March 29, 2024

Column: Nothing admirable about ignorance

When you see or hear something surprising, you’ll initially do one of three things — show no reaction, act surprised or shrug it off. However, it’s what you do after that initial reaction that really matters.

Between bragging on social media about a lack of awareness of politics or mocking to use of a language other than English with gibberish, the U.S. has become a place where it’s fashionable to brag about ignorance.

In the 1970s and 80s, this might have been one of the cavalier phases of youth, expected to fade with maturity, but ignorance seems more dangerous and harmful now. In the information age, there’s no excuse for not knowing basic geography, history, math and major current events.

There is also no excuse for boasting about being under-informed. Nearly all of us are going to be hit — at least occasionally — with surprising facts, people or place names or event details we feel we should have known better. There’s no reason to draw attention to ourselves by trying to soar above the need to be knowledgeable.

Sometimes, temporary ignorance is a tough to avoid. We can’t be in all places to learn all things that happen in this world. However, once we find out we’re behind on something important, it’s better to quietly get up to speed than make a mockery of ourselves — or our culture or society — by bragging about what we don’t know.

This isn’t simply about current world events. It’s about maintaining an awareness of how things are changing and what’s real and valued, near and far, so we can better interact with each other. How well we know and communicate with each other will determine a great deal about how we solve our society’s biggest dilemmas.

Some ignorance is seen as a form of either chosen pride or categorically inevitable. But Americans aren’t forced to be monolingual. Men and women aren’t required to have limited knowledge about sewing, cooking or how zone defenses are supposed to work.

Wikipedia labels many elected officials as “American politicians,” yet if you ask your local Congressman, senator, or even city councilor, practically none of them will boast “politician” as part of their identity. Politics is seen as something we go out of our way to avoid, yet we also mistake this pride for not knowing the basic ways government functions or its procedures or traditions.

If we are going to say others are not following rules, guidelines or established principles, we might bother to find out what those are, and how things are meant to work.

Even if we aren’t talking about something as heavy as how our tax money is spent, vagueness of understanding holds no status. Being unable to find trivia answers or navigate the nuances of technology and the internet is forgivable, but boasting about not being from an era that is caught up in such things is not going to win most people over.

We find out there are ways to either look up or deduce what’s going on around us, be it new slang or terminology or a recipe for quiche. If it turns out there aren’t ways to quickly remedy a certain knowledge gap, there is still a big difference between “Can you please explain this?” and “I’m a such-and-such. I don’t know a thing about this.”

The Saturday Night Live “Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer” sketches were entertaining. One of the sketch’s famous lines, “Your world frightens and confuses me,” might be how we feel sometimes. We shouldn’t wear fear as a badge of honor.

Contact Jason W. Brooks
at jbrooks@newtondailynews.com