Sorry if the premise is inflammatory, but I’ve been stymied by this for a while. How did we go from something like 1940s era collectivism or 1960s era leftism to the current bizarro political machine that seems to have hypnotized a large portion (if not majority) of the country? I get it - not everything is bad now, and not everything was good then. FDR’s internment camps, etc.
That said - our country seems to be at a low point in intellectualism and accountability. The DHHS head is an antivaxxer, the deputy chief of the DOJ is a far-right podcast nutball, etc. Their supporters seem to have no nuance to their opinion beyond “well, Trump said he’d fix the economy and I don’t like woke.”
Have people always been this unserious and unquestioning, or are we watching the public’s sanity unravel in real time? Or am I just imagining some idealistic version of the past that never existed, where politicians acted in good faith and people cared about the social order?
Not to be a jerk, but I’d argue everyone is born ignorant due to an inherent lack of knowledge. Ignorance can be rectified through education. I would also argue that everyone is born with varying levels of intelligence and ability; so not everyone is stupid but there are those who are, unfortunately. Stupid and ignorant mean very different things, even though they get colloquially misused often.
You’re not being a jerk, you’re being pedantic.
Ignorant is absolutely the better word, and I should have used it.
I think, however, that people are far more capable of gaining intelligence than we give them credit for. I don’t believe that IQ is assigned at birth, and it’s been shown that the entire idea of IQ testing is extremely flawed.
There are people born with learning disabilities, of course, but that’s a whole other conversation.