No, it’s not. Ignorance is simply not knowing something. The kind of innocence you are discussing is a much more general lack of familiarity with the world and awareness of how it works. It’s infuriating to see our culture celebrate ignorance, but innocence doesn’t bother me. Ignorance isn’t a bad thing, but it doesn’t need to be celebrated. A child’s innocence (the more I use this word, the more I think it’s hopelessly loaded) goes away only with experience, and there’s not much to be done about that, for or against.
You’re calling other people bitter, jaded and dysfunctional, but I think your post reflects the same attitude. The world’s complicated. There’s no way around that, and I think it takes a whole lifetime (or a very large chunk of one, at least) to grasp how complex it is. That’s got nothing to do with shitty, and if you do think it’s a shitty place I wonder why you would bring children into it. There are plenty of shitty things in the world, but the overall package ends up looking pretty good in my opinion. Glorifying the innocence of children probably does promote ignorance, however, or at least it devalues knowledge. Childlike innocence is cute for a little while, but knowledge, wisdom and experience aren’t so bad once you get used to them. :rolleyes:
I appreciate all the perspectives, from both sides of the issue.
No, I am not ramming how shitty the world is down my kid’s throat… she has had enough of that dirt kicked in her face already by life, and i fear it’s not going to get much better into adulthood.
She is pretty amazing, in the way that she sees things and makes connections. I hope that i can give her some of the tools of my insight so that she can grow faster and farther than I have despite some of the pain she’s bound to run up against.
I think, looking here, that “blissful ignorance” is probably the best literalist definition of innocence.
Innocence as a cultural meme as sold by much of our pop culture i DO think constitutes a glorification of ignorance. That blissful ignorance has a certain charm… but I feel that fighting to preserve it does more harm to kids than good. It does harm to us too, cause it forces us to lie and bend the truth… and we get in the habit of doing that more often than we should.
Lying to them when Auntie dies of a drug overdose doesn’t help them to make the connections that will help the to choose to avoid her lifestyle later in life, for example.
If people are innocent and ignorant, they’ll believe anything. They’re easier to trick, they’ll listen to what the government tells them, they’ll stay in line no matter what, and they’ll always follow whatever idiotic rules you give them.
Oh, and they’re so much easier to trick. Try some “hill cows” or “brown cows give chocolate milk” on a kid that knows stuff. It won’t work.
Are you kidding me? I’d give my left nut to be half as stupid as some of the people I meet. For starters, they’re usually convinced that all their problems are someone else’s fault* and a giant bearded guy is going to welcome them to a big party in the clouds when they die. Sounds like easy street.