Ignorance Squared

Everywhere we look, standards have been lowered.  Ignorance has become the coin of the realm.  Not only has a lack of knowledge become pervasive, but many people are proud of it.  They openly flaunt their ignorance as if it were a virtue.

What is more, a lack of understanding in one area is often reinforced by a lack of understanding in others.  We see this when students who learn nothing in school join a chorus of voters who similarly know nothing.  We also see it when ordinary citizens who are bereft of wisdom, demand colleges that are equally clueless.

As a college professor, I am regularly in contact with students who have no interest in learning.  When I talk about the causes of the Great Depression or the roaring inflation that occurred during the Carter administration, it is as if I were discussing the nature of life on Pluto.  They just don’t care.

Nor do they read.  No matter how often I explain the importance of books, the best they manage to peruse is a few lines from the Internet.  Indeed, some students become irate when an examination includes materials from their assigned texts.  They regard this as an academic ambush.

We are also witnessing the growth of online courses.  These computer-based classes are supposed to be the wave of the future.  Somehow because the people who design their technology are smart, those who use it are also assumed to be smart.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Online courses are, by and large, a fiasco.  They are dumbed down exercises in rote learning.  Despite efforts to jazz them up with graphics, they are usually boring.  Far from inspirational, the only thing that recommends them is their convenience and lower cost.

Most faculty members are aware of these deficiencies.  So are most administrators and many students.  So why have these offerings continued to proliferate?  For one thing, it is because few of those concerned make learning a priority.

So what will be the consequence for colleges?  For the next decade they may be able to contain costs, but eventually parents and employers will catch on that they teach nothing of value.  By then the bubble will burst, whereas those who created it will be safely retired.

As for the larger society, why would citizens who don’t care that Donald Trump is an ignorant narcissist be concerned about the deterioration in higher education?  His language may be that of a fifth grade bully, but, hey, he is rich so what does it matter.

Once schooling was supposed to instill civic virtues.  The young were to be introduced to knowledge that promoted good citizenship.  Voters who understood their collective interest would thus protect their democracy.

Who today worries about such nonsense?  To the contrary, the question is which candidate can promise the most.  We know we are hearing lies.  We know we are being fed simplistic formulae.  Yet as long as the wolf is not at the door, we shut our eyes and ears and pretend that all is well.

Ignorance begets ignorance—in part because ignorant people do not recognize how little they know.  Tuned into the social media or besotted in sports trivia, they understand little of history and less about the workings of their government.  With their heads buried in the sand, they assume that they see all they need to see.

I am admittedly biased, but can a nation survive—much less thrive—when so many of its people are unconcerned about what they do not know?  How can we maintain our freedom, or our prosperity, when so many of our fellow citizens are focused on finding the easy way out?

Santayana told us that those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it.  By the same token, those who care nothing about the truth are doomed to founder on the shoals of their ignorance.  Will this be us?

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Our Faulty Moral Compass

One of the subjects I teach at Kennesaw State University is the sociology of morality.  This often includes a small demonstration intended to help my students understand the nature of moral rules.  It goes as follows.

Apropos of nothing, using my finger as a weapon, I pretend to shoot someone in the first row.  “Bang, bang, you’re dead!”  Then I immediately switch to an entirely different topic.  The students are a little confused, but otherwise unruffled.

But then I again switch gears.  “How would you have reacted,” I ask, “had I really shot someone?”  It is obvious to all that there would have been pandemonium.  Besides being terrified, the class would have been outraged by a cold-blooded act of murder.

And that is my point.  Had I committed a nakedly immoral act, they would have been incensed.  Most would have been furious and demanded that I be punished—if not immediately, then shortly thereafter.  Business as usual would have abruptly ceased.

At this juncture, I observe that when a moral rule is broken, we generally get angry.  We do not simply carry on as if nothing had happened.  In fact, if we do not get angry, then we do not really believe that a rule was violated.

Moral rules are important rules.  Hence they are resolutely enforced.  At the minimum, we use anger to inform the offender that this conduct is unacceptable.  We do not remain neutral.

If this is true, then how are we to understand the state of contemporary American politics?  On the one hand, we have a candidate who was derelict in her duty to protect national secrets.  On the other, we have one who brags about having bribed public officials.

So where is the outrage?  Do ordinary Americans truly perceive this sort of behavior to be wrong?  Evidently not!  They plainly take it in stride.  So accustomed are they to moral corruption that they are no longer offended when it is rubbed in their faces.

Surely one of the strangest phenomena of this very strange political season was Dr. Ben Carson endorsing Donald Trump.  A man who grounded his campaign in asking the nation to return to its moral roots, suddenly found Trump’s vulgarity and dishonesty “business as usual.”   We were actually told that we shouldn’t get upset because this is the way politics is played.

And what about those Democrats who know that Hillary is a confirmed liar?  They keep voting for her anyway.  Why?  Because she has experience—and is a woman.  Apparently being female and a practiced dissembler are now sufficient qualifications to be an American president.

What too of those Christian evangelicals who voted for Trump?  They knew that he was morally sleazy, but didn’t seem to care because they perceived him to be strong.  Does this mean that his alleged strength canceled out his lack of personal integrity?

Americans time and again complain about lies.  They likewise grumble about the dreadful condition of political affairs.  But then they vote for the liars and demagogues.  Clearly they do not consider this sort of behavior reprehensible.  As a result, we keep getting more of it.

There were good candidates this cycle, yet we brushed them aside as unworthy of support.  And so we will get what we deserve.  If we have become an amoral society, then we ought not be surprised by the mischief created by the devious leaders we choose.

As I see it, too many Americans have lost their moral compass.  To judge by their actions, they can no longer tell right from wrong.  Although they protest the current situation, it is what they have wrought.

My conclusion: we need a moral reformation!  We need one desperately!  Our democracy, prosperity, and national survival all depend on an ethical revival, yet there is none in sight.  As long as we attempt to counter the immorality of Barack Obama with that of a Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, there is little hope.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University