This might seem somewhat condescending to suggest that ignorance bothers me the most as it implies a confidence in my own knowledge but stick with me. Ignorance and a refusal to seek information impacts our ability to build understanding and therefore contributes to many of the world’s problems. This is true for discrimination and poverty as these are all largely due to an unwillingness to learn. Historically, ignorance may not be to blame for these issues it currently sustains the negative perceptions and conflict in modern society.
Discrimination initially was built on a deliberate desire to perceive one group extensively white heterosexual men as superior to others and create policies to reinforce this perception. However, over the later part of the 20th century and beyond actions like the civil rights movement, prochoice campaigns and LGBT Pride movement these beliefs have shifted somewhat. The problem that now exists is that those that continue to prompt racist, homophobic or sexist beliefs are unwilling to educate themselves and instead hold to their existing views primarily out of fear. A fear that change will come with negative impacts and a notion that is once again the result of ignorance this in turn creates an environment for scare tactics like those currently implied against the LGBTQIA + community. The only way through these instances of intense discrimination is therefore to education and fight ignorance.
Like discrimination poverty has it’s beginnings in similar ideas but has been historically reinforced by a lack of educational opportunity and keeping people ignorant. In this instance poverty has been created by exploitation which means that generationally groups in society lack the economic situation to access quality education or have a negative relationship with institutions. This means that those living in poverty are often ignorant of the knowledge they need to lift themselves out of their situation. However, the largest issue is that those in an economically stable situation remain largely ignorant of the plight of those living on low incomes or facing homelessness. In part this is a deliberate desire to remain unaware as it would impact their own ability to sleep soundly and rather then reflect on how their actions maybe impacting different groups their is a tendency to blame the poor for their own situation. This is a simplistic and hugely flawed viewpoint which is largely once again due to an ignorance of the larger social drivers that leads to the self distractive behaviours like drug and alcohol abuse. The welfare state attempts to support these people but doesn’t address the drivers of poverty, which starts with eliminating the ignorance present in both groups.
As a teacher in disadvantaged schools that has seen my share of discrimination, I have seen regularly the impact of this ignorance and considering my profession it is unsurprising that it frustrates me on a daily basis. As a society this is where we should be focusing our efforts but we would be kidding ourselves to think it is an easy fix.
Leave a Reply