It’s really scary when the administration is perpetuating ignorance as well. Rumsfeld’s latest gem is that not finding WMD in Iraq “could be evidence, in and of itself, of Iraq’s noncooperation”.
For Christ’s sake, how can the man keep a steady face when saying that?
Of course, we had to get the all-the-human-race-sucks-except-me-metoos. Gosh, is it Wednesday already?
At least with regards to the OP’s point, I would say it can be argued we’re WINNING the fight against ignorance. If you don’t believe me, consider the following mental exercise:
Figure, in your head, roughly how much outright hysteria and ignorance has been thrown the way of Arabs and Muslims in the United States since September 11, as per the dimwit that Avalonian heard on the radio. Decide amongst yourself what percentage of Americans think that way, what percentage don’t, and what percentage are in the middle, and what the normal manifestations of this ignorance have been.
Now ask yourself what it would have been like if Sept. 11 had been 60 years ago.
If you get through Step 2 and your answer isn’t “Well, Rick, now that you mention it, it would have been a LOT worse sixty years ago,” then you’re ignorant of history, because this DID happen sixty years ago; it was called Pearl Harbor, and if you think people are displaying ignorance against Arabs and Muslims today, you can multiply that by about a hundred to get an idea of what December 1941 was like for your average Japanese-American (or Chinese-American in the eyes of a lot of ignorant fools.)
Here is an except from an editorial in the San Francisco News, March 6, 1942:
I want you to imagine replacing “Japanese” with “Arabs” and seeing that editorial run in a mainstream American newspaper on September 14, 2001. It’s totally inconceivable that such a thing could happen; the editor who ran it would be a pariah and a laughingstock, and would be lucky if he wasn’t pulled from his office by a mob. The various indignities heaped on civil rights by the Bush administration and the U.S. government in recent years just are not in the same LEAGUE as what happened then. League? As Jules would put it, man, it wasn’t even the same fuckin’ sport.
Japanese-Americans were herded into concentration camps, for Christ’s sake, and their possessions stolen from them. Violence against them perpetrated by the general public was far, far worse than what we saw after Sept. 11 - orders of magnitude worse. The media was openly and blatantly racist. Hell, the PUBLIC AT LARGE was openly and blatantly racist back then, and violent about it; lynchings of black men and teenagers were a form of social entertainment in some places, and not all of them in the deep South. The level of open and accepted racism in the United States in the past makes today’s racism pale by comparison - not that it isn’t still widespread and terrible, but it’s just nothing like what it used to be.
By ANY objective standard, this war against ignorance is being won, at least for now, in North America.
I was on the phone the other day with a woman who complained about “those Islams.” Aargh.
Ohh, riiiight. [unchambers bazooka] I knew that. No problem. [slinks away]
Nice twist on the old fundie line on sin – Love the ignorant, hate the ignorance.
from Dewey:
I think carrot has a strong point. Dewey, do you think teachers should dislike their students?
Besides, everyone is ignorant about something.
OTOH, I share Avalonian’s distress.
While this is certainly true, there is a critical difference. Everyone is ignorant about something. However, some can admit their ignorance and overcome it by trying to learn more.
Others can paradoxically deny and embrace their ignorance, wearing it like a badge of honor and resisting any and all attempts to overcome it. It is those people that distress me so.
I share Jaakko’s distress, also, when politicians and pundits and even elected officials seem to encourage this sort of unquestioning ignorance, because they can use it. That’s when things get really scary.
On the other hand – RickJay, you make a good point. Overall, the war against ignorance is making strides in the right direction. Your example of the Japanese internment camps of 60 years ago (which got their start practically in my back yard) is a very apt one. In general I would agree that things are greatly improved since then, and ignorance is given far less credibility than it once was.
I suppose it’s just these stubborn few hangers-on, and those who would encourage and manipulate their ignorance to their own ends, which continues to bother me.
Perhaps saying that “We’re losing.,” is a bit too harsh, but I still think that there are some people whose ignorance cannot be defeated. The best we can hope for with them is a stalemate… never a very satisfying end.
Well, you may be referring to the SIQ, the Static Idiot Quotient. In any society there is a static percentage of people who, despite not being developmentally disabled in any medical sense, are idiots. I estimate the SIQ as being approximately 8.5%. The classic sign of a member of the SIQ is that they drink and drive.
You’ve always got an SIQ. That doesn’t mean society as a whole isn’t getting smarter, it just means you have to accept there’s a bell curve. For whatever reason, the SIQ likes talk radio.