Got thinking about this one, and thought I’d ask some opinions…
Which ignorance is more damaging to the Eternal Quest[sub]hailcecil[/sub]: Ignorance of knowledge, or ignorance of the needs of others? Can it be said that the “civilizing effect” as a social phenomenon is more beneficial than the collection, evaluation and exploitation of data? Or is a civilization doomed to failure if it cannot do essential services, which is often limitation of technology?
This sounds like a job for Rabbi Krustofsky, but feel free to take a whack.
Well, IMO the short answer is that ignorance of the needs of others is more damaging. Bigotry, hatred, misunderstanding, etc, seems to stem more from not know or understanding the needs of others in relation to yourself, more than from a lack of understanding of scientific, factual knowledge (which is how I’m interpreting “knowledge” here).
Now, having said that, the tricky part as I see it is that reducing your ignorance of knowledge will no doubt lead to a better understanding of the needs of others. So the two do not seem to me to be mutually exclusive. Now, I don’t believe limited technology due to scientific ignorance will necessarily be detrimental to a society. But that will depend on the size of the society. If the society is so large that there just isn’t “enough to go around” without help of increased technology, then decreasing ignorance of knowledge will probably help more than decreasing ignorance of other’s needs.
But again, choosing between the two straight up, I stick with my first answer for the simple reason that, as I see it, increased knowledge alone (assuming scientific knowledge) simply cannot offset the negative effects of a society that has no concept of the needs of others.
Ok, that’s enough thinking for tonight, no more braincells left - maybe I’ll return to this tomorrow (there’s a reason I don’t hang out in GD )
Ignorance of the needs of others is not a handicap as long as you are aware of your own needs, and have the knowledge to keep the others from taking from you.
That brings up an important point. I was assuming this was being asked on a societal level. Perhaps I misunderstand the Eternal Quest, being new here. If we are talking about the individual only, then yes, I agree with Badtz Maru, though it makes it a much less interesting question, IMO.
I’m not talking about the personal level only. An example on the national level might be the 19th century British Empire. They had some knowledge of the needs of their colonial possessions, but what other nations thought of them was not terribly important to them. They had a good system set up for exploiting others and they were able to defend it.
I think one needs to balance things out, though. If you are not in a position of power, you may have to take into consideration the needs of certain others - those with power over you. I think this is pretty much universal and only the one on top of the heap can ignore it, so I think all people/nations have developed an understanding of the needs of others, just to preserve themselves. What would distinguish those that care for others from those that don’t would be how they treat those that are weaker than them. Perhaps in some circumstances it is acceptable to ignore the needs of those under you if you find yourself in conflict with those more powerful than you.
The Oxford English Dictornary’s main definition of ignorance is “want of knowledge.” So the OP’s phrase “ignorance of knowledge” is actually a redundancy.
Badtz, Kinda Machiavellian, no? Suck up to those who can conquer you, but make sure your inferiors stay inferior…
I like it… :dubious:
flybynight, hasn’t some bigotry taken on a pseudo-scientific form at times, with “scientific, factual knowledge” of the inferiority of a certain, special subset of the population? BTW, the Eternal Quest stuff is a reference to the “fighting ignorance” concept around which some of the board revolves.
I probably should have put this in GD, not IMHO, BTW. IFAIK, a Mod will C/P RSN.
I think that social ignorance is worse than factual ignorance, indeed many endeavours of science and factual inquiry would be much assisted by a greater level of social understanding (and reclaiming the time wasted dealing with the problems).
Indeed - kinda goes to my point about increasing scientific/factual knowledge leading to less social ignorance (say, scientifically disproving the belief that one race is genetically superior to another, perhaps.) However, scientific “proof” doesn’t always sway the truly “socially” ignorant, IME. It seems like someone will almost always attempt to counter a scientific theory with something that upholds their previous beliefs, whatever the “facts” may be. They’re both just theories right, I can believe whichever one I choose to believe, right? But I suppose you could still classify this as scientific/factual ignorance - knowing the existance of certain ideas, but refusing to consider them valid in the face of evidence to the contrary.
Maybe I’m being naive, but I’d like to believe the elimination of social ignorance would make the above issues irrelevant. I don’t know.
I’m glad this isn’t GD, otherwise I’d actually have to find these “cite” things people are always yelling about. If this gets moved, I’ll let the more motivated take it from here, and bow out
)
(Christ I sound dumb).