The Unexpected Consequences of Ignorance

Sydney Consalvi
Aug 8, 2017 · 3 min read
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I am an young academic. No, not that kind of young academic. Those characters that just stepped out of a boarding school drama and are so sure about every word that they say. The ones who know everything about everything and are never, ever wrong. No, I’m not that kind of academic. Instead, I have spent the last four years with my nose in dusty books, learning about the world. Instead, I’ve been working at a high school, trying to explain facts,trying to dispel fake news and misconceptions. Instead, I’ve been inspired by the students I work with, even if they’re infuriating, because they truly want to know why things are the way they are.

Young adulthood, despite what Hollywood may have taught me, has not been about wild parties, crappy jobs, stressful exams, and discovering yourself. It’s about unlearning. It’s about saying “wow, I was wrong. Thank you for helping me understand.” It’s about being open to a world that you will soon have to join as a productive member. That’s not what we’re told. No high school guidance counselor is going to tell you “College is going to tell you that you can’t believe everything you read online and that your racist grandfather may not have his facts right.”

Again, I am a young academic. I was taught to rely on fact checking, peer-edited articles, and my own common sense. I love nothing more than being able to say “I was wrong” because that means that I will get to learn something new, to understand something I hadn’t known before.

I am a young academic and I am afraid. I am afraid when I hear people spouting facts from some uninformed YouTube celebrity’s video on Islam. I am afraid when I watch the current administration spread potentially dangerous lies on television and still see signs that say “Suck it Liberals” when driving through an area that is about to lose their health care. I am afraid when people say “You shouldn’t let books change the way you think.” I am terrified by people who are so married to the idea of being right that they can never admit that they may be wrong, despite the fact that proof is standing in front of them.

I am horrified by the use of religion to strike terror in the hearts of those ignorant of what the religion stands for, to justify bad behavior, or to vilify innocent and oppressed individuals. As a fact-finding, I couldn’t accept these biases. 25% of the world population is Muslim, 1.6 billion people can’t be terrorists, just as 2.3 billion Christians can’t all be Timothy McVeigh. 0.5% of the United States population identify as being Transgender, and yet they are perceived as a threat because of their personal identity.

I am a young academic, and over the course of the last 201 days, I have been just as inspired by my peers as I have been disgusted. I have watched Millennials, Gen-Xers, and Baby Boomers come together, cross generation lines, and say “This isn’t right.” I have watched young conservatives look at the reasons that they were in favor of the current administration and realize that they can’t always vote the party line or listen to their parent. I have watched people unlearn years of problematic training and start to think for themselves.

I am a young academic. I take the phrase “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it” very seriously. I take pride in knowing, in learning, in changing, in growing, in avoiding the same mistakes. In high school, I read the great dystopic novels: 1984, Brave New World, and Handmaids Tale. I’m watching them come true, piece by piece, and it terrifies me. But we aren’t that far gone. We may live in a world of covfefe and fake news, but we can unlearn hate and ignorance. We can invest in the future, in education and public access to information like PBS and public libraries. We can make a change, if we are willing TO THINK.

Sydney Consalvi

A young academic, Classicist, teacher, and actor.

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