[Originally posted under Thus Saith Brian]
I fear my frustrations with the ignorant, the uneducated, and the lazy have grown to a point where I feel it's my duty to speak out. Things have gone too far, and I think it goes without saying that the problem will get much worse before it gets any better.
My primary concern is that any interest in learning, or bettering ones self has diminished dramatically over the last 100 years. At one point in history, reading a book was considered a noble thing. During previous periods, the educated and the enlightened were regarded as esteemed individuals who had dedicated their lives to self-improvement, and the improvement of society in general. My apprehension centers around an evident observation that these ideals are no longer held with the same respect they once were.
During a recent conversation with a friend about this very topic, I mentioned that one of the things I thoroughly enjoy, rather than turning on the TV, is to pick up a technical book and learn as much as I can on a particular subject of which I had no prior knowledge. I mentioned that I felt like I was empowered, and my 60 minutes spent bettering myself yielded a much higher return than watching Survivor. A bystander, seemingly disgusted by the idea that I would spend my own time doing something productive, interrupted our conversation by obnoxiously stating, "learning is for college kids". Under normal circumstances, the opinions of a single radical rarely affect any reaction on my behalf, but in this case I fear the opinion reflected is a perfect image of the attitude I see on today's society: Learning is for the smart people. I'd rather watch television.
Non-coincidentally, this same fear fuels the problem wherein members of society possess a growing inability to think for themselves. As an experiment towards proof of this concept, watch the nightly news. The next day in the office, or at school, ask your peers how they felt about the issues presented. You will almost indefinitely find a disturbing parallel between "their" views, and the views of the source from which they obtained the information. Try this for yourself, and you will find that the "opinions" of nearly every person are not theirs at all, but those of somebody they view as an authority on the subject (typically the news media, or a relative).
Not to say that one should not yield to a more knowledgeable source under certain circumstances, but unchecked acceptance of any opinion is an extraordinarily scary philosophy! We've lost our desire to think for ourselves, because it involves effort. The media can do the thinking for us, both in news reporting and entertainment programming. We will feel how they tell us to feel during the news, and we will feel how they tell us to feel while they entertain us. Sometimes I feel like I'm off in left field when I expect people to know why they feel a certain way and be able to defend what they believe to be the truth.
Am I a radical for believing people have a responsibility to themselves and to society to be educated citizens? The plague of ignorance is spreading faster than any other disease. The cure? Eliminating laziness. It's nobody's fault but our own that we don't understand our own world. The resources we have at our disposal for education are more abundant today than any other time in the history of the world, we just have to force ourselves to use them.