An Alphabet Of Things I Don’t Like: I

~ beetleypete

Ignorance.

I don’t mean uninformed ignorance of course. If people are not taught something, or made aware of it, I cannot blame them for ignorance of a fact.

The sort of ignorance I cannot tolerate is ‘Informed Ignorance’.

One good example of this is Holcaust Denial. Presented with irrefutable facts; documentation, eyewitness testimony, and even contemporary film footage, it is impossible to deny what was done to the Jews (and others) by the Nazis in Germany. Yet many people, some of them well-educated academics, choose to ignorantly believe it never happened.

Then there are comments like “I don’t care what I can see, I know what I believe”. Or “I don’t care what is happening to the people in such and such country, as it doesn’t affect me”.

In these modern times, ‘Fake News’ and photo manipulation makes it harder to judge the truth of what we are seeing and hearing. I can accept that. But we all have the ability to apply commonsense when coming to conclusions, though so many seem content to abandon that at the first opportunity.

Racism is often driven by ignorance. “They want our jobs”. “They will take away our houses”. “They will make us all change our religion”. Yet centuries of immigration to countries like Britain and America have not shown any evidence that this is true. In Britain, it is a fact that many immigrants only come to do the jobs that British people will not do. Or qualified immigrants work as doctors, nurses, or heath experts, making up the shortfall in the NHS that existed previously.

But the ignorant continue to complain; though they had no intention of ever working at picking crops in a field all day for minimum wage, or training to become a nurse.

Now we have ignorant people denying the existence of Covid-19, despite the huge number of deaths it has caused. I lost one of my dearest friends to the virus in May. Yet many continue to claim it is ‘just the ‘flu’, or that it hasn’t really happened and is merely a way of governments being able to control people. They refuse to wear masks, or to stop associating in crowds. So in 2020, we have ‘informed ignorance’ on a scale never seen before in my lifetime.

We have always had ignorance in society of course, and in every country on Earth.

But it’s getting worse, and I don’t like it.

54 thoughts on “An Alphabet Of Things I Don’t Like: I”

      1. I do that every so often, Pete and I have a manual list of a few I follow who post a lot and check them once or twice a week…I don’t do follow for follow as it would be too many to keep on top of and some are not posts I am interested in following 🙂 x

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  8. ‘You can’t argue with ignorance’ as we have witnessed in the US for the last 4 years.
    Sadly the solution I have is against the law. If only I didn’t know that then ignorance would be bliss 🙂

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  13. Willful ignorance is the order of the day here. CNN has released a report that confirms that on 20/19/20, peaceful protesters at the Lekki Toll Plaza were shot at with live ammunition. The Nigerian government and her army are still in the denial.

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  15. Well another point that we have in common Pete. It’s almost as if I’m reading my own list here haha😂 Seriously though, as you say at the end: it’s getting worse, and not only do I no like that, it’s aslo quite scary😢

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  17. I know you are familiar with Isacc Asimov’s quote on ignorance: “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/456687-there-is-a-cult-of-ignorance-in-the-united-states For we have spoken of it before.
    Recently I have come to think that ignorance, willful ignorance, is a result of selfish beliefs that a person holds that seem to justify what that person wants to be or appear to be.
    WArmest regards, Theo

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  18. A lot of the ignorance is rooted in fear. Fear of being displaced. A lot of people are fighting to hold onto their already tiny and rapidly shrinking place in society only to have hardworking, industrious immigrants competing with them for the bottom rungs of middle class and ultimately, in many cases, surpassing them. There’s an excellent book about it called Hillbilly Elergy.
    Anyway, great, though provoking post, Pete.
    –Pam

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  20. THe US South has always been a hotbed of ignorance…..and now it is the “Oxford” of ignorance…..”Stupidity is the deliberate cultivation of ignorance”…..still my favorite quote. chuq

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  21. Yes, Pete. Here they say that nobody is as blind as the person who chooses not to see. When people ignore reason and evidence, there are no arguments that can be used. They might eventually learn a hard lesson, but if you surround yourself with people with the same ideas, it can become worse and worse. Thanks, Pete, for calling them as you see them.

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