As time passes by, our society lives many changes: the perceptions of our minds, the ideas to which we profess devotion, our principles... All of this changes slowly but firmly, the only constant in life is change. Which, as gradual as it may seem, makes life differ much and nothing at the same time to that of our oldest living relatives.
In this article, I focus on the fading interest, the ignorance, the lack of information and knowledge, the lack of use of our critical minds... that seems to be overtaking us. This has been, in fact, a matter of debate for some time now. Writers such as Carl Sagan or Isaac Asimov emphasized the dangers that were hidden in such an "undervalued loss".
Knowledge is power, and a society composed of cultivated critical minds can mean the difference between a democracy and a tyranny. However, this can be considered as an extreme point of view ( although, it has become a reckless and sad truth in other places and/or times ), nowadays reality is more subtle. Ignorance can be a powerful tool in the wrong hands, it is an advantage that a group with power can use to dominate a less powerful group.
"Tyrants and autocrats have always understood that literacy, learning, books and newspapers are potentially dangerous. They can put independent and even rebellious ideas in the heads of their subjects. ", Carl Sagan.
In one of my first articles I wrote about Fictional Entities, one of the first sociological constructs to bring us, humans, together were spiritual beliefs. By that time, anything that had no "rational" explanation was a divine sign, and the answer to everything that was not known was explained through a superior divine entity. As the centuries passed, this theological knowledge was substituted by scientific speech. Spiritual beliefs persisted, but the observed mysterious phenomena started being explained following exact methods dictated by science. Scientists such as Blaise Pascal and Georges Lemaître were known as deeply devoted people who gave rational explanations to unsolved phenomena. As a matter of fact, these perceptions are changing ... Apparently, it is perfectly acceptable that scientific explanations are being displaced by pseudosciences and conspiracy theories ( set as an example the denial of climatic change or Covid-19 ).
From the stated above, it becomes clear that knowledge is a fundamental factor for human progress. Therefore, I find it curious that rational explanations are being replaced by these doubtful "truths", that are believed and defended by some. A possible answer to this decadent beliefs is that they may be due to a lack of information combined with an untrained critical mind.
After reading this we can directly turn our faces to public education. Should we not be educated to develop an ability to be thoughful? To perform sophisticated reasoning? To develop an informed opinion of whatever we need to face in live? Well, sometimes it is not enough. This is a path that we confront in solitude. It is about being self-taught and tough, because reality is not simple and our steps will be full of biases. But there is more, we owe it to ourselves; we need this tools to fight ignorance and those who try to use it against others.
What is more, it will be intelligent not to judge too quickly those who believe in poor truths, pseudosciences and conspiracy theories. The intention of this article is to emphasize the relevance of a critical and informed mind. However, we can all be fools if we rely on the knowledge that we think we have. ( Translation: you never know enough, this journey is sempiternal. )
In 1999, David Dunning and Justing Kruger published a study that showed that people who are less prepared and competent have an illusory feeling of superiority over cultured and well-prepared people.
"One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.", Bertrand Russel.
In the article they published, they showed that people tend to hold overly favourable views of their abilities in social and intellectual domains, and this becomes a double burden to them. First, they reach wrong conlusions and then make wrong choices; and then, their incompetence robs them the metacognitive ability to realize it. Therefore, they are not able to understand that they were wrong, because they do not know that what they think they knew was not enough. The less they know, the more they think they know.
Nevertheless, this is completely different in the case of cultured and well-prepared people. Opposite to the ignorance of an ignorant regarding its own ignorance; the more a cultured person believes to know, the less they think they know.
Now, it is easy to guess who will be willing to accept to listen to new points of view or theories.
"There is nothing more fertile than a conscious ignorance", José Ortega y Gasset.
From all that was stated above, the most obvious conclusion is that we are in the need of equipping ourselves with the necessary tools to work towards a sustainable future and towards progress. By tools I mean an informed and trained critical mind. Sometimes, it will be inevitable to be in a situation in which we will be the ignorants, perhaps we should then try to work on being open and nourishing our minds.
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References:
"The Demon-Haunted World" by Carl Sagan.
"Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties recognizing one's own incompetence leads to inflated self-assesment" by Justin Kruger and Daving Dunning.
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