It’s what causes women in backward villages to be stoned to death. It justifies the withholding of the truth. It encourages people to demonize scientific proof. It suggests that if children are not taught sex education, there will be no teen pregnancies. It allows us all to focus on one group and make them the scapegoats for all evil. It permits women to vote for the very politicians who are hell-bent on undermining their human rights. It advocates female genital mutilation despite documented health threats. It’s the reason there’s a spike in domestic violence during the Super Bowl. It asserts that two people who love each other should not be allowed to marry if they are not members of the mainstream. It convinces people that others will go to hell if their beliefs do not align with their own. It advocates violent solutions, and claims that most rape victims are asking for it. It allows people to believe that background checks for gun purchases is a bad thing, and that this opinion is not motivated by politics and greed. Does your very life depend on a certain diet? Ignorance will allow you to remain in denial about that until you’ve thrown away the very gift that should never be returned. It advocates censorship, because God knows we shouldn’t be allowed to form our own opinions or draw our own conclusions. It supports changing the facts of history in order to alter belief systems.
And most of all, ignorance promotes a hatred of knowledge and turns intellectualism into a dirty word, because in the presence of intelligence and insight, ignorance cannot survive.
The View from a Drawbridge 
Back in the early 60′, before Vietnam, the Beatles and political and domestic uprising, when we were still hanging on to our rose colored glasses from the 50’s, I attended a night school class in search of something for my mind to chew on. I chose a Civics class. The teacher was warm, intelligent and full of personality. He told us the first night that probably 1/2 of us would leave. He further stated that He had been fired from his HS teaching job for teaching Communism. He held to his belief that if you did not know the facts about Communism or any other subject, you could not fight it or embrace it. About 1/3 of the class never came back. For those that stayed, it was a very interesting journey. To this day, I always try to see both sides of an issue, And try to understand how why some people wear blinders on issues that seem so logical to me.
Clearly I struggle with that. I do have very strong opinions. But I’d like to believe that most of them are based on science, statistics, health and safety as well as education. That sounds like it was a fascinating class.
Don’t make fun of the ignorant. They give us a reason to feel better about ourselves. And without them I would only have 20 followers… ha!!!!!!!!!!
Gasp!
What? You might be one of the 20…
“It’s very little trouble for me to accomodate my fans, unless I’m actually taking a pee at the time.”
Harrison Ford
Ha!