Willful ignorance is vogue. What can we do about it?

Think back over your life and if you do I suspect you will begin to see a glimmer of something that you can not quite put your fingers on. Is it something nice, or is it some gruesome tentacle?

We have some problems around the world, and those problems are being used on a regular basis to control and manipulate us.

I've spoken of critical thinking many times as that is a battle I've chosen to fight. This time around though I want to talk about something else. It is relevant to critical thinking in the sense that critical thinking can help with this issue. Yet, I believe I've got a hint of another tentacle on the monster of ignorance that we might be able to gradually attack and remove.

I am going to call this particular problem WILLFUL IGNORANCE.

I can recall seeing such mindsets glamorized from my early childhood school memories. It has been this way for a long time. The teasing and mocking of intelligence has been a common thing not only in our schools, and in our culture. It has also been glamorized in movies and television.

The cool people with the attractive women on their arms are usually athletic and quick to use any four eyed target wandering past in the hall way as a chance to elevate their own social status.

Source: Clipart Kid

You don't hear many people talking about how stupid this is. Instead you see people go along with it because, that is a hopeful path to getting into this "in crowd". The targets for the most part may put their heads down and scurry off to a corner. In rare cases where it happens enough and they are also on pharmaceutical drugs and with a neglectful home life to boot they might snap and we end up with something like the Columbine Massacre. This reaction is not the norm though. The norm though is that most incidents like this end as they have for some time. The popular kid retaining their popularity which they maintain and uplift by making others out to be inferior. If possible they turn it into a joke.

Source: Dream Stop

Is it any wonder that some of the most successful comedy movies for some time consisted of people being absolutely stupid. I am of course referring to the Jackass movies. This inspired the many youtube antics of a similar nature from people around the world. Admiring stupidity and wanting to prove you too could be stupid is a real thing.

Society loves stupid.

Now I know that in college you can tell Freshmen from all other classes simply because that is where you will still see the high school mentality still being attempted. It tends to fail and they stop thriving on that after their freshman year. Though in reality it is still there. It is just more subtle.

If you look close enough you can see it in our politics, our science (politically motivated), etc.

What is the best way to reach and convince the masses? Treat someone you don't like just like the "popular kid" in high school treated his unfortunate target. At an instinctual level people relate to this. Perhaps on a psychological level they may even be motivated by the urge to "fit in". So will they perhaps tend to listen more to the person doing the mocking?

Source: politifake

In such an environment the safest course of action is willful ignorance. Do not try to remember things. Go with the flow. React to those social cues that tell you who you should side with and who you should not. In other words only worry about the now, and do not worry about facts and long term memory. Memory is anathema to this society.

Source: lovethispic.com

There are cases where "in the moment" does make sense such as enjoying scenery. Yet, it is a very poor way for us to live our lives. It is many disasters waiting to happen. It is giving up on solving most problems and just going with it.

I'll admit this approach disgusts me. It seems like an utter waste of the potential that each of us has. It is rampant.

Sometimes having a decent memory of past events can feel like a curse. It makes the news something that absolutely turns my stomach.

The short term (now) vision is truly very bad these days.

If the news says A happened then the majority of people will believe A happened. They won't care that B, C, D, E, and F that the news said only a short time prior to that make A impossible. Knowing about those other things is unimportant. All they need to do is focus on the now and react to those social cues that they began to learn how to see at an early age.

Find out who the popular person is and agree with them. If the popular person is mocking someone, then make sure to get in some mocking of your own as that might elevate your popularity.

This is very stupid. It is a big problem. This should be something we actively fight.

Knowing the facts is far more important than trying to swim in a cultural popularity bubble. It is critical to our survival.

We need to do something about this LOVE and WORSHIP of idiots.

There are some intelligent celebrities. Many of them though this is not necessarily the case. For at least the actor variety their skill set needs to involve memorization of lines (though less of a deal in the age of teleprompters) and be able to act out a role convincingly (some of them have their own personality, and it is popular, but they can't actually act different ones out well). It actually says nothing about their intelligence, skill, knowledge, qualifications in other areas, etc.

Yet for some reason these are people that keep getting tons of air time telling us their opinion. They made some movies. What makes their opinion so important?

In reality, it isn't important. Yet, it does play into that indoctrinated trot out the Popular Kids and have them mock a target system.

We need to kick that mentality to the curb. It is not an easy battle, and it is all over the place, but it needs to happen.

Steem On!