One of my more recent ever-spreading supply of putdowns is “There’s no such thing as aging – It’s stupidity fatigue”. I’ve finally connected this useful statement to ignorance, using another well-known saying: “Who needs it?”, which is a definitive idea in marketing and advertising.
On the subject of who needs what, just read the headlines on any given day. Try to assess “need” in any meaningful way based on whatever horrors are included. It’s hard to assess this market for ignorance.
I’ve been trying to create a situation where people get paid to read the news, as a sort of balance. If people only read the news they wanted to read, you might at least get some decent market segmentation. Maybe even PR, that famous excuse for the inexcusable, would pay attention.
Ignorance is a key driver to stupidity. …So who needs ignorance? It’s an expensive luxury item. Especially so, in a world where topics include impending extinction, various disasters, wars, and 24/7 rabid fanaticism.
How ignorant can you actually be? Yet, without a lot of considered ignorance, you could never sell this crap to anyone. So you have to learn how to be ignorant sell it and believe it.
Ignorance has another problem. It was possible, long ago, to be honestly ignorant. Now, honest ignorance is almost impossible. Unless it’s a subject you’ve never even heard of before, you can’t claim to be honestly ignorant, just illiterate. As though that was any excuse for anything.
Worse – Ignorance had no monetary value. Now, it’s a political asset, a financial sector must-have, and a worldwide sociological hernia with a dash of migraine. The monetary value of ignorance has skyrocketed. You can make very big money out of being an ignoramus. You can form organizations based entirely on ignorance, and prosper.
The all-embracing necrosis of American politics has simply highlighted this situation. It’s not new, or anything like new. Ignorance sells itself as self-justifying rationality. All the propaganda over the last few thousand years is the epitome of applied ignorance.
The truly ancient theory of “you only see what we want you to see” used to work very well, too. It has produced more wars and human catastrophes than just about anything else. There was a brief hiatus when global education came rattling around at the start of last century. That certainly didn’t last long. Nazism and communism proved it could still deliver. Hence the current state of chimp-like modern propaganda.
Advertising and marketing also created an environment for propaganda like nothing before. There’s something called “normal” and something called “aspiration”. Add these two unlikely things together and you get the Western middle-class mindset. Someone says “fetch”, and you fetch.
Better still, you can close out everything else as any part of your knowledge base. You don’t care about plummeting fertility rates, water shortages, or toxic food. The fact that 300 or so million Americans get billions of prescriptions filled every year is hardly worth mentioning. That’s thousands of prescriptions, per every man, woman, and child. Nothing to see here, obviously.
Ignorance has sailed majestically through history as an unassailable institution. The absolute dependency on the ignorance of others remains a basic idea and ideal.
The modern form of ignorance
Deprivation of information isn’t ignorance; it’s a sort of insurance for ignorance. Missing facts can’t be noticed. Non-existent logic works. Simplistic causes for disasters are therefore OK. You don’t even have to try to be ignorant. This wonderful mechanism does it all for you. You can be safely assumed to be ignorant.
Idealism is another particularly useful form of ignorance. In fairness, it’s one of the better options for true ignorance. You can incorporate any number of lies, too, for your ego or your over-compensatory needs. Of course, you’re a superhero, out to save the world.
While on the subject – We now know what happens when someone has to save the world. Nothing at all happens. Just a thought.
Buy yourself some high ideals, and then proceed to ignore all facts. Simple enough. You can be an instant passionate believer in damn near anything, particularly if you know nothing at all about any of the subjects of those beliefs.
Terminology helps, too. As a writer, I’m often highly amused by the sheer amount of terminology used to utterly fail to provide any information whatsoever. The usual mechanism is instant associative synonyms. These can be buzzwords or catchphrases, but the effect is the same.
This type of terminology equates anything and everything to good or bad. It’s bozo-level psychology. Any noun or name tells you what you think, and it’s automatic. You genius, you. You get to be completely disoriented without even trying.
Examples include:
- Environment
- Health
- Food
- Water
- Poverty
- Injustice
- Income
- Taxes
- Women
- Children (Anyone remember them? Thought not.)
- Government
- Quality of life
- Nation, group, or collection of xenophobic nutters
How much ignorance can you apply to each term? Fun, isn’t it?
Of course, there’s a problem – Stupidity fatigue
Blissful as all this may seem, there’s a functional issue with ignorance. As you ecstatically waft through another day of pre-programmed hatreds and aversions at war with whatever, you may encounter a few practical issues.
Seems that misrepresenting reality doesn’t solve any actual problems. The godawful state of this orbiting sewer occasionally called the world doesn’t go away. Stupidity fatigue is exactly like metal fatigue or stress fatigue.
At a degree of overload, caused by so many decades of bad calls and astonishing mistakes, something breaks. Like, maybe, a society, a democracy, public health, or just basic amenities.
There’s another problem that mystically arises from this situation. Ignorance, deliberate or otherwise, is joined at the hip to incompetence. Ignoramuses, however highly paid and revered by however many morons, can’t be competent. They are by definition incompetent.
You can ignore the experts and the problems as much as you want, but disinformation doesn’t stop train wrecks. Unnecessary, preventable situations pile up like garbage, but ignorance doesn’t help.
The equation is this:
The more you tolerate lies, stupidity, incompetence, and ignorance, the worse it gets.
It Is your funeral, you know.
_____________________________________________
Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
