By Donnie Johnston, ADVANCE COLUMNIST
I have very little patience with ignorance, especially when it is treated almost as a virtue.
Despite all our diplomas and degrees, the average American is not very smart. And with the advent of artificial intelligence, we are getting dumber all the time. Many of us are very content to let a machine do the thinking for us.
These days, a degree is no reflection on a person’s intelligence. You can buy a degree. Almost anyone can earn a degree if he has the money to hang in there long enough. College has become a business, a factory to manufacture degrees, some with majors that would have made people laugh out loud 50 years ago.
Don’t try to impress me with your college degrees. I know people with a wall full of them that are as—at least in my humble opinion—dumb as dirt.
I have always maintained that a college degree should come with the guarantee of a job in your chosen field. After all, what else are you going to fork out $200,000 for that comes with no guarantee?
You buy a house, you get a guarantee. You buy a $200,000 car, you better durn well get a guarantee. But you get yourself in a lifetime of debt for a college degree and there is no warranty. You are on your own.
But then it would be almost impossible for a college to place 200 graduates with philosophy degrees in the high-paying jobs the school promises. Philosophers do not earn big bucks in our society.
The truth is that very few Americans really want knowledge. They simply want a degree and the high-salaried job that supposedly comes with it. Too often they graduate from high school and college with no training or actual education to function in the real world. Thank God Walmart needs employees.
These people have at least made an attempt to become educated, but there is another group that treats knowledge as if it is a plague. They absolutely refuse to learn. The most ignorant people in the world who, when faced with the possibility of gaining knowledge, flatly state, “I don’t need or want to know that!”
That makes me want to scream! I want to know and learn everything I can. I want to keep informed daily about what is going on in the world, and I want to learn any piece of information that will make me a smarter person.
But it often seems that I am alone in my quest for knowledge. The majority of the people I know are absolutely content to remain ignorant. They act as if learning is a burden, not a chance to improve your mind.
Me? I’d much rather watch a TV show that provides education than one of those stupid sitcoms that insults my intelligence. I want to learn—all I can about everything out there. I have a thirst for knowledge that cannot be quenched.
When I tell people this, many look at me like I am a fool. “Why do you want to know that? How can it possibly help you?”
I want to know it because it is there to learn. It makes me think, wonder, reason, investigate. I may never have occasion to use that knowledge, but I have the satisfaction of knowing it is there in my brain if I ever need it.
It also helps me confront ignorance. They say a good lawyer never asks a question unless he already knows the answer. You don’t want to get blindsided in public.
That has always been my motto in life. I want to know the answer before anyone asks the question. You seldom get conned if you are one step ahead of the other guy, especially if he is trying to use double-talk to bluff you.
American ignorance goes down other paths. There are those who would refute scientific evidence simply because they do not understand the concept. And there are others who just close their minds for no apparent reason. They just don’t want to learn anything new, or they fear that what they learn will conflict with their beliefs.
God gave us a brain to learn, to absorb the knowledge of the world around us. We should use it. The Bible refers to the importance of knowledge numerous times. Learning—until the day you die—is important.
We should never be satisfied with what we already know. Leaning is a lifetime quest. But to learn you must have an open mind, and we find ourselves in a close-minded culture.
Sometimes I wish I had three lifetimes to learn all there is to know. There is so much to absorb and so little time to absorb it.
I treat every moment of every day as a lesson, a chance to learn something new, to figure something out, to solve some problem.
My final thoughts before sleep are usually reflections on what I learned and accomplished that day. Because to function for 16 hours and learn nothing new is a terrible waste of precious time.
I don't believe a college degree, from any institution of higher learning, should come with a guarantee of a job upon graduation. Why should any employer simply accept a college degree? One can graduate with a C average, even less. How prepared is that individual to face a competitive job market or, once a job is landed, succeed in that position?
Further, life changes. One's "chosen field" at 18, 20, 22, or 45 may not be the "chosen field" a few years into the job. And a degree has never really been a "reflection on a person's intelligence." One can look at any number of politicians today or in the 20th c. to see this.
Too many young people choose a college based on where their friends are going or the amenities of the school (climbing walls, anyone?). "Influencers" are all too present in our society, and that's sad. I read the other day (either WSJ, NYT, or WaPo) that young women are dieting like there's no tomorrow in order to get into the sorority of their dreams in college. That isn't news...it's been going on for years. If people choose (or chose) a college for these reasons, perhaps a bill -- or debt -- at the end of it will be a lesson learned.
I appreciate this Jeremiad about love of constant learning, and impatience with those who feel the opposite. Donnie writes that he can think of no apparent reason why people close their minds to new information. I can think of an extremely common one; political, agenda driven persistent ignorance, regardless of truthful factual availability. Of course, equally often, and often overlapping as a cause of ignorance, is trusting sources that aim to deceive, propagandists , which do not yet get entangled in the webs they weave, and never either correct themselves or apologize when shown to be intentionally or otherwise, wrong.