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