An essay on ignorance. What are your thoughts?

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The Dangers of Ignorance ...brought about by a lack of education. by Houston Wade PART ONE: VOTER IGNORANCE

"It is not enough to teach man a specialty... He must learn to understand the motives of human beings, their illusions, and their sufferings in order to acquire a proper relationship to individual fellow-man and to the community." -Albert Einstein

What Einstein was trying to elaborate in this quote in a letter to the New York Times is that if we only use our schools to teach people a vocational skill then we will end up with a population that "...more closely resemble a well-trained dog than a harmoniously developed person." Einstein saw that people are too easily lead and do not question or seek to understand why things are the way they are. Einstein was weary of voter ignorance and experienced the problems first hand in Germany where the citizens looked to the first person to offer answers to their woeful problems, Hitler.

Sociologist Ilya Somin recently warned people as to the dangers of voter ignorance, Somin writes of this: "...voter ignorance imperils the instrumental case for democracy as a regime that serves the interests of the majority, since ignorance potentially opens the door for both elite manipulation of the public and gross policy errors caused by politicians' need to appeal to an ignorant electorate in order to win office."

Throughout the twentieth century government after government manipulated uneducated populations to serve there own fascist agendas banking on the principle Abraham Lincoln put into words, "...You can fool all of the people some of the time..." Only when it was too late did the populations realize what had happened in their countries. The United States caught one of the totalitarian opportunists before it was too late in Joseph McCarthy, a man who brought about a red scare in this country leading to people's lack of trust in their friends, government and heroes. The problem in the McCarthy Era was that it was the beginning of the cold war and the US government used propaganda films to scare people into submission in the battle against communists, this was made easier by the fact that people did not truly understand their own economic system let alone a communist one. It was an easy means to pull the wool over a population's eyes.

I have come to the conclusion that all people can benefit from learning as much about opposing ideals, religions, and economic systems as they possibly can and it should be encouraged in school. It is dangerous when a person adopts an ideal without first seeking the opposing side's argument; I see this occur in American politics all the time. People complaining about Presidential candidate Al Gore and his fund raising mistake at the Buddhist temple in California. "He's taking money from the Red Chinese, damnit!"

People shouted from the hills. I then ask them what the difference is between the Chinese giving our country's candidates money and the US government financing the overthrow of a legitimate government in Chile installing a fascist dictator; or even supplying countries with weapons to engage in battle with enemy states as we did with Iraq to war with Iran. To this people seem astonished. They see no relation of the two things; after all, we are the country of freedom and capitalism, they are the Red Chinese.

If only the voters were more educated they would see that China in fact has quickly become the purist system of laissez-faire capitalism in the world. They have no laws against child labor; they are lax with human rights; they will gladly exploit their natural resources for economic gain; pollute to have a cheaper, more efficient manufacturing process; and all the profits go to less than 6% of the population, the card carrying members of the communist party. Modern day China sounds a lot like the robber-barons of nineteenth and twentieth century America to me. If China were truly communist would not all the people earn the same wage regardless of the position they held?

Voter ignorance stems from a simple lack of education. Sociologist David Cieply argues in a rebuttal to Somin's paper on voter ignorance that it is a functional matter and that democracy depends on it in order to work. Cieply writes for 30 pages and cannot claim one thing beneficial from voter ignorance. Voter ignorance can do such damage in California where the people voted to deregulate the power industry and found out that private companies cannot run the utilities efficiently. The cost of electricity has more than doubled in the past five years while the public has experienced frequent brownouts. The people were told stories about how government control of the utilities is not capitalist and that it does not foster ingenuity from competition. The problem is that when one company controls the power industry and that one company has no worries from competition they shoot for the bottom dollar and not for the service itself. When the government ran the power companies they had no choice but to keep the price low and to provide the service to the people because they did not shoot for profit. The people of California were never made aware of this because the government did not run adds espousing their side of the argument as the power industry did so the people were never aware of both sides of the argument.

In schools people need to be more informed about all ideologies, they need to be led into a state of perpetual cynicism and be taught to question why things are the way they are. Only then will we have an active voting population that is well informed in the arena of public policy.

PART TWO: CRIME

Why do most people commit crimes? Many people have tried to find the answer to this from genetic defects to the fact they have Satan inside them. I propose a more simple argument; people commit crimes for the following reasons:

1) They have never learned alternative methods to getting what they want or need.

2) They have never learned alternative methods of problem solving, discussing the issue with the other party, just tolerating the opposite side's issues.

3) They have unsubstantiated fears of what they don't understand (i.e. racism, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry).

4) They never learned what was needed in school to ensure a profitable experience in life after education and in order to survive turn to a life of crime. And

5) People have never learned to foresee cause and effect and to recognize to value and needs of life and property. In other words have never totally been taught any ideal that helps people have a mutual respect for others and their property. All of the above reasons for crime stem from ignorance in one form or another and ignorance is related to a lack of education.

The Statistical Abstract of the United States printed by the Census Bureau shows that 24% of those that never attained a high school diploma live in abject poverty. The book also shows that the crime rate for those that live in poverty is almost twice as high as those that do not. Mississippi which is statistically the poorest state in the nation also has the highest percentage of non-high school graduates and the highest murder rate in the country.

The opposite is true for states with better education systems like Connecticut which has the top education system in the US and the one of the lowest rates of murder. The lowest are reserved for those that live in an almost perpetual winter; Maine, North Dakota, Vermont, New Hampshire and Alaska.

PART THREE: CONFLICT RESOLUTION

As the saying goes, hind sight is 20/20; this is true but one only relies on hind sight when one cannot accurately determine cause and effect. Example: at the end of the first World War president Woodrow Wilson actively sought a means to ensure peace at a large scale by means of creating the League of Nations the precursor to the United Nations. Wilson said, "It must be peace without victory... Victory would mean peace forced upon the loser, a victor's terms imposed upon the vanquished. It would be accepted in humiliation, under duress, at an intolerable sacrifice, and would leave a sting, a resentment, a bitter memory upon which terms of peace would not rest, not permanently, but only as upon quicksand. Only a pace between equals can last."

The people not wanting the US to be involved in war instead chose to become isolationists closing their eyes to the problems of the rest of the world. In the end it turns out that the informed statesman, Woodrow Wilson, was correct and the ignorant masses calling for neglect at an international level were wrong. Germany was left in a horrible financial state at the end of W.W.I and felt belittled and bitter about the end of the war just as Wilson had predicted.

In turn the poor and ignorant masses of Germany placed Hitler into power resulting in Europe's involvement in World War II. At the same time Japan amassed a large empire in a similar fashion as Germany did prior to W.W.I; thus the Asian Pacific involvement in W.W.II. The US was trying to look the other way until it was too late; Pearl Harbor was in ruins.

It seems the US learned our lesson at the end of World War II and we actively sought resolution by expanding the League of Nations by creating the United Nations. While there have been wars since the formation of the UN there has been nothing in comparison to the widespread carnage experienced in the World Wars. Now it seems the people of the US have recanted, almost retrograded in their opinion of the UN. There has been an outcry from the right wing for the US to pull out of the UN and large mistrust of the government itself because it is involved with such an organization. The fear is that the UN is actually striving to create a New World Order and kill off all of the Christians of the world.

This argument is bogus and dangerous in its ignorance. First, the UN and it's respective loan programs are almost entirely funded with US dollars, public and private. Because of this the US has the majority vote as to where those funds go. The US also controls the majority of the debt experienced by the rest of the world from IMF and World Bank loans. If anything the US would be in charge if there ever there were a NWO. As for the extermination of Christians not only does it sound ridiculous and paranoid but there are more than 1.9 billion Christians world wide; more than any other religious group. The US itself has a majority Christian population with an excessive amount of Christians in the elected offices.

The UN is the premiere organization for international conflict resolution, what good is a global society if we all become isolationists? As for other forms of conflict resolution...

Most conflicts arise from a lack of understanding of the opposing side(s). Racism and homophobia in the US comes from learned ignorance and fear of what one does not know. If one were more informed of those which they have a bigoted hatred of there would be no qualms for debate. Scapegoats have had a profound significance throughout history; it is interesting that the current right wing in the US, the right wing that runs on issues of personal accountability is the same driving force behind the bigoted movements that rely on scapegoating individuals and indistinct minorities such as white supremacy, xenophobic and anti-homosexual groups. Arguments made with a lack of information while utilizing propaganda that reinforces hatred due to one's ignorance of the actual facts and data make it hard to find a resolution to ongoing conflicts that have the capability to erupt in violence.

If one were to ask a Protestant in Northern Ireland why he wants to kill Catholics he would respond, "They killed my brother." The same answer would be given by a Catholic if asked that very same question. The same can be said for the Balkan States, India and Pakistan, Israelis and Palestinians and even in the conflict that resides in the inner-cities in America. They have no idea why they are fighting; they are just doing what they have been taught. It is the Hatfields and McCoys on a larger, scarier scale.

The only way I can see profound improvement among the conflicts around the world is if people would just let bygones be bygones. People should try to learn more about each other and appreciate the fact that we can be so diversified. As for religious conflicts there is no point for skirmishes. One cannot prove one way or another if a one particular religion is the right one or if there is in fact any reason we should believe in one or not and people if they were aware would realize this.

Too many people see violence as a way to solve trifle conflicts. Many people around the world believe that hitting a child keeps them from doing something wrong. I disagree, it makes them fearful of those with the strength to hit them and fosters resentment as former President Wilson stated earlier. A child must know why he or she should not commit to an action. They must be taught how to deduce the consequences their actions have on others and the things around them. Kids are not dumb, just ignorant.

If a man were to lay insults into another and that other instead of trying to understand the man's frustration hit the man instead there would be a feud at hand. We rely on instinct too much as a society and it gets a lot of people hurt. Crimes of passion are statistically the most deadly.

I wish people would try to accept the fact that other people are not always enemies, just people with a different way of looking at a situation. People get frustrated when others do not see things the same way as themselves and are libel to lash out in this frustration creating more of a problem than there was in the first place. This happens when one does not have the know-how to express their concerns verbally. An article in the Seattle times recently found that toddlers are more violent with others simply because they do not posses extensive language ability to communicate with others their own age. Thus to solve their social incongruence they physically batter the other child to lay the impression that they are equals and want social interaction as well.

PART FOUR: GENERAL PROBLEMS IN EDUCATION.

The education system in the US is not doing its job of educating. This is an obvious statement I make. My personal belief is that it is due to a lack of funding and by the fact that students are not given respect in their roles at school. Schools treat students like criminals even if they are not; in response to this treatment the students fulfill the expectations that were set up for them by becoming troublesome. Citing personal experience from when I was in middle school the administration decided that the limited bad behavior of the students could be reduced by enacting more rules.

The belief was that if there were more rules students would obey them. This was an idiotic theory. Not only did the students not obey the new rules they figured they might as well not obey all the rules and behavior got out of hand. Adolescent teens will rebel against anything they can; all they need is a reason and something to establish itself as an authority. After I moved on to high school the middle school enacted a rule stating that no student is allowed to get out of his or her seat during the duration of lunch; video cameras were used to enforce this.

The result: The video cameras were stolen and there was a food fight that was so severe the police had to be called. It seams that the education system has lost its focus of educating and placed all of its attention into rule enforcement and behavior control. Instead of being an institution that placed students as equals that have a duty the schools instead have become an authoritarian almost totalitarian home to the fascist ideals that under normal circumstances would not be tolerated at one's own work.

Children are not evil by nature they are ignorant by nature. I think schools should spend less time and money on worrying about metal detectors and security forces and more time and money finding teachers that are not relying on teaching certificates to get them by when they make fail in their intended careers. I have had a few teachers where this was the case and all of them were not good at teaching either.

Many think that to solve the problem of ill fallen schools is to use school vouchers and create charter schools. I am not for school vouchers because it basically gives the wealthy a payment break for their children's private education while not providing enough funding to send poor students to expensive schools. The argument for charter schools is that if contract out education to private companies it would foster an environment of competition and would produce higher yielding schools. This will not happen; I refer the reader back to the deregulation of the power utilities in California for my example.

Companies shoot for bottom dollar they do not care about an end product unless there is a large bureaucracy enforcing the codes. When given the first chance charter schools will pile 40 kids to a class room and have two part time teachers teaching classes because if they made them full time they would have to pay for benefits and that is not cost productive. I don't want a CEO in charge of teaching children while keeping an eye in the bottom dollar. I want there to be no need for schools to worry about funding, ever.

In South Carolina, (the school system that is quickly becoming the worst in the country) the state legislature granted tax relief to its citizens and to relieve the state budget laid off 1,400 teachers. South Carolina already has the most crowded class rooms in the country and a college degree is not even required to teach. As a result to the budget bungle in South Carolina the state is 600 teachers short for opening the school year. Why when it comes to money the children are the ones to receive funding cuts first?

Recently in Washington State the voters ruled to overturn the state's Affirmative Action policy reducing the number of minority applicants to state four year colleges. I am a white, middle-class male and I will never have a problem getting an education or getting a job; I don't care if someone receives a "leg up" on me. Kudos to them. Minorities in this country have been stepped on enough and it is about time we stopped it.

Since I am a physics major I will use an example of a law of physics to illustrate my point: In physics there is the Law of Elasticity; it states that all matter is elastic and that all things can be stretched and skewed but will return to their original shape when left alone. The law also states that if something is stretched or bent enough there is a point at which the object will not return to its original shape. In order to return the object to its original shape it must be bent or stretched exceedingly in the opposite direction.

My example is this: Say racial equality takes the form of a metal ruler; the white majority has bent the ruler so to favor whites so much that when they let go the ruler stayed bent that way. If we are to give minorities an equal playing field we are first going to have to lay the hurt on whitey for a while by bending the ruler exceedingly in their direction giving the minorities a leg up.

When we let go of the ruler it will spring back to a position where it is flat and level. Affirmative Action is us just bending the ruler for a while that is all.

PART FIVE: THE CONCLUSION

In my time doing research for this paper I was not deterred one bit from my original goal of illustrating the dysfunction that can arise do to people's ignorance. In fact I believe that my research strengthened my point more. I found many articles, essays, and novels written explicitly to warn people of the dangers of ignorance and how we should deal with it.

The US is becoming less of an economy that relies less on the ability of its citizens to manufacture goods; this can be seen with all of the companies moving out of our traditional industrial hubs and instead vying for the cheaper labor of the third world. Our economy is becoming more technology based and more white collar. We need start educating people in the ways of our new economy. Sociological functionalists would claim that we are becoming dysfunctional due to our inability to adapt to the new needs of a new economy. Education should be the foremost important goal of our society and we should not let anyone fail in their own respect because they never learned or even knew they had to option to learn new things. Knowledge is power and true power is understanding that knowledge and using it for the greater good of us all.

I know that I did not include all of the problem areas associated with ignorance but I feel that I have made a respectable argument for my point of view and hope others, most importantly my professor understand my claim, finally.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), August 10, 2000

Answers

Anita:

Not because the author didn't try. If a student submitted such an unfocused, rambling piece, I would have the F printed on their forehead.

Best wishes,,,,

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), August 10, 2000.


Z: That bad, eh?

He/she certainly bit off more than he/she could chew, but I suspect that it's hard to confine oneself to ONE area of ignorance when the subject is so all-encompassing. I gave license for that.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), August 10, 2000.


Anita:

You are correct. This was probably written by an undergrad. I have spent the last 20y working with PhD students. Very competitive, lots of confidence and much older and wiser. They don't expect me to be PC. Example; a young lady just brought here data on recombination frequency and explained what it meant. She then asked what I thought of her explanation. I responded by saying that it was amazing that humans weren't still in caves. We both laughed and got on to the debate.

For an undergrad; I would point out that they had identified a very important question [this is true]. I would then discuss how one should approach writing the article. Lots of support. Then, to avoid the printing, I would suggest a rewrite [also some references]. Of course, if this is a web piece, no references are needed.

Best wishes

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), August 10, 2000.


I am sure my response belongs on the other thread -- the fear thread -- about the ranges of reality being reduced to God and fear. In fact, I have been meaning to post it over there for at least a day now. Maybe it will migrate.

In trying to define a range between two oppositional forces, two ultimate states of consciousness that we use to determine what Is, I finally settled on an awareness/ignorance scale, rather than a God/fear scale.

Is not all we do, feel and express defined by this range of awareness and ignorance, from God's awareness and grace to the darkest of moral ignorance? An ignorance which fails not only to put one's own being into the context of the whole but also fails to understand the nature of the whole as it surrounds and supports the individual?

-- Oxy (Oxsys@aol.com), August 10, 2000.


damn Z, that's harsh.

-- cin (cin@cinn.cin), August 10, 2000.


What is the difference between ignorance and apathy?

"I don't know" and "I don't care". ;-)

-- (funny.but.true@haa.ha.haa.haaa), August 10, 2000.


Cin:

I am much less harsh than life. And my PhD and MS students have all gotten jobs in their field of expertise when they graduated. We get along well and they are used to being treated this way. Harassment rules and success results. You know that after the first year they give as good as they get. It is an attitude that serves them well.

Best wishes,,,,

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), August 10, 2000.


I liked the part asking "what the difference is between the Chinese giving our country's candidates money and the US government financing the overthrow of a legitimate government in Chile [and effectively] installing a facist dictator..."

The implied and of course true answer is *none*.

What worries some is whether this student worries about the cosequences of both transgressions or just about those to them poor Chileans.

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), August 11, 2000.


Funny.but.true:

Ignorance ("I don't know") contains the potential for change, for escape from its own condition. Apathy ("I don't care") does not.

-- Oxy (Oxsys@aol.com), August 11, 2000.


HE BUILT A CASTLE--&--DIED THE NEXT-DAY!!! so=who,s=IN-CONTROL???

-- al-d. (dogs@zianet.com), August 11, 2000.


Yes, ignorance is baaaaad. And motherhood and applepie are good.

The author's definition of an ignorant person seems to be someone who is not up-to-date on the latest Liberal cliches. Except he better not push this to its logical extreme---ie, a voter "ignorance" test, which would be no more than a modern version of a voter literacy test.

BTW, as a physicist, why doesn't he know that there is no such thing as perfect elasticity? Next semester he should take Hysteresis 101.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), August 13, 2000.


Al,

Who's on first.

-- (nemesis@awol.com), August 13, 2000.


I used to think I was ignorant but now I don't know anymore.

-- (self@referential.self), August 13, 2000.

yo nemesis,WHO GIVES A SHIT!---how many=ball's you busted lately??

-- al-d. (dogs@zianet.com), August 13, 2000.

Al, you said,

HE BUILT A CASTLE--&--DIED THE NEXT-DAY!!! so=who,s=IN-CONTROL???

-- al-d. (dogs@zianet.com), August 11, 2000.

Al!!! For once I thought you WERE being profound and making a more subtle referrence to Jesus, but then I read your next post....

See al, I still haven't given up hoping,

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.cam), August 13, 2000.



Frank, the last post was not Al. Hawk's little friend is now imitating Al. He/She/It will probably try imitating more people. The thing is, they are not very good at it.

-- Imitate This (bet@you.can't), August 13, 2000.

PART TWO: CRIME Why do most people commit crimes? Many people have tried to find the answer to this from genetic defects to the fact they have Satan inside them. I propose a more simple argument; people commit crimes for the following reasons: 1) They have never learned alternative methods to getting what they want or need. 2) They have never learned alternative methods of problem solving, discussing the issue with the other party, just tolerating the opposite side's issues. 3) They have unsubstantiated fears of what they don't understand (i.e. racism, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry). 4) They never learned what was needed in school to ensure a profitable experience in life after education and in order to survive turn to a life of crime. And 5) People have never learned to foresee cause and effect and to recognize to value and needs of life and property. In other words have never totally been taught any ideal that helps people have a mutual respect for others and their property. All of the above reasons for crime stem from ignorance in one form or another and ignorance is related to a lack of education.

I guess we finally have the explanation for CPR.

-- ABC (a@b.c), August 13, 2000.


ABC: you should have started a thread with this, lots of thoughts to ponder and debate.

thanks,

xoxo,sumer

-- consumer (shh@aol.com), August 13, 2000.


I was very surprised when I discovered this paper while I was searching on the Internet. I do not know how it got here but I am very embarrassed because of state my paper was in when it was presented here. I am also flattered that Anita felt it established an argument for an interesting topic for discussion (which no one actually discussed). I can also understand the critisism as to the paper's structure and presentation, for it was a rough-draft of a rough-draft. Although, I noticed as well that all the negative comments about my paper were strictly conformed to its structure and was made fun of though no counter arguments were ever really presented. Strange. This leads me to conclude that if you disagreed whith my thesis you didn't really know why and were inable to produce any argument that counters my claims.

And to Z1X4Y7: This paper was not a web peice and this version had no references because it was a rough-draft. I will post the final version if I can for you. I was basically outling what I wanted to cover, some of it was kept others vastly changed.

Lars: As to the laws of Elasticity, who really gives a shit? It was not written with the intent of explaining Quantum Mechanics to fellow physicists. I used it to illistrate a point in an argument. If you can not make a consise rebuttle as to a particular argument in the paper then why post? I did not use the "up-to-date" liberal cliches because I was essentially producing a paper on a topic that has no precident. There has really never been anyone that I could research and take examples from because no one has ever written about the topic discussed in any connected and holistic form before.

-Houston

-- Houston Wade (houston@iwon.com), January 07, 2003.


Ignorance as a Cause and a Contributor to Social Problems

Section 1

A political columnist named Rack Jite put it best when he said, "Most People are mostly stupid." He didn't write this to mean that most people were physically impaired in their inability to use their brains but in the respect that they didn't know any better. I consider this one profound way of looking at ignorance in relation to social problems; people not knowing any better. I, like the classic Greeks, see that what is formerly considered bad for individuals and society arise from general ignorance. The Greeks had a simple answer to solving this problem; educate people. It is one thing to simply say people need education and another to actually see it through. Since 1990 the United States has gone from 14th in education world wide to 26th. Why such a decline? Is it because the US has experienced a great deterioration in its education system? Or can the answer be found in that all the other countries have just gotten better while we remained the same? I think it is because we have just given up and are willing to let a select, educated do the brain work for the rest of us. For those not familiar with the motive behind this paper I give you this explanation: a few quarters of school ago I took a sociology course on “social problems” where the students were to select an avenue of a perceived problem in society and do a project investigating its relevance in being defined as a social problem. I announced that I was going to do my social problems paper on ignorance and lack of education. I experienced some resistance, most notably from my instructor, David Squire. Squire cautioned me that I would have a hard time investigating this topic and finding valuable resources that would lead me to a conclusion or not. Mr. Squire was a little unsure as to ignorance being a contributor to social problems and rather disliked me for continuing on with my project. Personally, I do not care for teachers that are to stubborn to hear our an idea of a student and this paper is what has been bubbling in me for going on two years waiting to break out. I honestly believe that the more informed a population is, the better read they are, and the more aware of their surroundings the more abnormal it will be for that population to have rampant crime, to be at war and to face less than standard living conditions. This is opposed to countries whose populace is filled with arrogant, largely uneducated, and ethnocentric people (much like the US in my opinion) where the population has pockets of crime and violence in greater ratio than their counterparts around the world, a greater likelihood of being at war, and a large segment of its people living in poverty. I guess it is society's job to produce functioning idiots (the large part of the population that one could consider ignorant). If everyone were intelligent and highly skilled there would be no janitors and garbage men because everyone would be above those jobs intellectually and see that work unnecessary for an educated person to waste their time with. Some schools in some areas have to be worse that others if not only to produce the necessary factory workers and loggers that a population needs. After all, we all can't be bankers and doctors. Assuming the functional side of non- intellectuals, what about the darker side of the being uneducated, the abject poverty and crime? Well, for one thing I can guarantee that in areas where crime and poverty are most prevalent the schools are the worst. Do the poor people produce the terrible schools or do the terrible schools produce the poor people? I think they both produce each other in an oroborous circle. Here is my example: Say a population is dependent on a large company for work at a factory that is the mainstay of the peoples lives. The company after supporting the workers with secure jobs for generations moves its operations to Mexico leaving behind 40,000 unemployed, largely unskilled factory workers to fend for themselves. Prior to this education was never truly emphasized in the town due to the fact that the people knew that they could always get a job working at the factory. So, with no jobs and no tax dollars flowing in; what was previously a mediocre school system quickly becomes a black hole of intellectualism. With the schools in despair and pumping out individuals unable prove useful and the existing population is in the same condition crime will begin to run rampant through people's basic instincts for survival. This is what happened in Flint, Michigan in the 1980s; General Motors left town leaving 30,000 people without jobs that led to an 80% unemployment rate and crime soared while the school systems plummeted (Moore, 1990). To me education counts for a lot when preventing and dealing with problems. The other problems chosen by people in my Social Problems class as well as ones that were used as examples all seemed to have the same root. The people associated with the problems did not know any better than to repeat the same mistakes others have made time and time again. The problems of child abuse, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, theft, murder and the like all come from people's ignorance due to the fact that they: 1) do not have either the necessary information to avoid making these mistakes or, 2) they do not have the needed skills to correctly solve the problem and end up imprisoned in a never-ending cycle of history and doomed to repeat it. I intend to prove that ignorance is a cause and a contributing factor in the problems of society. Ignorance affects everybody the world over Ignorance is why we have petty tribal and ethnic disputes everywhere across the map. If one were to ask a Catholic in Belfast, Ireland why he hates Protestants he would say it is because they killed his brother. Then if one were to ask a Protestant the same question about Catholics he would say it is because they killed his father. If then the question were: why was anyone killed in first place? they wouldn't have a clue in how to relate it to today’s actions. They are no better off than the Hatfields and The McCoys.

...continued in section 2...

-- Houston Wade (houston@iwon.com), January 07, 2003.


Ignorance as a Cause and a Contributor to Social Problems

Section 2

I guess if ignorance affects everybody then I should have a more exact definition of what ignorance is. I could not find any sociological text that dealt with ignorance as a problem and none that even defined it. In the end I had to consult a dictionary for my definition. According to Webster’s Ignorance is: (1) the condition or quality of being ignorant; lack of knowledge, education, etc. (2) unawareness. This definition sounds quite good to me but I decided to consult another text just in case; I found a quote by the Greek philosopher Hippocrates that seemed to help, "There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the later ignorance" (Bartlett, 307). Those are some powerful words and they reflect my sentiments that one must at least try to be agnostic and admit that one is always going to ignorant in some situations. Of course the most dangerous ignoramus is one that is not aware of their ineptitude (Druckman). We can all claim ignorance in every misdeed we lay down; for if we knew better it would not have happened. Even if our motives were to cause harm and was intentional, it only takes a moment for one to neglect to consider the end effect and in that moment one is ignorant. It is too bad that people must learn from their own mistakes and that they have not been taught the foresight of learning from other's mistakes well enough. I wish that our problems were simpler than people not knowing better and we could solve them as easily as throwing some poor schlub in jail, but they are not. Our country's ignorance of history, productive problem solving and our inability to foresee consequences to our actions has crippled us on the international level as well as condemned some of our own citizens to life far below their potential. Well, at least we get some good entertainment on the evening news, right?. Albert Einstein was once perplexed to the way the American education system organized its format for teaching students. To criticize this he wrote a letter The New York Times in which he said; “It is not enough to teach man a specialty. Through it he may become a kind of useful machine but not a harmoniously developed personality. It is essential that the student acquire an understanding of and a lively feeling for values. He must acquire a vivid sense if the beautiful and of the morally good. Otherwise he-- with his specialized knowledge-- more closely resembles a well trained dog than a harmoniously developed person. He must learn to understand the motives of human beings, their illusions, and their sufferings in order to acquire a proper relationship to individual fellow-men and to the community.” (66) What Einstein was trying to elaborate in this quote in a letter to the New York Times is that if we only use our schools to teach people a vocational skill then we will end up with a population that has skill but no drive, no motive other than to make a living. Einstein believed that people needed possess the initiative to better themselves and society as a whole. What happens when one does not even have a skill and only possesses the drive to live? Einstein found out in Germany when people were too easily led and did not question or seek to understand why the country was in the depression it was in. Einstein was weary of the voter ignorance in Germany and experienced its problems first hand where the citizens looked to the first person to offer answers to their woeful problems in Adolph Hitler. Sociologist Ilya Somin recently warned people as to the dangers of voter ignorance, Somin writes of this: "[...] voter ignorance imperils the instrumental case for democracy as a regime that serves the interests of the majority, since ignorance potentially opens the door for both elite manipulation of the public and gross policy errors caused by politicians' need to appeal to an ignorant electorate in order to win office" (26). Throughout the twentieth century government after government manipulated uneducated populations to serve there own fascist agendas banking on the principle Abraham Lincoln put into words, "...You can fool all of the people some of the time..." Only when it was too late did the populations realize what had happened in their countries. The United States caught one of the totalitarian opportunists before it was too late in Joseph McCarthy, a man who brought about a red scare in this country leading to people's lack of trust in their friends, government and heroes. The McCarthy Era was that at was the beginning of the cold war and the US government used propaganda and films to scare people into submission in the battle against communists, this was made easier by the fact that people did not truly understand their own economic system let alone a communist one. It was an easy means to pull the wool over a population's eyes and hide the truth that the United States was on the verge of becoming no better than its Red Enemy. I have decided that when someone says something is “wrong,” “bad,” or “evil” one can benefit from learning about it as much as possible and make the decision for oneself. People should educate themselves about opposing ideals, religions, and economic systems as they possibly can and this should be instilled in them while in school. It is dangerous when a person adopts an ideal without first seeking the opposing side's position; I see this occur in American politics all the time. When people complained about former-Presidential candidate Al Gore and his fund raising mistake at a Buddhist temple in California they said things like: "He's taking money from the Red Chinese, damnit!" To those people I propose these postulations: what is the difference is between the Chinese giving our country's candidates money to influence the an elected office and the US government financing the overthrow of a legitimate government in Chile installing a fascist dictator; or even supplying countries with weapons to engage in battle with enemy states as we did with Iraq to war with Iran. To this people seem astonished. They see no relation of the two things; after all, we are the country of freedom and capitalism, they are the Red Chinese. If only the voters were more educated they would see that China in fact has quickly become the purist system of laissez-faire capitalism in the world. They have no laws against child labor; they are lax with human rights; they will gladly exploit their natural resources for economic gain; pollute to have a cheaper, more efficient manufacturing process; and all the profits go to less an elite segment of the population, the card carrying members of the communist party. Modern day China sounds a lot like the robber-barons of the industrial nineteenth and early twentieth century America to me. If China were truly communist would not all the people earn the same wage regardless of the position they held?

...continued in section 3...

-- Houston Wade (houston@iwon.com), January 07, 2003.


I just realized that this is being posted without paragraphs, and I can't seem to fix it... Well, if you would like the full version just email me. It is taking forever trying to get this thing posted. Here are the sources though (some are newer and not used in the old version):

Works Cited

Bartlett, John. Familiar Quotations, Fifteenth Edition. Boston, Little Brown, and Company, 1982.

Creipley, Dave. “Democracy despite voter ignorance: A Webrarian reply to Somin and Friedman.” Critical Review. Winter 1999.

Druckman, Amanda. "Think you're smart?" New York: Psychology Today, May/June 2000

Einstein, Albert. 1954. Education and World Peace. The New York Times. Nov. 23 1934. From: Ideas and Opinions. New York. Wings Books.

Jite, Rack. Conservatively Incorrect. 5 December 2001

Moore, Michael, dir. Roger And Me. 1990. Videocassette. Moore Productions, 1990.

Somin, Illya. “Voter ignorance and the democratic ideal.” Critical Review. Summer 1999.

United Nations. The UN Monetary Report. New York: The United Nations, 1999.

United States. Bureau of the Census. Statistical Abstracts of the United States: 1997. Washington,: GPO, 1997.

Wheeler, James O., Peter O. Muller, Grant Ian Thrall and Timothy J. Fik. Economic Geography 3rd Edition. New York: john Wiley & Sons, Inc.1998

World Almanac 2001. New Jersey: World Book Publishers, 2000

-- Houston Wade (houston@iwon.com), January 07, 2003.


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