That and emotional insecurity
COVID taught me that all the knowledge in the world cannot overcome a certain mindset, and an alarming percentage of people are of that group. You can provide all the evidence and education in the world, and some people just can’t be helped.
Yes, that’s exactly what I mean by ignorance. It only occurred to me later that the term has a much more international meaning in my native language (German): what I meant was not so much a lack of knowledge, but the deliberate ignoring of facts, expert knowledge, or scientific standards out of selfish arrogance. I believe in English this is called willful ignorance - this distinction does not exist in German; for us, ignorance always means that someone deliberately ignores things because they simply do not suit them. And I think that this, or rather the fact that we allow it, is responsible for the precarious situation our world finds itself in today: people could and do know better, but they ignore the facts out of selfishness.
There’s nothing wrong with being ignorant. It just means there’s opportunity for learning.
There’s everything wrong with being willfully ignorant.
– Me
I wish I could upvote this 1000 times. I am ignorant of a lot of things but I’m willing to learn and even change my mind. Willful ignorance when someone chooses not to know something, even though the information is available, relevant to them, and often even presented directly to them but they plug their ears and go “la la la”.
Then you obviously have a completely different understanding of ignorance than I do. By that I mean someone who doesn’t want to know anything about a subject, or even someone who deliberately insists on their opinion against their better judgment.
So my understanding of ignorance is what you mean by willful ignorance. However, this may be because the term is defined differently in my native language (German): what you mention first is called “Unwissen” (not knowing) in German.
Yes, what you’re describing is what’s called “willful ignorance” here.
“Ignorance” is used to mean simply “lack of knowledge” in most cases in English. It doesn’t carry the negative connotation by itself.
I’m leaving the post up anyway, because “Unwissen” is also a very significant problem, even though I actually meant deliberate ignorance in the sense of what is currently happening so prominently in the US.
Post title works as-is, at least IMO. You can always edit it if you want.
You are correct.
It is actually ignore-ance, with the removal of the e at the end of Ignore to form a new word…
To ignore something is a willful action of deliberate inattention.
A lot of it is willfull ignorance.
The trust in institutions is gone too since everyone lies constantly. Presidents, space agencies, governments, everyone.
Without any trust that those institutions are correct and honest, people wont want to learn from them.
And then you have the social media perception bubbles, with algorithms serving you more of what you like, reinforcing any beliefs you have.
And of course on top of this, gender wars where you turn genders against eachother, so each human becomes even more stupid, angry and alone.
Havent even had my second cup of coffee and im already dooming stuff. Lol.
Not just gender wars. Divide and conquer is everywhere. If everyone is ignorant and unwilling to learn or communicate, all you have to do is send some ‘representatives’ to show how stupid and antagonistic [other progressive tribe] is. I keep thinking of when suddenly being anti-circumcision, including men, meant you obviously think male genital mutilation is worse than female genital mutilation, and you hate women. I’m sure a bunch of feminists were getting harassed by neo-incel advocates at the same time.
Couldn’t talk about how weird it was, because if you were x/y tribe, you were default a nazi, and no we won’t talk about how suddenly everyone advocating for education and social progress is a nazi fighting other progressives.
Bunch of other details on how this stuff changes the environments for progressive action, and how progressives will vacate and the war takes over the space for philosophy and communication.
But race war, or whatever thing people want to think is important for their niche, all you have to do is start a couple fires and point in the other direction. You’ll have victim’s of actual violence or harassment encouraging tribal behaviour that acts out violence that hurts stray innocent people from the other group, which legitimizes upset and violence back at the broader first progressive tribe. Yadda.
People were never taught how to communicate or learn on their own. We are way too hackable as a result.
Solidarity is important.
I didn’t know that.
I feel like the people in power who take advantage of ignorance for purely selfish reasons is the root of the problem.
Well, ignorance loves company and misery is bliss.
We must teach everyone everything!
