Does Society Embrace, Tolerate, or Oppose Ignorance?

[Allasaphore]

Hey everyone, does anyone else get the feeling that our society embraces/tolerates stupidity? (I'm coming from an American perspective)

In a recent debate, I had an opponent tell me that I "had not addressed his points" and that he "had won the argument". The catch is that he never made any points at all...but he received a standing ovation for his "victory". How does an uncited and unsupported argument achieve such a result?

It appears to me that American society at least has a tolerance for ignorance, if not the embracing of it in some areas (such as the Westboro Baptists).

What do you all think and why?

(I'm genuinely curious if this is just a series of unfortunate events or if other people are noticing this kind of trend)

EDIT: Sorry for the poor write-up. I've been up for 31 hours straight. Maybe when I wake up tomorrow I can fix this thread up.
I understand this is a really broad topic, but hopefully it'll spawn some interesting conversations. If not, I can always shut this thread down.

[Nipplestockings]

I think, quite on the contrary that humanity is strongly opposed to ignorance. People continually seek to acquire knowledge and they always have an urge to pass on their knowledge to other people. This is reflected in stories, written history, songs, and other forms of communication. I think what does end up happening is that many humans learn something that comforts them or makes them feel accomplished (Which is another thing that humans strive for), but is inherently false. This is why religion is extremely popular, and why people enjoy stories and myths even though they have very little truth to them.

Additionally some people are just plain not exposed to what others would consider "true" knowledge, or knowledge that is actually backed up by facts and valid arguments, and so they form their own conclusions and seek to answer their questions by themselves.

In an isolated society this information does not get disproved or nullified, but rather gets expanded upon and passed down. These people do not consider themselves ignorant as we consider them, but rather enlightened, and they form a sense of uniqueness and belonging with their own ideas.

"Ignorance" is not the lack of knowledge in general, but a lack of knowledge relative to what other people consider it to be.

[Matthew]

I think this is fairly relevant, but after recently I watched a video of a man in Oregon open carrying a Semi-Automatic assault rifle in a fairly busy street. Because of this he was confronted by the police who acknowledged he was in legal possession of the firearm and wanted to know why he thought it appropriate to carry the rifle his response in a nutshell "It is my right and I can do what I want, if I do not carry this weapon I will lose my rights". While this seems like a fairly legitimate comment and he was not breaking any laws why does he think it is ok to scare and intimidate people who are generally trying to go about there everyday business he seemed completely ignorant of the fact and had no idea of the affect of his actions calling people "pussies" for being intimidated by him; It baffles me that in the video description this man was held up as a patriot and he was glorified for protecting the rights of the American people, when all he was doing was walking down a street with a rifle strapped to his back for no good reason.

[Allasaphore]

In short, it depends where you are and what situations people are involved in as to whether or not they are ignorant or not.

Are those who take a chauvinistic stance for false knowledge when the inverse is known supported or opposed? From my own experience, I know that there are small groups who do support false knowledge in presence of proven science. It's always made me feel weird.

Anyway, I support the "it was only a series of unfortunate events" clause.

[Matthew]

I sometime feel that for some people it is convenient for their political or social motivations to be ignorant or Pseudo ignorant of others people point of view in order not to some how acknowledge that their opinion is legitimate or worth discussing.

"Random Tangent"

On the topic of groups of people who reject commonly held values for no good reason or I guess "collective ignorance" and  how peoples ignorance is relative in the fact Neolithic flint work seems trivial now in comparison to Silicon Chips which seems trivial in comparison to the Federations Warp Drives (Let us pretend). What is your opinion of Racist and Xenophobic groups, they tend to segregate themselves from wider society so to many members of there group may not realise their way of life is outdatted and so are ignorant in comparison to everyone else but maybe no at all ignorant in their "Community" or "Bubble"

[close]

[Allasaphore]

I sometime feel that for some people it is convenient for their political or social motivations to be ignorant or Pseudo ignorant of others people point of view in order not to some how acknowledge that their opinion is legitimate or worth discussing.

"Random Tangent"

On the topic of groups of people who reject commonly held values for no good reason or I guess "collective ignorance" and  how peoples ignorance is relative in the fact Neolithic flint work seems trivial now in comparison to Silicon Chips which seems trivial in comparison to the Federations Warp Drives (Let us pretend). What is your opinion of Racist and Xenophobic groups, they tend to segregate themselves from wider society so to many members of there group may not realise their way of life is outdatted and so are ignorant in comparison to everyone else but maybe no at all ignorant in their "Community" or "Bubble"

[close]

I think you're on to something here when you state that the perception of who is ignorant is relative.

[von_Bismarck]

From my point of view, humanity does support ignorance. In American society, not only stupidity is tolerated but also encouraged. TV Shows like "Jersey Shore" and "Buckwild" reward and promote stupidity. This has become a part of our society that we cannot seem to remove. Our society pays greater attention to things that are completely irrelevant and stupid as opposed to issues that are of real value and that affect our daily lives. The media promotes this concept that is hurting the minds of American youth, turning it from what is supposed to be a productive generation, to all the negative examples that can be present in society. The idea that stupidity is funny or cool has been instilled in people's mind since a very early age, from cartoons that glorify stupidity to reality shows that promote bad behaviour. Educative and cultural programs are the factors that need to be promoted constantly not this ridiculous nonsense.

 In order to reach the highest plane of any true art, first some things have to be believed in order to be seen. To create something physical and then behold it is easy - but to build its infinite complexity and beauty in the mind first before you have ever held it in you hand takes a genuine force of mental effort.
As for the pull to embrace stupidity: Argue with a fool and he'll drag you down to his own level and beat you with experience.

[ClearlyInvsible]

Humanity, from what I've seen in my lifetime at least, doesn't support people being ignorant. Let's face it, if ignorance really was bliss then no one would go to school, no one would do work an no one would ever bother to learn... well anything.

And stagnation, if anything, is the opposite of human nature. Humanity has always tried to develop ways to perfect itself, be it longer lifespans, more sources of knowledge or evolution in itself.

If we really need real proof of how unignorant humanity as a whole is, why are we the only species not living in the food chain anymore? We've actually beaten nature's basic idea of survival of the fittest due to us trying to help people with disorders to survive. While I'll admit some cases of Human actions are more ignorant than others, none deny knowledge as a whole.

[Thundersnow]

I believe Society Tolerates Ignorance.

And Ignorance Breeds Ignorance.


Thus, the real question is:  Does Ignorance Embrace, Tolerate or Oppose Society? 



And the answer, is of course:

Spoiler

Pineapple.

[close]

[Colbac]

I believe Society Tolerates Ignorance.

And Ignorance Breeds Ignorance.


Thus, the real question is:  Does Ignorance Embrace, Tolerate or Oppose Society? 



And the answer, is of course:

Spoiler

Pineapple.

[close]

Life lessons, with Mr. Thundersnow...

[Landrik]

On the topic of groups of people who reject commonly held values for no good reason or I guess "collective ignorance"

...

they tend to segregate themselves from wider society so to many members of there group may not realise their way of life is outdatted and so are ignorant in comparison to everyone else but maybe no at all ignorant in their "Community" or "Bubble"

I could argue on the other side that a large group of people, society, are the ignorant ones and have no tolerance for their realized "truths". As such they balkanize themselves to be around other people that would actually further their mindset rather than be in an environment where everyone would hamper them or try and shut them down. It's very much the same reason you have gated communities, business and factory districts, and other types of communes.

Argue with a fool and he'll drag you down to his own level and beat you with experience.

I like this.

EDIT: Oops, voted "strongly supports" in the poll because I thought OP meant society rather than humanity. Society is a machine mostly being based in media. Media exploits humanity with purposeful ignorance to achieve goals and therefore is the reason for my vote. However humanity as a whole is either neutral or opposes to ignorance. Neutral as in people just try to make their way through this world with all of their different ambitions and opposing as in how the flagbearers of knowledge tend to drag along the masses in humanity's search for what is new and things to be discovered.