Ignorance and Stupidity (1/2)…

Ignorance and Stupidity (1/2)

People hurl at each other the accusations of ‘ignorance’ and ‘stupidity’ without much thought. It is often unfair or unfounded. So, it is useful to shed some light on what these terms really mean.

In 2 previous posts (quite a while back) I discussed the topic of intelligence. In this 2-part post I will touch on what may appear to be the opposite of intelligence (but is not) – the qualities of ‘ignorance’ and ‘stupidity’. In fact, neither ignorance nor stupidity is due to the lack of intelligence – even the most intelligent person is ignorant of certain things. And almost everyone does stupid things once in a while.

Although ignorance and stupidity often appear together, they are two different animals: Ignorance is a ‘condition’ while stupidity is a ‘quality’. Therefore the former can be remedied while the latter cannot. Ignorance is the least complicated of the two, so let us dispense with it first.

Everyone is ignorant of something; that does not make him/her an “ignoramus”. To be an ignoramus, one has to have a general lack of knowledge about things that he/she is supposed to (and expected to) know. A villager in Egypt would not be considered ignorant if he/she never heard of Galileo, but a university graduate would.

How does a person happen to be ignorant? Ignorance can be either ‘imposed’ or ‘by-choice’. Imposed ignorance is due to external conditions, such as poverty, isolation, religious beliefs, societal decay, etc. Then there are people, commonly called “airheads,” who lack curiosity about anything of value. Such people are “ignorant by choice”. There are also people who refuse knowledge because it clashes with their beliefs; they too are ignorant by choice. (There are some who lack the ability to acquire, process, and retain information; this is more in the realm of stupidity (see next post,) and this is an area where the two qualities overlap.)

On the individual level ignorance can be remedied by fostering curiosity, reading, and learning. On a societal level it can be reduced by mandating a minimal level of education, by improving curricula, and by promoting media with a rich knowledge content, rather than full of frivolous entertainment and religious anesthesia.

This is just a quick sketch on a subject that can fill books. But the post has exceeded what I think is a reasonable size for this medium. So I’ll stop here and deal with stupidity in the next post.

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