Ignorance is Terrifying

It’s not the inherently stupid people who piss me off. It’s the stupidly ignorant ones who seem to do the job. Let’s say a friend of yours goes to a party in your hometown of Somewhere, New Jersey. You happened to be vacationing in Minnesota during the time frame in which this party took place; therefore, you quite obviously did not attend the party. Would you then, upon listening to your friend’s recounts of specific events that happened at this party, proceed to refute facts with this person? Of course not, right? The same seemingly obvious logic should be applied to everyday life. I don’t care if your uncle’s best friend’s brother-in-law is a cop who busted up this crazy rave that has been making headlines for the past three weeks. If you were not present at this crazy party, please do not argue the facts that those who were actually in attendance present to you.

Seems simple enough. Wrong. Or at least for what seems to be the majority of American citizens these days. Everyone is so preoccupied with gossip, gossip, gossip, news, news, news that these people actually believe their statements concerning people/events that they are not immediately familiar with hold a level of truth! This brings me back to my main argument—ignorant people suck. But not only do they suck, they think they are everything but “sucky” when it comes to just about everything that they know absolutely nothing about.

Take politics for example. What are the two topics you are never supposed to bring up around polite company? Politics and religion. This little tip has been passed to each of us somehow or another, but few know the real reason as to why these are forbidden topics at the dinner table. Some (ahem, ignorant people) would argue that this is because we don’t want to offend anyone. Oh for Heaven’s sakes, we certainly would not want anyone to be offended! There’s a word for this—bullshit. The real reason very few people can sensibly discuss politics or religion is because the world is comprised mostly of ignorant people. Because the majority of the population is extremely uniformed about almost everything, how can one possibly expect to carry on an intelligent conversation over matters as intricate as politics and religion? He or she cannot.