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Ignorance Is Not an Insult

Posted on March 16th, 2011 by Staks

Yesterday, a Christian on Twitter called me “ignorant” because he didn’t like the title of my article which he did not bother to read. I tried to explain to him that ignorance is of a particular nature that it can be cured through education. In his case, he could read the article he commented on so that he could point out my ignorance so that I too can educate myself and rid myself of this ignorance.

Ignorance is not an insult. I am ignorant of a lot of things as is everyone else. But I try to educate myself as much as I can. Willful ignorance however is insulting. When someone can educate themselves, but chooses to remain in a state of ignorance on a particular subject while he or she continues to speak on that subject as if they were educated about it. This is willful ignorance and it should be insulting.

Saying something that some people might find offensive is not the same thing as saying something out of willful ignorance or even just ignorance. Someone can be very well educated on a subject and people can still be offended and insulted by educated statements.

Ignorance can be cured through education, but you can’t cure stupid.