You’re correct that it really isn’t a synonym for stupid, and that it generally means a lack of knowledge about something or other.
The thing is, when one person uses it to describe another person, the word’s value changes somewhat, and is usually taken as a synonym for stupid or incurious or lazy or unsophisticated or any combination of those.
Me referring to myself as ignorant is one thing. But me referring you as ignorant carries a totally different tone and meaning.
Sure, you’ll probably say, “But I don’t use it like that. To me it simply means not knowing about something.” That’s all well and good, but it ignores the way that most people perceive the word when it is used by one person to refer to another. Whether you mean it to be or not, calling someone ignorant is usually taken as an insult. And, to be honest, i can’t remember the last time i called someone ignorant when i didn’t mean it as an insult.
I’m so glad you found a favorite part! That was, of course, intentional: if he’s going to fling feces at me, I figure I’m allowed to make fun of him for it.
You are so wrong. Diamanda Galas is awesome. She’s like an opera singer who went crazy and was possessed by a demon. She’s got the most amazing voice I’ve ever heard.
But if i call someone ignorant, and spend a paragraph outlining how hopeless they are and how little they know about something and how they’re nothing but a drone who listens only to commercial radio, and then turn around ten minutes later and offer them some useful advice, i’m not going to be too surprised if they tell me to shove it.
Well, I’m glad you did too, Daniel. I do think we should all have fun around here. Otherwise, what’s the point?
Make fun of him all you like. But you shouldn’t pretend you’re not doing what he’s doing just because you think he did it first. You want to take the moral high ground, be the big man who doesn’t get all in a tizzy on the internet, fine, but be that, then. The more you get into it with him anyway…no matter how childishly indirectly…the more I’ll know you’re full of more than a suspicious Zen-like tranquility.
I believe that all opinions about aesthetics are equal. Some opinions about aesthetics are more mainstream than others.
To use a personal example, I read and write poetry. I write poetry reviews. I get some acclaim. My husband hates my poetry and says no good poetry is being written. What can I say to that? I can say that I disagree, but so what? I can’t make him like a poem just because I like it. Other people who have read as much or more than I have like different people. Who’s wrong? And if someone comes up to me and says they like Charles Bukowski and no one else, how can I assume that means they’ve never read anyone else? Some very well-read people like Charles Bukowski. (Hate!)
What I saw in that thread before I tuned out was a person having an opinion and then other people crying that he must be ignorant, based on that opinion. That’s bullshit. He might be ignorant, but you can’t know it based on an opinion. All you can know from an opinion is that he has one.
Yes, he did. In his second post. Why couldn’t he have posted that first (without the snarky last line) then waited for a response? He listed some fantastic singers (and some not so IMHO), Equipoise extended it by offering some great links and resources. That’s fighting ignorance, but they both had to lead with the “oh you’re just a big stupid”. The problem with that is lead-in is that for many people, that’s all they’ll ever see, they tune out. Based on that thread and this one, if I were a female singer, the last people I would want singing my praises are those two.
I agree, mhendo. It’s possible to have bad posts in a thread even if you have good posts in the same thread. And you’re right: folks are likely to ignore your good posts and focus on the bad ones if the bad ones are bad enough.
Excalibre, if you’re happy listening to insane demon-possessed opera singers, more power to you. I prefer my eardrums intact.
I did contribute, come to think of it. I posted a link where people could hear 30-second snippets of 56 different songs, by 50 different female artists/female-fronted bands, all very high quality artists, all songs that could be played on mainstream radio tomorrow, but almost all obscure because they DON’T get airplay. One could read the names, hear what they sounded like, read my little blurbs about them, go to their web sites via my links, and even listen to the whole songs if they wanted. It’s not my fault if no one actually went there. Should I have posted links to all 56 songs in the thread?
How random. I was just composing a very pleasant reply to you thanking you for sharing your perspective as an artist in buildings in another thread, and here you come to attack me, I guess because you didn’t like what I had to say there?
How am I exposing my ignorance? Please educate me. I mean that – and you don’t even have to be nice about it.
No–as I said earlier (post 51), two of your posts in that thread were great and helpful. The thing is, they were prefaced by posts that seemed to me to drip contempt for other posters. As helpful as your posts 32 and 39 were, they would be much better received if not prefaced by contemptuous posts.
That’s a really hard-core blatant example of putting words in our mouths that we never said or intended to mean.
mhendo is right though, since most people, like you, are reading “ignorance=stupidity” no matter what else we say or do, then obviously the word is dead, and I personally swear never to use it again.
Anyone have any suggestions on a word to use when someone makes declaritive statements of fact (not opinion) about something they don’t know anything about?
I disagree. I think people often need to be explicitly told that their worldview is narrow, and just handing them a list will do nothing to convince them of that fact. It’ll just make them think ‘Oh, a list of crappy singers’.
Then I apologise to anyone who read it that way. I’ll be more careful next time. Female vocals are a passion of mine, and if anyone were turned off by any of the artists I like because of how I come across, that would hurt me to the core.
Well, telling people to stop being toolish doesn’t do a whole lot of good either, and here you are, chipping away at us…
Not just stating it, no, but I think people can come to understand better through open and direct conversation. Also I think lissener’s opinion is valid, and therefore it is valid for him to express it. You thinking it’s not efficient doesn’t make it less valid an expression.
