some speak English, some speak French or Spanish.

Many people call Mexican immigrants "wetbacks". Have you ever heard someone use a derogatory slang term about Canadian immigrants? Both type of immigrants "take" jobs from people born in America, by virtue of moving here and then getting jobs. Have you ever heard someone speak badly about Canadians taking jobs?

In some places where many Mexican immigrants live, the schools are taught in Spanish and English. In some places where Canadian immigrants live, the schools are taught in both French and English (I was friends with a woman from Maine who was taught in French for the first 3 years of school for this reason). Have you ever heard someone complaining "Canadians move here, they have to learn the language!!"?

Why is this? Ethnocentric hatred. Mexicans are "different", Canadians are the "same".

Hatred doesn't always mean hate groups and violence and protesting. Hatred can be very subtle, and disguise itself in conversations about language, jobs, and even birth control. "Just give them condoms" is just as intentionally ignorant, and as hating, as saying "The wetbacks have to learn to speak English before they come to OUR country!"

02-09-05, 07:31 PM
juanruiz
"Ignorance" is a good example of a Latin word turned into a pejorative in English. Ignorantia simply meant "not to know."

02-09-05, 10:44 PM
jusork
I completely understand and agree with the us verse them mindset as you explain it. It's the idea that simple discrimination between two different races is necessarily the same as hatred that I'm not agreeing with. You're saying that since some people make a distinction between themselves and someone who looks different, they hate them. I think the distinction is made simply becasue they are different. Since they're different and some people notice easily, it's eaiser to have a them and us mindset. Making a derogatory distinction isn't necessarily the same as making a characteristic distinction. No? And a lack of sympathy exists often in location/nationality distinctions.

As for the Canadian/Mexican idea, don't the people who ridicule Mexicans usually do so becasue people find Mexicans tend to be more willing to do lower paying jobs? What's the lower paying job market like for Canadians in comparison to Mexicans? I think immigrants from Hispanic areas are among the largest group of immigrants right now. Thus I'd imagine their group would gain a more significant focus than others in anything. Do you think we have a similar problem with Indians, Asians, Middle Easterners, etc. today?

02-10-05, 06:29 AM
MommyTimesTwo
Jusork

I believe your conclusion is incorrect. It is not simply a case of us versus them. We have to consider the hostility of saying "I am us, we are good--they are them, I will not help them/do not care about them because they are not like us."

Saying that people only dislike Mexicans because they take lower paying jobs is to gloss over the real issue. That is an excuse for hatred. Can you name 5 Americans who would actually work for $5/day picking grapes in California? Then why would anyone care if Mexicans did that low paying job?

To dismiss the starvation and degredation of other people, and to blame that situation on the people themselves despite all evidence to the contrary is the epitome of hatred. "I do not care what happens to you, because you are not like me." Throwing in "reasons" like "they should use birth control" is simply a justification mechanism to avoid the cognitive dissonance that comes from a person who thinks they are "nice" saying "let them die--it's their own fault".

02-10-05, 04:15 PM
jusork
So you're saying that denying sympathy for other countries implies all that?

Do people actually care if Mexicans work picking grapes? So you're saying that people who say too many Mexicans are taking American jobs hate all Mexicans? Why don't you think they simply don't like those Mexicans that are taking American jobs? And how do you know they simply don't like those Mexicans who don't choose to speak the language of their new country?

Why isn't it the epitome of a lack of sympathy? A lack of sympathy for other countries. Those people can have a lack of sympathy for other countries whether it's a country full of people like them or not.

02-10-05, 06:46 PM
MommyTimesTwo
Jusork

The point you're missing is that the not-caring is selective. It's not that some people don't care about people in other countries. It's that they don't care about people in other countries who are different. It's ethnocentrism, racism, and probably a number of other -isms that all boil down to "I hate people who aren't like me".

You didn't answer my question about those "valuable" jobs Mexicans are taking. Do Americans really care if Mexicans are "taking" jobs paying a few bucks a day picking grapes? Quite the opposite. Americans would probably not be buying grapes if the processors had to pay minimum wage to American citizens, thus increasing the price of the grapes, rather than paying a pittance to Mexican illegal immigrants.

Ethnocentric feelings that lead to the dehumanizing of the "them" is the major cause of war, genocide, and slavery. We hate them, they aren't like us, therefore it is okay to do whatever we want to them.

quote:

Ethnocentric ideology still exists throughout the world, however, and influences group policy and diplomacy between cultures - often resulting in war, genocide, or slavery. More often than not, the underlying cause of conflict between nations, ethnic groups, or cultures is ethnocentrism. There are many current and historical examples of this, such as African Slavery, the Holocaust, the Rwandan Genocide, and the current conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland.

from Wikipedia

quote:

Hate or hatred is an emotion of intense revulsion, distaste, enmity, or antipathy for a person, thing, or phenomenon; a desire to avoid, restrict, remove, or destroy its object.

from Wikipedia

Let's look at the definition of hate more closely. Desire to avoid: "I don't want Mexicans in my schools! They can't even speak English!" Distaste: "They don't even use birth control! It's their own fault!" Enmity: "They all hate us anyway, because they're jealous!" Desire to remove: "Kick all the immigrants out! This is our country!"

02-10-05, 06:51 PM
juanruiz
In regard to this, a poem I wrote some time ago

On His Blindness

I'm so happy when we meet,
Putting on white hood and sheet.
Each of us so clearly sees
The plague of the minorities.

On their lawns we burned a cross,
Those Blacks now recognize who's boss.
Yesterday we made the news,
beat up some Christ-killer Jews.

Now illegals come to town,
time again to wear the gown.
Save us from their filthy habits;
Oh my God they breed like rabbits.

Got to put them in their place,
as we save the master race.
And on one point I take great pride:
to know the Lord is on our side.

02-10-05, 09:18 PM
jusork
It seems like people who are from countries that are different from us just happen to be the ones need the most help. What are some countries who are like us and need our help, and we help them because they are like us as you say?

I answered that in my questioning if Americans cared about those jobs in the first place. How many Americans are in the grape picking business? I'd imagine that there aren't near as many as for other trades and so there's probably not a problem with those Mexicans.

Distinguishing between people's differences cause war, genocide, and slavery just as much as hatred. You think everyone who owned a slave did so simply because they hated them? No, I believe simply because they were different was also just as big of a factor. We're talking about specific people in America, not general ways hatred is revealed in the world.

All those examples you ended with are clear examples of hate. I don't think people who suggest to places with problems of disease and starvation to 'just use birth control' to be like those.

Thanks, Juan. That's fitting.

02-11-05, 05:37 AM
MommyTimesTwo
Jusork

I was IMing with another poster about this thread last night and we came to the conclusion that, if you aren't getting it, you're not going to get it. In some ways, that's a good thing.

As they say, ignorance is bliss. Not knowing or not accepting maintains some naivete, which is good sometimes. Better than being cynical, that's for sure.

02-11-05, 02:12 PM
jusork
I think I could've eventually understood why you were equating a clear lack of sympathy with hatred if you went on explaining your thoughts, but oh well.

02-11-05, 09:12 PM
MommyTimesTwo

quote:Originally posted by jusork:
I think I could've eventually understood why you were equating a clear lack of sympathy with hatred if you went on explaining your thoughts, but oh well.



Perhaps. But there does come a point where it is easier to allow the person to eventually to come (or not come) to their own conclusions than to beat dead horses to pate.

03-16-05, 02:04 AM
Pin~Jinx
Frankly speaking : I am least bothered how ignorant or non-ignorant some one is.
However it pierces me when
someone who has minimal knowledge or no study about something passes crude comments about the subject.
One such example is religion. Being a Muslim, it enrages me when I see people in general just name-calling us as terrorists for e.g., or putting the blame of almost anything tht goes wrong on us _ while they have absolutely no know how of the teachings of the Quran (the Holy Book) or the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H.)!
A majority only goes by what the media (be it print or televised) feeds them. If so many other conspiracy theories have been taken to be true for decades, why should it not be possible that only one, distorted picture be portrayed about Islam too.

Often, a nonMuslim is under the misconception that Islam was spread by the sword. Not entirely true! A majority of the converts to Islam were impressed by the conduct of the Holy Prophet himself. Apart from that, letters and gifts were sent and received to spread the message of Islam to many rulers of that time. Many truces took place too. However, the locals in power were troubling the Muslims. As a reply a message was sent from Allah through angel Gabriel that you are allowed to retalliate; to prevent the Muslims from finishing out and to protect the religion. Therefore we cannot claim that no wars were fought for the cause of religion. HOwever, point to note here is that it is just ONE miniscule part of history. There are trillion other teachings taught to us.

Sorry for my long ranting, but if you are ignorant, accept it and refrain from judging others (religion, cast, creed or race).

How would you feel that basing on just one or two gangsters in the States, we state that ALL Americans are violent! Or just basing on a couple of low-self-esteemed girls who happen to follow Christianity, we conclude that all Christians have low self images! Preposterous isn't it! and very very unfair too. and this is an unfair practice no matter what religion or race is being targeted.
I would LOVE to know how the massacre of Iraq can Ever be justified? And now the new toy seems to be Syria.
Aren't natural disasters like earthquakes and the tsunami attack recently enough tragic, that man has to spend resources to destroy yet more homes!!
Although, it was certainly pleasing to note (02, 03) that many Americans and Europeans had a heart, and brains enough to see how irrational the war waged was. (By the way, I feel funny calling it a war when the big uncle pulls out any form of weapons or protection measure, and thrusts all the resources they can accumulate at them instead. )
Guess I better go now,
Pin~Jinx / anarcihst

03-16-05, 08:22 AM
FredPuli
Concerning animosity towards Islam or muslims,what we have is lack of true education. True education is where the student is made to argue, to research and to never, ever, take anything they are told as 'a given'. Exposure to other faiths and cultures helps. It was found long ago here that racist beliefs and myths were more common in rural areas where no immigrants or foreigners were found than they were where such people were frequently encountered.

Among the rest the prejudice may well be ignorance combined with a need to feel better. If your self-esteem is low, if you feel hard done-by, then it is a release to find someone, some group, different to you, whom you can regard as inferior and against whom you can vent your frustration and anger. Here there is every incentive not to find out more. It would be discomforting indeed to find that, so far from eating their children, Turks do not such thing !

Another danger is that we educate our children entirely with others of identical background. If we live in a rich area then our children meet only children of a rich area. This is the one worry I have about my own daughter's boarding school. She makes statements, unquestioning, which could only be found among the ignorant and prejudiced (generally,not merely on race ) of the wealthy, rural, upper classes whence comes the rest of her peers. Evidently nobody in her peer group brings her up short or challenges these, nor, perhaps, do her teachers . Her dad does, quietly, to her puzzled surprise that such 'truths' are not self-evident Wink.It can only lead to snobbery or class prejudice or worse. She expresses discomfort at the prospect of meeting teenagers from state schools; she cannot quite adjust to the prospect of their being 'different'. In reality this difference is they have no experience of expensive places etc, their parents don't have two or three homes and four or five cars , are somewhat less likely to vote Conservative and all will have to work to live, whereas several in her class have enormous trust funds. Otherwise they are teenagers all the same, with similar tastes in music and fashion, and parents who don't understand them Big Grin .

My own, academic, private school had at least one teacher who was a communist, to its credit; though he was not selected for that he was not debarred either. About half the boys were there on state scholarships, too, assigned there because of being in a top percentile in the state exams at age 11, so all income groups were represented in class; what we had in common was that we all met the required intellectual standard to get in there. The result was an initial shock to both types but what followed was understanding.That is a result to be wished . I fear that my own school was, and is, exceptional.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed,

The answer is yes, but don't forget that ignorance is bliss. After all if you don't know
that it hurts it doesn't hurt. If it wasn't for ignorance (or better known as faith) established religion wouldn't work. I think that complete ignorance is great and even essential at times cause not knowing that your stupid is much better than knowing it.


sorry in advance for anyone offended here