Comment on Ignorance has always been one of humanity's greatest problems - and it still is
shalafi@lemmy.world 1 week ago
COVID taught me that all the knowledge in the world cannot overcome a certain mindset, and an alarming percentage of people are of that group. You can provide all the evidence and education in the world, and some people just can’t be helped.
DandomRude@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Yes, that’s exactly what I mean by ignorance. It only occurred to me later that the term has a much more international meaning in my native language (German): what I meant was not so much a lack of knowledge, but the deliberate ignoring of facts, expert knowledge, or scientific standards out of selfish arrogance. I believe in English this is called willful ignorance - this distinction does not exist in German; for us, ignorance always means that someone deliberately ignores things because they simply do not suit them. And I think that this, or rather the fact that we allow it, is responsible for the precarious situation our world finds itself in today: people could and do know better, but they ignore the facts out of selfishness.