Ongoing recent events and personal experience continuously remind one that America at one and the same time, incongruently, impressively intelligent, and enlightened, and simultaneously, shamefully ignorant, and atavistic. One might, permissibly, maintain, from a realistic and practical point of view, that Americans inhabit one of two disparate Nations, historically and legally attached, in the manner of conjoined twins. It appears that each such Nation, mutually, is as little engaged in the other’s thoughts, habits, and feelings as if they lived on different planets. The latter observation is easily demonstrable, viz., while one of the “conjoined twins” acknowledges the scientific community’s warning of the existential danger of global warming, and in addition, respects the medical profession’s prophylactic advice, concerning Covid [vaccination and masking], the other, by bright contrast, elects to ignore the warnings of meteorological science and, groundlessly, disputes the valid medical advice.
In the sociological context, we are confronted with a formidable, defensive hostility and mistrust of intelligence and of intellectuals, and a deprecation of education, by a large segment of the country. Education and philosophy are dismissed, by it, as impractical, useless, and politically motivated, as are science, art, and literature. Delusional, anti-intellectuals, would prefer to cloak themselves in an imagined costume of the champions of the “common folk,” in an ongoing, quixotic, and imagined battle, against purported, “political and academic elitism.”
The empirical result of human ignorance is political and economic vulnerability and the misleading of people into voting against their own personal interest; it blinds one to dangers of attack upon our Nation, and our digital creativity and general commercial economy. Political ignorance leads to disasters, such as the recent, regrettable elevation to the august office of the American Presidency, of an incapable miscreant; while economic misinformation, to erroneous policies such as the non-specific demonization of all genetically improved foods. Scientific ignorance necessarily implies potential for real danger, as demonstrated by the continuing high rate of infection and mortality of America’s large cohort of irrational, anti-vaxers; many of whom, seem ignorantly, and tribally, to prefer the prescription for Covid, by profiteering charlatans, of equine anti-worm medicine.
Justly accruing a deserved and greater degree of iniquity, are those sociopathic individuals, such as our industrial polluters, who financially thrive on the perpetuation of ignorance, and equally as iniquitous, those who classically continue to benefit from the perpetuation of fearful atavistic myth and superstitious beliefs, in lieu of the advancement of enlightenment and the utilitarian, natural use of human reason.
We have often referred to the sage observation of Thomas Jefferson, to the effect that, for a democracy to succeed, what is mandatorily required is a sufficiently educated and informed citizenry. Jefferson’s admonition has eternally been proven to be prescient. America, sadly, has millions of citizens who would not qualify, under his simple, rudimentary, and fundamental requirements. The daily experience of less than favorable outcomes, the inadequacy of society’s mental and spiritual development, and the inadequate pace of progress in human development, are shameful products of inadequate education and the failure of objective awareness, attributable to such large cohort of ignorant and useless citizens.
It is profoundly unjust and tragically ironic, that those inadequately educated and unaware citizens consider themselves justifiably disconsolate and deprived of satisfaction in their lives; when it is their specific failure and obstinate refusal to seek enlightenment to any acceptable degree, which would, ultimately, lead to the enrichment of their life; a theme, frequently maintained by us in this blog space.
To the exact contrary, of the tactical misrepresentations of conservative snake oil propaganda, it is the so-called, “elite intellectuals,” who suffer undeserved and frustrating injustice, brought about by the semi-literate, and misinformed, “flat earth” citizens. The latter, by reason of their utter uselessness to the Nation, and misunderstood overt interference with the Nation’s most salutary conceived policies, scientific and educational, unfairly cause frustration and suffering to the more enlightened majority of the Nation. The full, yet untapped, potential for significant progress of the American Nation, and the aspirations of its capable citizens, are unjustly hobbled by their characteristically, uninformed vulnerability to the promotion of falsely contrived facts and their eternal bigotry, illiteracy, and skewed misperceptions.
-p.
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