When Ignorance is Seen as Weakness, We All Suffer
What does it mean to be weak?
Almost from the start, we’re told to dry our tears. Present a strong image. Smile. Fake it till we make it. Dress for the job we want, not the one we have.
All these little mantras boil down to one thing: Don’t be weak, and if you are, don’t let others know.
In some ways, these ideas have helped me. Speaking with confidence and assertiveness has absolutely advanced my career and aided me on a personal level. Pushing down self doubt to tackle a goal that seemed unachievable is the only way I’ve achieved some dreams.
But on a grander scale — a societal scale — the concept that weakness must be denied at all costs is literally killing us.
In the midst of a global pandemic, the concept of weakness being a thing of shame to deny is actively killing Americans. It’s perceived weakness — either through a desire to not be seen as susceptible to disease or due to an erroneous belief of knowing better than officials — that is leading many to simply ignore community health guidelines such as social distancing and wearing a mask in public.
Ignorance is seen in America as a weakness. To confess to not knowing something is to confess to being inferior. And in some circles of America, if you aren’t the best, you’re nothing.
Aside from a handful of rare but legitimate medical reasons for a person to not wear a mask, the sweepingly vast majority of excuses for not wearing a mask in public during a global pandemic boil down to either ignorance or a selfishness born from a false sense of security. If the threat of literal death can be obfuscated by a simple mask, and the only negative repercussions of wearing such a mask are linked to appearances or mild discomfort, what other motivations can be concluded?
Challenge a bully’s intelligence, and their response is usually to fight physically — strength is dominance. But that brutal schoolyard mentality has grown up into a toxic culture that’s proven remarkably hard to break on a societal level.
The end result is a massive group of people who won’t wear a mask during a global pandemic because they (a) don’t understand why they should and (b) don’t want to be perceived as needing one due to weakness. Other excuses are simply that — excuses. And the disease spreads.
It’s important to note that ignorance is not stupidity — it’s a lack of knowledge and experience. Ignorance can be remedied, though, with time and effort. And there’s one key thing to remember when it comes to ignorance:
Ignorance is not something to be ashamed of.
It should not be reveled in, of course, but nor should it be reviled. We are all ignorant on certain subjects. It’s impossible to know everything. There is nothing wrong with stating that you don’t know enough about a topic to comment on it.
The problem, however, is that remedying ignorance takes time and work. And, frankly, none of us will ever be experts in every single topic. It’s impossible; there is simply not enough time in any one life.
The easy way out is to become “Google experts.” A quick online search of topics, a few headline reads, one or two article scans, and many people feel authoritative enough to discuss a topic. And, failing that, it’s even easier to be a “meme expert” — spread your information by using quips that already line up with your presuppositions and bias. We all know someone who posts memes on Facebook and believe their content to be facts. They’re usually the first to reply in a comment with, “do your research.”
The harder solution to ignorance is admitting that you don’t know the right path…and then accepting you need guidance.
Socrates famously built his philosophy on the concept of, “the only thing I know is that I know nothing.” The greatest wisdom he could find was in admitting that he did not — could not — know all sides of every situation. His admittance of ignorance is so revolutionary that it’s still something, millennia later, that we grapple with.
And dismiss.
Because ignorance is seen as weakness in our society, it’s also denied and hidden. Ironically, the more vehemently it’s hidden, the more vitriolic the denier’s response to ignorance tends to be. The perfect storm of ignorance disseminated by memes with only topical understanding and a knee-jerk reaction to fight anyone who even questions their “authority” creates a movement of people who absolutely believe that they cannot admit they are wrong and anyone who disagrees with them are not only wrong, but also the enemy — an enemy that’s calling their wrongness “weak” and they must prove they are strong by fighting back.
The cycle is simple to see but hard to break:
- A person has cursory knowledge of a topic and makes a comment or post about it. Anecdotal or biased evidence is generally the only presented.
- A different person provides a counterpoint.
- Responses escalate quickly, along the lines of “you’re wrong, I’m right.” With a very black-and-white mentality, this can look like the classic “do your research” or “that’s just your opinion” or “everyone’s entitled to believe what they want.”
- Any evidence that counters the original post is seen as badly sourced, fake news, surface-level, or a sign that the person arguing isn’t intellectual enough to think for themselves.
And the end result is usually anger, hurt feelings, and a statement of, “Well, I’m going to do what I want, it’s my right.”
When it comes to opinions, that’s fine — a difference in opinions is actually quite beneficial for a society. But when people treat facts like opinions, ignoring scientific evidence or simply logic, our society flounders.
The question then becomes — how do we break the cycle?
I wonder how Socrates would answer this. How do we encourage people to embrace the ignorance they both deny and hold onto with such vise-like grips? If someone won’t even admit they are ignorant and only read “evidence” that props up their own ideas, how can we convince them to seek out true education?
It’s easy to say that acceptance is the first step, but harder to enact when the people who most desperately deny ignorance are the ones who’d weaponize it against others. Try telling someone in the cycle above that you’re no expert on something and see how quickly all of your points are dismissed.
I don’t pretend to know the answers of how to shift an entire society’s attitude of attacking anyone who points out the ignorance they cannot help but have.
All I know is that I know nothing…and that perhaps our society as a whole would be better off if more people recognized their own ignorance.
