Do You Have a Right to be Willfully Ignorant?

[Sunstone]

In a representative democracy, where your decisions on may broadly impact others, do you have a right to be willfully ignorant?

For example: Do you have a right to be willfully ignorant of evolution when voting for a school board member who opposes the teaching of evolution in the public schools?

Again, do you have a right to be willfully ignorant of vaccines when deciding whether to have your child vaccinated?

Again, do you have a right to be willfully ignorant of the structural basis for racism when voting for a politician who favors ending affirmative action?

 

[Subhankar Zac]

I believe that vegetarian or vegan diet is much more healthy and humane than non vegetarian diet.
But I hardly think I should get to legislate the plates of 1.2 billion people based on my cultural and religious views.

I think it would be best to ban education that do not have any value in the pragmatic world and ideas that are contrary to modern science. People can believe that plants survived without the sun when everything was created within 7 days, but if it's contrary to science, then put a ban on such education.

2. Vaccination must be mandatory for all children. Parents do not get to destroy their children's future out of ignorance. Parents who try and stop their kids from being vaccinated should be fined or put behind bars.
It's not tyranny, but putting children ahead of the needs of bigots.

3. I do not know what Affirmative action is but it's probably best not to vote if the candidate speaks incendiary remarks on certain people based on their race, sexuality, status, color, etc.
History is evident of what it can do to society at large. Hell, India is still suffering from the 2014 elections by voting a right winged hindutva government.

 

[crossfire]

An adult of sound mind has the right to their own thoughts and opinions, no matter how odious those thoughts, ideas, or opinions might be. Freedom of speech is a Constitutional right, and voting (for those who are eligible and registered to do so) is part of the freedom of speech.

 

[Meander_Z]

Everyone absolutely has the right to be willfully ignorant, and furthermore no one has the right to force wisdom, knowledge, or intelligence upon another human being. If this means that the planet gets blown to smithereens by a nuclear blast or baked like a Christmas goose due to global warming, then that is just what must be.

If you want people to agree with your perspective learn to be persuasive. No matter how ignorant you think another person's perspective is, you are far more likely to convince them to see your side if you take a few moments of your time to genuinely try to see theirs. Even something as clearly ignorant as racism is better corrected through open positive conversation than any attempted use of force.

People do not however have the right to convert their ignorance into actions that cause direct harm to other beings. You cannot punish thoughts and opinions no matter how justified you might feel, only actions. I will always prefer living among the ignorant to living under the thumb of a Big Brother figure who attempts to force agreement from above rather than attempting to understand the root of the problems we face collectively.

 

[crossfire]

Everyone absolutely has the right to be willfully ignorant, and furthermore no one has the right to force wisdom, knowledge, or intelligence upon another human being. If this means that the planet gets blown to smithereens by a nuclear blast or baked like a Christmas goose due to global warming, then that is just what must be.

If you want people to agree with your perspective learn to be persuasive. No matter how ignorant you think another person's perspective is, you are far more likely to convince them to see your side if you take a few moments of your time to genuinely try to see theirs. Even something as clearly ignorant as racism is better corrected through open positive conversation than any attempted use of force.

People do not however have the right to convert their ignorance into actions that cause direct harm to other beings. You cannot punish thoughts and opinions no matter how justified you might feel, only actions. I will always prefer living among the ignorant to living under the thumb of a Big Brother figure who attempts to force agreement from above rather than attempting to understand the root of the problems we face collectively.

Hear hear! If you want others to become more understanding, then become more understanding yourself, first. You want to change the world? Start by changing yourself.

 

[निताइ dasa]

Yes. "ignorant" is a relative term in itself (I absolutely hate it when its thrown around in debates). If you want others to share your opinions, then persuade them through reasoning, not through silencing.

 

[Tumah]

It seems like you believe that if people weren't ignorant of those things, if they would just learn about it, they would be for it and so their ignorance is impacting their vote. I don't believe that's usually the case. At least in the three cases given.

 

[allfoak]

In a representative democracy, where your decisions on may broadly impact others, do you have a right to be willfully ignorant?

For example: Do you have a right to be willfully ignorant of evolution when voting for a school board member who opposes the teaching of evolution in the public schools?

Again, do you have a right to be willfully ignorant of vaccines when deciding whether to have your child vaccinated?

Again, do you have a right to be willfully ignorant of the structural basis for racism when voting for a politician who favors ending affirmative action?

Ignorance is forgivable.
Willful ignorance is just being obstinate.
Stubbornness has its own consequences.

 

[Rival]

No. If you don't know, don't vote.

 

[Father Heathen]

Democracy requires an informed electorate to function properly. Perhaps require voters to take a test to ensure that they actually know and understand what they're voting on.

 

[crossfire]

Democracy requires an informed electorate to function properly. Perhaps require voters to take a test to ensure that they actually know and understand what they're voting on.

How quickly do you think the propaganda folks will sue if that is implemented?

 

[Father Heathen]

How quickly do you think the propaganda folks will sue if that is implemented?

True.

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

Democracy requires an informed electorate to function properly. Perhaps require voters to take a test to ensure that they actually know and understand what they're voting on.

That would make voting no longer a right, but a privilege of those who are able to pass some sort of test...

To my mind, our culture (America, related European) has fixated on "rights" and not enough attention is paid to the Responsibilities that come attached to those rights: you have the right to vote, but you have the responsibility to be informed when you do; you have the right to practice a religion, but you have the responsibility to not infringe on others'; and so on.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

In a representative democracy, where your decisions on may broadly impact others, do you have a right to be willfully ignorant?
For example: Do you have a right to be willfully ignorant of evolution when voting for a school board member who opposes the teaching of evolution in the public schools?
Again, do you have a right to be willfully ignorant of vaccines when deciding whether to have your child vaccinated?
Again, do you have a right to be willfully ignorant of the structural basis for racism when voting for a politician who favors ending affirmative action?

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." - Martin Luther King Jr.

 

[Quetzal]

Hear hear! If you want others to become more understanding, then become more understanding yourself, first. You want to change the world? Start by changing yourself.

Great bumper sticker, terrible in practice. If someone has a sound base of knowledge and they are challenged by someone who doesn't, they should not change anything.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

In a representative democracy, where your decisions on may broadly impact others, do you have a right to be willfully ignorant?

For example: Do you have a right to be willfully ignorant of evolution when voting for a school board member who opposes the teaching of evolution in the public schools?

Again, do you have a right to be willfully ignorant of vaccines when deciding whether to have your child vaccinated?

Again, do you have a right to be willfully ignorant of the structural basis for racism when voting for a politician who favors ending affirmative action?

The right to be willfully ignorant only goes as far as the state of education and resource access allows in any given community.

This election cycle is proving yet again how abysmal our education system is as well as the ease of access to resources within borders being reflected in the extreme wealth gap.

Apologists who vote against their own self-interest, their own welfare, and their own education are blinded by the propagandist spin on the word "entitlement." They vote against any remotely similar measure in favor of an austerity economic structure and government. Suffering is not only our fault for existing, but sought after as a moral high ground to achieve.

Illness doesn't curb them. Untimely death in the family doesn't curb them. Poverty is noble when creating a life around the Self-Made Man Myth, blindly following the same footsteps toward shortened life spans others have made.

Structurally, it's more sound to create wide enough parameters so people can only be as willfully ignorant as they can be to where their actions harm the least amount of people, but to guarantee them their own bodily autonomy.

 

[crossfire]

s

Great bumper sticker, terrible in practice. If someone has a sound base of knowledge and they are challenged by someone who doesn't, they should not change anything.

If person with the sound base of knowledge change themselves by trying to understand others, thus becoming an example for others to encourage them to try to understand. By trying to understand others, they will then build on their base of knowledge.

Gotta start somewhere.

 

[Revoltingest]

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." - Martin Luther King Jr.

That is the most inane & pretentious quote I've seen in a while.
Ignorance, ie, to not know something, is typically benign.
And to be sincere in recognizing that one doesn't know something strikes me as a positive trait.
If one needs to, one can always decide to cure this lack.

No....I'd say there's nothing more dangerous than people who are willing to abridge the rights of others, whether this is borne from misguided altruism or personal gain.
Regarding voting, knowledge is a useful thing.
But I place more importance on the morality of the person's agenda or measure.

 

[Quetzal]

If person with the sound base of knowledge change themselves by trying to understand others

That is the point, right? Why would I want to understand someone who is willfully ignorant on a topic and wants to stay that way? There is nothing to understand if someone is being stubbornly ignorant for no justifiable reason outside of the fact of the uncomfortable feeling that they might be wrong.

By trying to understand others, they will then build on their base of knowledge.

This is wishful thinking and I really wish it was the case more often. The unfortunate reality is that tradition tends to trump knowledge in a few examples that come to mind for me. (Climate change, theological dogma, individual rights for social/ethnic minorities, etc etc)

 

[Quetzal]

Ignorance, ie, to not know something, is typically benign.

Correct, but my take is that if someone is willfully ignorant. That is, not knowing and refusing to take any action to correct it has the potential to be a problem.