Author’s note: My apologies for the lack of posts lately. The past two weeks have been insane, what with Hurricane Sandy (D.C. got a lucky break, didn’t have much damage) and with my work.
I pray for the people who have been affected by the storm.
This will be a shorter post than normal.
With the election in just days, tensions are high. People are fighting with each other on why their candidate is the best and why they’re stupid for supporting one of the other guys (remember, there are other candidates besides Obama and Romney). Ignorance is being slung as an insult. “Fact checking” is going on galore!
I’m sitting here and watching people argue in person and on the internet. I can’t believe the stuff that I am reading. There are so many people who are ignorant on the nature of the issues and unaware of the consequences. Notice I didn’t say all! And I am NOT saying I know everything. I don’t. That’s actually why I’m writing this post.
I feel like much of the ignorance out there in the world is due to a lack of solid education. Education has been described as making yourself greater than the sum of your parts.
What the hell does that mean?
I’m not completely sure myself, but my interpretation is this: Education is just as much about what you don’t know as what you know. Education gives you the tools to learn how to figure out what you don’t know and to give you ways to find out. Remember when you were a kid in math class always checking the answers in the back of the book when the problem was too hard? Life doesn’t have an answer index. Education is far more than academics. It’s about how to live.
The problem with ignorance is that it is often carried by those who think they know what they are talking about and therefore refuse to listen to others, let alone learn from them.
It is up to us to use our education to learn the truth about what is going on in the world. But when you don’t like what you find, it’s easy to be in denial. It’s hard to change your beliefs, even when presented with evidence directly contradicting your preconceived notions. There is always skepticism that the evidence being presented is faulty or fake. And then of course, when we find evidence that seems to support our beliefs, our beliefs are that much stronger.
It is frankly disturbing what people will put out there and what people will believe.
When you graduate from high school or college, you feel you know a lot. I sure felt I did. But as time has gone on, I’ve come to realize how much I don’t know. So I have made it my job, as the occasion arises, to find out what I need to know to proceed with my life. This means talking to people who have been through that experience before or who are otherwise more informed on the subject than I. Then I use all of the information to make a decision or a judgment call.
Here’s the thing. I try my hardest not to take everything exactly at face value. Everything you read or hear or watch has a bias; while you may not know how far that bias goes, recognizing that it’s there will take you a long way. This is what is called “keeping an open mind”.
This is why I openly recognize and acknowledge that my arguments aren’t always perfect or that my ideas don’t necessarily come without consequences. But if I were perfect, I wouldn’t be human. But I am human, and therefore imperfect.
The bottom line is that I am urging everyone to educate themselves on the issues out there as much as possible. Learn about what you don’t know. Even if you can’t learn about every subject in the world, at least learn to recognize and admit when you don’t know it. And teach yourself to sift through what’s true, not true, and partially true. With that, you can make better judgment calls and decisions.
Remember, your actions always have consequences for others. What you do doesn’t merely affect you, but those around you as well.
Free your mind! It’s amazing what it will do.
Breaking the Chaos in the New World Order 