Day 146c: Letting the ignorance Inspire … (September 22, 2019)
I was already well aware that racism and hatred (and all similar forms of ignorance) were (and still are) rampant the world over. And yet it was always quite shocking to see the same so brazenly advertised – naked and out in the open for all to see & know; as if those doing that same announcing somehow lusted after the scorn of others; as if they somehow needed to have their diminished intelligence (or worse, their damaged moral capacity) be lit in neon and shouted from the rooftops; as if to bellow “Look at me everyone! The year is 2019 and yet I still refuse to enter civilized society!” And these are the ones for whom we need to exude the greatest compassion, for they are so obviously in the greatest need of the same …
“Whatever the cost of even our most massive libraries, their price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation … Indeed, nothing in the world is more repugnant (and indeed, nothing more dangerous) than sincere ignorance mixed with conscientious stupidity … And so it is that we would all do well to remember that none of us are entitled to our opinions. We are entitled to our informed opinions. For no one in any civilized society is entitled to be ignorant, just as no one therein is entitled to be hateful or deceitful or violent.” ~ inspired by Walter Cronkite, Martin Luther King Jr. & Harlan Ellison
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. Indeed the strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through American political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge’ … And yet it’s a Universal Law that intolerance is a primary sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education always breeds humility and compassion … So let us make life an adventure in forgiveness & kindness, for these are the greater forms of Love.” ~ inspired by Isaac Asimov, Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, Norman Cousins & Reinhold Niebuhr
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