Knowlege and Ignorance
Knowledge and Ignorance
We are in an age of exploding knowledge, and the body of known facts is growing asymptotically.
Thus, the amount of knowledge a student or employee is expected to have accumulated to fulfill his
undertaken responsibility is high. Yet the actual accumulation has been uneven. A small number of
people have amassed an amazing amount of knowledge, so much that many of us can not
understand them when they describe it. Others have learned so little they struggle to read and
cypher. In between, of course, are all the rest spread out in normal distribution - ignorance at one
end and knowledge on the other. Unfortunately as the amount of knowledge available grows the gap
between those who avail themselves of it and those that don't widens.
Ignorance is lack of knowledge, and whereas the first step toward knowledge is knowing you don't
know, the first sign of ignorance is not knowing you don't know - or not caring enough to do anything
about it. And since to make effective contribution in our culture is requiring more and more
knowledge, ignorance has greater and greater negative impact on individual quality of living, the
potential therefore, and on our culture as a whole. The process has been referred to as dumbing
down, and that can perhaps be debated, but as we strive for equality in institutional learning we are
more often achieving acceptance of a lower standard. Of course there is no question that people in
general know more now than they did in the past, and those who place importance upon learning
know much, much more. It is the gap between what is available to know and what some actually do
know and what is being learned by most, but particularly the least knowledgeable, that is growing.
Most people are not coming close to learning to their potential.
But there are different kinds of knowledge, and for convenience let's make an artificial division
between what I shall call specific and general. Specific knowledge in this sense is that which is
required to function mechanically within the culture, such as driving a car, operating a computer,
working with a telephone, making change and paying taxes, for example. And my definition of
general knowledge is that derived from accumulating facts and understanding, and reasoning. As I
see specific knowledge increasing fairly rapidly, I see the general knowledge deteriorating, certainly
deteriorating in comparison. That is, the ability to think may not be deteriorating as it has always
been rather weak, but it is improving far less rapidly than it could and should - and one might hope it
would - when considering the overall growth of knowledge - and might even be truly deteriorating
from lack of trying. On the other hand the demands for specific knowledge to function effectively in
our culture is growing, learned through experience, but more and more technical knowledge is
needed for the experience to register. Unfortunately as this technical component increases our
tendency to teach it is decreasing. By this I mean that teaching technical knowledge (the trades
particularly) is being pushed aside in favor of teaching general knowledge which is being dumbed
down to the least common denominator. This suggests striving for the worst of both of the two
worlds.
Let's face it. The world has always been filled with thinking deficits contributing to ignorance of facts
and reasoning while it has been stronger in terms of experience. The shortage of higher knowledge
has shaped history, both in its slower beginning and the more rapid current era, particularly If one
accepts that bigotry, prejudice, fear and a lot of anger is due to ignorance. If that is the case, as I truly
believe it is, lots of the down side of history has been heavily influenced by ignorance - and continues
to be so. Leaders in earlier times were thoroughly convinced that the masses did not have the
capability to take care of themselves; they really believed that, and with more than a little justification.
But in centuries past much knowledge was not made available to the masses. Books weren't
available, for instance, nor was formal education for most. So even when there were books, many
could not read them. Today the knowledge is readily available but most people are more interested
in being entertained than in gaining it and do not avail themselves to it nearly as much as they could.
Therefore, I believe, a large portion of the masses, both lower and more recently the middle, today
are not that much more capable of contributing to taking care of themselves, at least in terms of
governing, than they were in the past. Where modern forms of government are designed around
citizen participation and contribution this is a serious defect.
There is an important body of knowledge within the general category I particularly feel is not being
adequately assimilated. I shall call it cultural knowledge. In my opinion, to function socially in our
society a person must understand his or her own culture, differences within that culture, how that
culture functions, and how it reacts with other cultures. And our culture is expanding. Whereas it
may have once been defined as, say Midwestern United States, that cultural definition is now much
too narrow. In fact, there are some international components in almost any definition of our national
culture. And this increases the knowledge demand for one who wishes to contribute to and function
well within it. Consider doing business internationally, for example, or even traveling. But even more
important is understanding the contribution of foreign trade and the impact damage to it can have, or
conversely the damage our country and economy can do to other countries; we are linked today
across the world as we have never been before.
Interestingly, our language has created a new meaning for the word ignorant that I think bears on
this discussion. It adds an active or object view to ignorance, as, "you are being ignorant to me." I
consider this not an aberration of the word, but a clever extrapolation. It means that you are reacting
with me in a way that displays your ignorance. Ignorance of what? Ignorance of how a person
should be expected to act both within our cultural environment and across cultural environments. I
almost like it; it fits. It says, you are ignorant of the rules and how they should be applied in deals
between us, and therefore the manner in which you treat me is not acceptable; you are treating me
from a position of ignorance. The growing use of the word in this mode suggests people are aware
of an increase of culturally "ignorant" treatment. Manners are slipping, but it's more than that; people
are acting more and more ignorantly toward each other. International terrorism is the radical extreme
and its degree of ignorance is staggering.
So we must ask, ignorance of what? With the incredible growth of knowledge we all have many
pockets of ignorance, areas of which we have inadequate knowledge, and much time and effort has
been expended on trying to determine that with which we can not afford to be ignorant and still
function effectively. It varies of course depending on individual expectations, but within a democratic
republic voting is, or should be, based on an understanding of the issues. As the issues become
more complex, interest seems to becoming less intense, creating yet another gap, one that is
increasingly being exploited by political propaganda. This is particularly a concern when the political
intent is to alter significant tenets of the government that has served us well since its inception.
So the subject of knowledge and ignorance is not something easily explained; nor is it something
that can be simply generalized to one size fits all, beyond the simple basics of reading, writing and
arithmetic - and basic knowledge of our government and its functions. But the gap between the
knowledgeable and the ignorant, is a matter that should be increasingly worrisome from the point of
view of propaganda value. The gap is growing among people born to and immersed in our culture;
what of immigrants who choose not to assimilate and take little interest in it? Even worse, what of
seriously ignorant people in many places of the world with whom we must deal both socially and
economically? There the gap can be much wider, particularly where what is considered necessary
knowledge is totally different. As an example, many economically undeveloped Muslim regions limit
education to memorization of the Koran, written prior to the year 700; others have virtually no
educational opportunities.
There is, however, a mirror of that problem. In many developing economies young people who are
fortunate enough to gain education find there is no demand for it, specifically, no employment, thus
developing immature thinking skills without providing useful outlet. A little knowledge, as we all
know, can be a dangerous thing - and is proving so in many developing economies with high
unemployment of partially educated young people. The gap in such underdeveloped economies is
far greater than is ours, and the implications far more serious as the partially educated turn to
propaganda and the uneducated accept it without question or real understanding.
The solution is and has been anything but simple, nor is that likely to change much soon, leaving us
with an education challenge on the one hand, with an ignorance problem on the other. The
ignorance problem, with apparent waning motivation to continual improvement in developed
cultures, looms large, even without the aggressive opposition to it that exists in some circles. It will
loom even larger where the assumption of "democracy," without knowledge to support it - or even
understand what it takes to make it work - progresses in less developed cultures. This makes the
growing gap between knowledge and ignorance easily the greatest challenge in the world for its own
sake as well as the propaganda opportunity it offers.
We are in an age of exploding knowledge, and the body of known facts is growing asymptotically.
Thus, the amount of knowledge a student or employee is expected to have accumulated to fulfill his
undertaken responsibility is high. Yet the actual accumulation has been uneven. A small number of
people have amassed an amazing amount of knowledge, so much that many of us can not
understand them when they describe it. Others have learned so little they struggle to read and
cypher. In between, of course, are all the rest spread out in normal distribution - ignorance at one
end and knowledge on the other. Unfortunately as the amount of knowledge available grows the gap
between those who avail themselves of it and those that don't widens.
Ignorance is lack of knowledge, and whereas the first step toward knowledge is knowing you don't
know, the first sign of ignorance is not knowing you don't know - or not caring enough to do anything
about it. And since to make effective contribution in our culture is requiring more and more
knowledge, ignorance has greater and greater negative impact on individual quality of living, the
potential therefore, and on our culture as a whole. The process has been referred to as dumbing
down, and that can perhaps be debated, but as we strive for equality in institutional learning we are
more often achieving acceptance of a lower standard. Of course there is no question that people in
general know more now than they did in the past, and those who place importance upon learning
know much, much more. It is the gap between what is available to know and what some actually do
know and what is being learned by most, but particularly the least knowledgeable, that is growing.
Most people are not coming close to learning to their potential.
But there are different kinds of knowledge, and for convenience let's make an artificial division
between what I shall call specific and general. Specific knowledge in this sense is that which is
required to function mechanically within the culture, such as driving a car, operating a computer,
working with a telephone, making change and paying taxes, for example. And my definition of
general knowledge is that derived from accumulating facts and understanding, and reasoning. As I
see specific knowledge increasing fairly rapidly, I see the general knowledge deteriorating, certainly
deteriorating in comparison. That is, the ability to think may not be deteriorating as it has always
been rather weak, but it is improving far less rapidly than it could and should - and one might hope it
would - when considering the overall growth of knowledge - and might even be truly deteriorating
from lack of trying. On the other hand the demands for specific knowledge to function effectively in
our culture is growing, learned through experience, but more and more technical knowledge is
needed for the experience to register. Unfortunately as this technical component increases our
tendency to teach it is decreasing. By this I mean that teaching technical knowledge (the trades
particularly) is being pushed aside in favor of teaching general knowledge which is being dumbed
down to the least common denominator. This suggests striving for the worst of both of the two
worlds.
Let's face it. The world has always been filled with thinking deficits contributing to ignorance of facts
and reasoning while it has been stronger in terms of experience. The shortage of higher knowledge
has shaped history, both in its slower beginning and the more rapid current era, particularly If one
accepts that bigotry, prejudice, fear and a lot of anger is due to ignorance. If that is the case, as I truly
believe it is, lots of the down side of history has been heavily influenced by ignorance - and continues
to be so. Leaders in earlier times were thoroughly convinced that the masses did not have the
capability to take care of themselves; they really believed that, and with more than a little justification.
But in centuries past much knowledge was not made available to the masses. Books weren't
available, for instance, nor was formal education for most. So even when there were books, many
could not read them. Today the knowledge is readily available but most people are more interested
in being entertained than in gaining it and do not avail themselves to it nearly as much as they could.
Therefore, I believe, a large portion of the masses, both lower and more recently the middle, today
are not that much more capable of contributing to taking care of themselves, at least in terms of
governing, than they were in the past. Where modern forms of government are designed around
citizen participation and contribution this is a serious defect.
There is an important body of knowledge within the general category I particularly feel is not being
adequately assimilated. I shall call it cultural knowledge. In my opinion, to function socially in our
society a person must understand his or her own culture, differences within that culture, how that
culture functions, and how it reacts with other cultures. And our culture is expanding. Whereas it
may have once been defined as, say Midwestern United States, that cultural definition is now much
too narrow. In fact, there are some international components in almost any definition of our national
culture. And this increases the knowledge demand for one who wishes to contribute to and function
well within it. Consider doing business internationally, for example, or even traveling. But even more
important is understanding the contribution of foreign trade and the impact damage to it can have, or
conversely the damage our country and economy can do to other countries; we are linked today
across the world as we have never been before.
Interestingly, our language has created a new meaning for the word ignorant that I think bears on
this discussion. It adds an active or object view to ignorance, as, "you are being ignorant to me." I
consider this not an aberration of the word, but a clever extrapolation. It means that you are reacting
with me in a way that displays your ignorance. Ignorance of what? Ignorance of how a person
should be expected to act both within our cultural environment and across cultural environments. I
almost like it; it fits. It says, you are ignorant of the rules and how they should be applied in deals
between us, and therefore the manner in which you treat me is not acceptable; you are treating me
from a position of ignorance. The growing use of the word in this mode suggests people are aware
of an increase of culturally "ignorant" treatment. Manners are slipping, but it's more than that; people
are acting more and more ignorantly toward each other. International terrorism is the radical extreme
and its degree of ignorance is staggering.
So we must ask, ignorance of what? With the incredible growth of knowledge we all have many
pockets of ignorance, areas of which we have inadequate knowledge, and much time and effort has
been expended on trying to determine that with which we can not afford to be ignorant and still
function effectively. It varies of course depending on individual expectations, but within a democratic
republic voting is, or should be, based on an understanding of the issues. As the issues become
more complex, interest seems to becoming less intense, creating yet another gap, one that is
increasingly being exploited by political propaganda. This is particularly a concern when the political
intent is to alter significant tenets of the government that has served us well since its inception.
So the subject of knowledge and ignorance is not something easily explained; nor is it something
that can be simply generalized to one size fits all, beyond the simple basics of reading, writing and
arithmetic - and basic knowledge of our government and its functions. But the gap between the
knowledgeable and the ignorant, is a matter that should be increasingly worrisome from the point of
view of propaganda value. The gap is growing among people born to and immersed in our culture;
what of immigrants who choose not to assimilate and take little interest in it? Even worse, what of
seriously ignorant people in many places of the world with whom we must deal both socially and
economically? There the gap can be much wider, particularly where what is considered necessary
knowledge is totally different. As an example, many economically undeveloped Muslim regions limit
education to memorization of the Koran, written prior to the year 700; others have virtually no
educational opportunities.
There is, however, a mirror of that problem. In many developing economies young people who are
fortunate enough to gain education find there is no demand for it, specifically, no employment, thus
developing immature thinking skills without providing useful outlet. A little knowledge, as we all
know, can be a dangerous thing - and is proving so in many developing economies with high
unemployment of partially educated young people. The gap in such underdeveloped economies is
far greater than is ours, and the implications far more serious as the partially educated turn to
propaganda and the uneducated accept it without question or real understanding.
The solution is and has been anything but simple, nor is that likely to change much soon, leaving us
with an education challenge on the one hand, with an ignorance problem on the other. The
ignorance problem, with apparent waning motivation to continual improvement in developed
cultures, looms large, even without the aggressive opposition to it that exists in some circles. It will
loom even larger where the assumption of "democracy," without knowledge to support it - or even
understand what it takes to make it work - progresses in less developed cultures. This makes the
growing gap between knowledge and ignorance easily the greatest challenge in the world for its own
sake as well as the propaganda opportunity it offers.