Willfully Ignorant II

[Colleen Thomas]

Been a rough morning. I hate phones, receptionsists and when I get to this point people in general. So while I sit here chain smoking, shaking & waiting for the tranqs to take efect my mind has wandered down some pretty maudlin paths.

She opened a thread with the more or less rhetorical question of people being willfully ignorant of Bush Co.'s failings. I got to thinking about it and realized, there are a lot of things I am willfully ignorant of. I love knowledge, collect historical facts & minutae like some people collect stamps.

I can tell you, off the top of my head, the names of all seven aircraft carries that took part inthe battle of midway Island. Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu, Soryu, Enterprise, Yourktown, Hornet. I can tell you the squadron numbers for the Air crew. Hornet was 8, Yorktown 3, Enterprise 6. I can actually name the commnaders of the various units, with a break down for bombing, fighting & torpedo.

Besides Medger Evers and Martin Luther King, I can't name any civil right's leaders. I don't know the names of any of the principals in the Watergate Scandal. In Korea & Vietnam, I would be hard pressed to name more than a hand full of battles or operations. With a few glaring exceptions, my detailed knowledge of history ends on Vj day. I can even remember boasting once about my ignroance, something to the tune of nothin important has happened since the end of World War II. Outrageous.

Today, as I sit here I can think of several current events I am totally ignorant of, that most 9 year olds probably have a better grasp of.

I know practically nothing about John Kerry.
I know absolutely nothing about the torture scandal in Iraq.
I know practically nothing about continuing operations in Affghanistan.

I have always found ignorance to be unattactive, yet I remain willfully ignorant of much that is going on today, prefering to bury my head in studies of the past.

The facts are there. In a day or two I could educate myself on any of those topics. I simply choose not to.

It got me to wondering, am I the only one who is playing ostrich? How bout you guys? Are there any topics y'all stay ignornat of conciously?

-Colly

Edited to correct paniced spelling.

 

[wishfulthinking]

Some people argue that we are constantly bombarded with politcal scandals, murders, crimes, terrorism, etc etc on the tv, radio etc that we have to be selective in what we absorb, because it ain't all going in.

I'm definitely ignorant of the goings on in Irag. I'm probably the only one with the [irgnorant] view that the public seeing the photos were probably more shocked that they were forced to face the reality of what went on in the prisons and had to do something about it rather than live on blissful ignorance. People had to know it wasn't sunday school, right? But I admit this view is ignorant, and should learn the facts. But I don't want to know. Too unpleasant. It's on a TV which allows me to distance myself from it. It is on the other side of the world. Terrorism doesn't happen in Oz.

Appalling, huh? But I also believe that modern society encourages this sort of thinking.

No, you're not the only one.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

There are definitely things that I chose to ignore, but I can't tell you what they are, or I'd have to think about them.

 

[amicus]

Hello Colleen....

Having spent last weekend babysitting 4 year old grand-daughter and finding my waking and sleeping hours all changed around, I find myself up and curious at the unholy hour of 7am, feeling somewhat the alien.

I began by following the travails of the Swedish lady Svenskaflicka? and her search for a husband and thought to wish her well, but also thought my wishes would not be welcomed.

Went then to your post and had a thought or so.

First off, I imagined I was the only one outside those involved who would even recognize the names of the aircraft carriers involved in the Midway encounter...I too am a world war two buff.

Secondly, a thing we all know, really, is that, 'one cannot know everything..." the mind just won't handle it.

Thirdly, I 'think' one must focus and choose, not only the information one seeks and the area of information, but the 'sources' of that information.

The 'internet' revolution at best, is just underway but for many, is still beyond reach. The amount of information available is astounding. At the same time, it can be confusing and contradictory, as you well know.

I am going to digress and ramble for just a moment on one of my current projects; a novel of the first inhabitants of North America circa 8000 BCE (The 'E' is for estimated, now used by Historians, as the date of the birth of Christ, (BC) is not known)

The approximate BCE date that the first Asians crossed the Bering Straights over a land bridge at the end of the last ice age, is between 13000 and 15000 years ago. A period of time that included Wooly Mammoths and Sabre Toothed tigers and several other extinct critters. Paleontologists purport this as they dug up the bones and carbon dated them.

Part of the challenge in writing of this era is that many prehistorical 'facts' are not facts at all, but suppositions of those who study the period.

For example, it is stated that 'horses' were native to North American but went extinct about 12000 BCE and did not re appear until brought by the Spanish explorers.

Another concerns honey bees and apple trees, my natives have to eat something, what was available to them in terms of a natural 'sweetener' and why did not apples evolve in that region whereas they seem to have in the northeastern parts of North America?

Anyway...sorry for the digression, it was meant as an example of the need to 'focus' on the knowledge one wishes to acquire.

In the Rennaisance there was the 'Universal Man' concept, men such as Goethe who were knowledgeable in all areas, they knew all there was to know about all things.

Such a concept no longer can be accepted, as one 'individual' cannot, 'know it all'; the mind is finite, the amount of information, infinite.

And it just keeps expanding, exponentially. Last evening I watched a science channel thing, "Mars and Beyond" a history of the past 30 years of the 'Voyager' series of exploration of the outer planets, some amazing discoveries.

Enough..or too much...sorry if I bored you. Good luck in your quest for information and knowledge.

I hope the Swede lady finds her man.

regards...amicus

 

[Randi Grail]

Oh yes, there are a lot of things that I ignore with vigour.

I know that I as an american exiler should be more engage in the politics at home, but i doubt I can even be arsed to look in to the president election. And the local politics is 75% corruption and 175% incomprehensible anyway. For instance, what the EU parliament does is an enigma even to the politicians here.

If I get too much insight about things, I tend to want to get too much involved. So I focus on matters I can manage, and battles I can win. The world is a big and scary place. I'm happy that I have a silent corner of my own in it.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

For Viet Nam, get Stanley Karnow's book, Viet Nam: A History. It's the definitive book on the subject, and it's a good read.

But really Colly, do you want to know what we have to tune out in order to get out of bed in the morning? I don't want to bum everyone out, so I'll only mention the words Sudan and AIDS in Africa. Just google on these two topics and see what's going there. We'd all die of despair if we didn't have blinders on, and big ones.

But I think you wanted to talk about less depressing things. Does that include economics? I don't know much about economics and don't really care to know. As far as I can tell, the economy pretty much does as it wants despite all the numbers they give on the news, and the only economics that seems to matter to anyone is personal economics. As they say, the unemployment rate may be 4 or 6 per cent, but when you don't have a job, it's 100%, and that's all that matters.

In general, I don't seem to know anything about the getting and keeping of money. I'm pretty good with quantum mechanics, but no matter how many times it's expalained to me, I always forget the difference between a stock and a bond, and I don't understand how one currency can be worth more than another. Aren't they all interconvertible? Can't any bank change dollars into Euros into yen?

Of even less consequence, I no longer know anything about pop culture: TV, movies, and music. I still think of Michael Jackson and Seinfeld as current, and while I can recognize some pop names when I hear them, I couldn't tell you what these people do. I always get J-lo mixed up with Cameron Diaz mixed up with someone else whose name I can't remember.

---dr.M.

 

[English Lady]

You only have enough room in your head for a certain amount of awareness.

I don't read a newspaper, magaxzines or watch news on TV because to be honest I think most of it is a pile of shite. If I become aware of something I want to feel it. I don't want to just shrug and accept it as another part of life.

Be aware but don't beat yourself up about issues you find hard to swallow either because you find them boring/too hard to think about. Everyone has there own level of awareness and I would guess that between us all there is enough awareness to go round.

 

[shereads]

There are definitely things that I chose to ignore, but I can't tell you what they are, or I'd have to think about them.

Good point.



I've tried to think of some important topics that I intentionally ignore, and I can't. But I can think of any number of things that I've decided aren't important enough to justify the time it would take me to find out more. I guess that's the same thing.

There is something I wish I had been as curious about when I was young as I am now: my grandfather's service in WWI. My dad used to talk about his father's war experiences, but I tuned it out when I was a kid. He dragged us to some battlefield monuments in France when I was five or six years old. Having seen the puppet show in the park at the Eiffel Tower, I was bored to tears by war monuments at that age.

I was never curious about my grandfather's war until I was helping my mom pack after my dad died. We found a Croix de Guerre, folded and buried at the bottom of a box of junk. There was a newspaper clipping from his hometown newspaper that said he had earned the honor but didn't say how, and said he didn't want to be interviewed.

We found a menu from the Mauritania -
they served "French Green Beans" -
and some black & white postcards. There are soldiers at a checkpoint fortified with a sort of fence made out of crossed sharpened sticks. If not for a bicycle in the photograph, this scene looks like something from the Civil War. Two of the men are holding bayonets. Their faces wear that deadpan gaze you see in posed Civil War photos, staring at the camera, expressionless. My grandfather penciled a note on the photograph, "300 yards from German front."

I found his military-issue binoculars, with his initials in pencil on the case. And a collection of crumbling leather-bound classic literature with illegible margin notations in his hand. I can't read his notes, but I know he spent hours reading and interpreting and underscoring favorite passages, and that his favorite book was The Rubaiyat.

Those are the only clues I have about what my dad's dad was like before he returned from WWI and started drinking, and kept drinking until it killed him before he turned fifty. I wish I had been curious when there were people alive who wanted to talk about him. My dad used to say, "You would have liked your grandfather. You have the same sense of humor." I like that he was able to laugh at all, if he was in battles like the ones I've read about in WWI France.

 

[shereads]

Oh yes, there are a lot of things that I ignore with vigour.

"Ignore with vigor."



That should be a government stamp like "Terminate with prejudice."

 

[shereads]

For Viet Nam, get Stanley Karnow's book, Viet Nam: A History. It's the definitive book on the subject, and it's a good read.

A Vietnam veteran recommended this one to me, and I couldn't put it down. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction in 1988.

A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam
by Neil Sheehan

The New York Times Book Review
"If there is one book that captures the Vietnam war in the sheer Homeric scale of its passion and folly, this is it."

From Publishers Weekly
"Killed in a helicopter crash in Vietnam in 1972, controversial Lt. Col. John Paul Vann was perhaps the most outspoken army field adviser to criticize the way the war was being waged. Appalled by the South Vietnamese troops' unwillingness to fight and their random slaughter of civilians, he flouted his supervisors and leaked his sharply pessimistic (and, as it turned out, accurate) assessments to the U.S. press corps in Saigon. Among them was Sheehan, a reporter for UPI and later the New York Times (for whom he obtained the Pentagon Papers).

"Sixteen years in the making, writing and research, this compelling 768-page biography is an extraordinary feat of reportage: an eloquent, disturbing portrait of a man who in many ways personified the U.S. war effort. Blunt, idealistic, patronizing to the Vietnamese, Vann firmly believed the U.S. could win; as Sheehan limns him, he was ultimately caught up in his own illusions. The author weaves into one unified chronicle an account of the Korean War (in which Vann also fought), the story of U.S. support for French colonialism, descriptions of military battles, a critique of our foreign policy and a history of this all-American boy's secret personal lie, that led him to recklessly gamble away his career."

And there's always The Pentagon Papers, the leaked documents that led to the Watergate burglary - and taught Americans for the first time that the reasons we're given for going to war may be far from the truth. The Pentagon Papers turned even some of Nixon's "silent majority" into anti-war protesters.

Daniel Ellsberg, whose doctor's office was burglarized by Nixon's goons after he leaked the Pentagon Papers, tells his own story in "Secrets."

From Publishers Weekly
Ellsberg's transformation from cold warrior and Defense Department analyst to impassioned antiwar crusader who released the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in June 1971 makes a remarkable and riveting story that still shocks 30 years later. Avoiding, for the most part, self-justification and self-aggrandizement, he clearly relates the experiences that led him to reject as arrogant lies the premises six presidents presented to the public and Congress to secure support for the Vietnam War. He describes the disjunction between what he saw during visits to Vietnam in the early and mid-'60s, driving through dangerous Viet Cong-held territory, and what was told to the press and public. And he recalls his first reading of the classified documents later known as the Pentagon Papers, which exposed the motives, in his view unprincipled, behind American involvement in Vietnam. Ellsberg creates page-turning human drama and suspense in both his descriptions of his early experience accompanying U.S. combat missions in Vietnam and his days spent underground evading an FBI manhunt after the Times's publication of the Papers. Another strength of this memoir is Ellsberg's vivid recollections of meetings with prominent policymakers, from Henry Kissinger to Senator William Fulbright, that re-create the deep tensions of the Vietnam era.
Ellsberg raises serious ethical questions about how citizens, politicians, the press and officials act when confronted with government actions they consider immoral and perhaps illegal. Ellsberg's own answer is history.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Those who are ignorant of history...

---dr.M.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

For Viet Nam, get Stanley Karnow's book, Viet Nam: A History. It's the definitive book on the subject, and it's a good read.

But really Colly, do you want to know what we have to tune out in order to get out of bed in the morning? I don't want to bum everyone out, so I'll only mention the words Sudan and AIDS in Africa. Just google on these two topics and see what's going there. We'd all die of despair if we didn't have blinders on, and big ones.

But I think you wanted to talk about less depressing things. Does that include economics? I don't know much about economics and don't really care to know. As far as I can tell, the economy pretty much does as it wants despite all the numbers they give on the news, and the only economics that seems to matter to anyone is personal economics. As they say, the unemployment rate may be 4 or 6 per cent, but when you don't have a job, it's 100%, and that's all that matters.

In general, I don't seem to know anything about the getting and keeping of money. I'm pretty good with quantum mechanics, but no matter how many times it's expalained to me, I always forget the difference between a stock and a bond, and I don't understand how one currency can be worth more than another. Aren't they all interconvertible? Can't any bank change dollars into Euros into yen?

Of even less consequence, I no longer know anything about pop culture: TV, movies, and music. I still think of Michael Jackson and Seinfeld as current, and while I can recognize some pop names when I hear them, I couldn't tell you what these people do. I always get J-lo mixed up with Cameron Diaz mixed up with someone else whose name I can't remember.

---dr.M.

It was more the little stuff Doc. Obviously if you tried to tune in to all the world's problems you would have the sunny disposition of a terminally depressed lemming. I'm pop culture challenged like you are.

I just wondered what things, if anything, everyone else put on a kind of real life ignore.

Some things I can rationalize having on ignore pretty easily. I have Kerry on ignore because I am not voting for him or GWB. No third party appears to have enough of a following to make an impact this time around, so I have pretty much put the election on ignore. I am going to be upset no matter who wins, so stressing over it before the fact makes little sense.

Other areas of blindness leave me at a loss to explain my lack of interest.

-Colly

 

[Guest]

Colly, you are not alone. I'm nearing sixty but still there is so much I want to know that I am always editing my 'wish' list. I go all out for anything that interests me (Venice, Russia, Mexico, Shakrespeare, opera, ballet, theology, film, Beethoven, a portion of England, etc.) I only learned about Japan cos my brother lived there, later Vienna. Then there is just plain reading fiction and poetry, and writing my own.

Ignored: most politics, violent news, pop culture. I did not watch one hour of the OJ trial. Mostly I use my tv for DVDs. I haven't listened to the radio since my teens. The last pop star I knew by sight was Prince (when he first appeared). I stopped listening to Dylan, the Beatles and Stones sometime in the mid-70s and it matters not if I never hear them again. My only regular non-internet reading is Vogue magazine.

Recently I learned a lot about rabbit teeth.

Perdita

 

[Liar]

Of even less consequence, I no longer know anything about pop culture: TV, movies, and music. I still think of Michael Jackson and Seinfeld as current, and while I can recognize some pop names when I hear them, I couldn't tell you what these people do. I always get J-lo mixed up with Cameron Diaz mixed up with someone else whose name I can't remember.

---dr.M.

You know, that actually illustrated it much better than you might think. In my world, you can't turn your head without having those names and references hammered into your head 24/7. So to me, I can't even understand how it is possible to be unaware of them. I mean, I don't like even a fraction of what current pop culture provides. But it is IV:ed into my veins anyhow.

Om the other hand, I'm sure thar thee are other contemporary references that I know jack squat about, that some of you would take for granted. Another pop culture reference: I generally like pop/rock music from the 60's and 70's, but I couldn't for the life of me tell you the names of famous songs or connect them with artists, save for a handful assorted classics.

#L

 

[rgraham666]

I'm ignorant about a lot of things.

But there's so much to learn ignorance is a state you can't help. So I don't let it bother me anymore.

So what I like to learn about most is humanity. I often feel like a Klingon or Vulcan somehow exiled here. That's what goes at the top of my interest list. if it teaches me about humanity, I'm interested in it.

Otherwise, I'll get around to it if I ever find the time.

 

[cantdog]

don't know shit from shinola

There are things I just can't get interested in. Japan. I was hooked on WW II history in my teens, but I really still know next to nothing about Japanese, the culture, the history, the way of life, the whole thing. I just lose interest at an appalling rate.

Same with Russian history. After the White Horde, I just could care. I learned the alphabet, and I know a few useless phrases in the language. But I just can't make myself pay attention.

cantdog

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

What I MOST wish to ignore, is how big business is finally, inexorably forcing small farmers off their land, so that everything we eat, like everything we wear, and everything we think will be delivered to us through an intermediary layer of machines, controlled by a few unprincipled individuals who control the machines.




That’s what I am striving to forget .... DAMN!

 

[cantdog]

Colly, I hope the tranqs kicked in.

All good wishes. People can all be trying sometimes, and some are trying at all times.

Humor helps, and as in so many things, love helps more.

love,

cantdog

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Colly, I hope the tranqs kicked in.

All good wishes. People can all be trying sometimes, and some are trying at all times.

Humor helps, and as in so many things, love helps more.

love,

cantdog

Thanks Cant

It was hard, but neccessary. Since Hubby turne dup for Flicka, all's well that ends well. The tranqs kicked and I curled up in bed & slept a few more hours

*HUGS*

-Colly

 

[shereads]

What I MOST wish to ignore, is how big business is finally, inexorably forcing small farmers off their land, so that everything we eat, like everything we wear, and everything we think will be delivered to us through an intermediary layer of machines, controlled by a few unprincipled individuals who control the machines.

I'm ignoring that, and the fact that McDonalds uses one type of potato for its fries, which now account for an enormous proportion of the potatoes grown in the world, and which, if it becomes susceptible to a particular kind of plant disease of which new ones are mutating all the time, will be subject to a massive kill-off which is likely to decimate the economies of...

I'm not going to think about that.

 

[shereads]

Speaking of farmers, here's a new thing I learned yesterday that I've decided to ignore:

The IRS under Dubya gives a tax break to purchasers of a $55,000 luxury car, the Hummer. For some reason, it's classified as a farm/utility vehicle, but the tax break is available to anybody who can afford the car. No farm required.

That's going on my Ignore Button of the Mind, right after I click Submit. Someone else can have it.

 

[Guest]

I'm not going to think about that.

Sher, you worry me. I think you know too much about the evils in the world. Stop reading about it. Read Chick-lit or the romantic poets.

Perdita

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

Speaking of farmers... The IRS under Dubya gives a tax break to purchasers of a $55,000 luxury car, the Hummer. For some reason, it's classified as a farm/utility vehicle ... to anybody who can afford the car. No farm required..

Shereads presses her IGNORE button, meanwhile in the background...


http://www.addis-welt.de/smilie/smilie/autojeep/jeepsmilierobwehrs.gif


"Green acres is the place for me.
Farm livin' is the life for me.
Land spreadin' out so far and wide
Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside.

New York is where I'd rather stay.
I get allergic smelling hay.
I just adore a penthouse view.
Dah-ling I love you but give me Park Avenue.

...The chores.
...The stores.
...Fresh air.
...Times Square

You are my wife.
Good bye, city life.
Green Acres we are there."

 

[tolyk]

Not for any reason whatsoever, I have never paid any attention to the world around me. Until this year, I did not watch any sort of news channel, even local. But the thing is, you still hear about it anyways, because of course, some people just don't have anything else to talk about. There are people out there who make it their life's work to spread the news and fear in others. Or when there is no recent news, well thats when they spread the gossip instead. I ignore that..

From the things I have gone through in life, I have learned that it is much better for me to just live my life the way I have been rather than to get involved in everyone elses battles.. Doesn't mean I don't care about people, I help people all the time. I've saved lives, I've changed lives (For better or worse I never know, but they were all heading for death, so I generally feel it is for better)... One person can make a difference in this world, even if it is just by helping one other person.. Because you never know what that person is destined to do..

I mean, really.. My life has been shitty enough.. why would I have wanted to pay attention to all the shit happening elsewhere in the world.. I knew it was happening, but I was only young, there was nothing I could do about it. Growing up, teachers would tell us that we are privledged, and we take it forgranted.. That there are children in thirld world countries dieing of hunger, who don't get an education, or a home.. Okay, was this supposed to make us study harder? To feel bad for these other kids, or to feel better about ourselves being privledged? Life went on.. I always knew I didn't have the worst life out there, I never claimed too.. but I couldn't be worrying about a bunch of starving children. Hell, the teachers didn't even ever teach us anything about why their economy was bad, about why their countries were in those kinds of conditions.



So, yes.. I ignore. I ignore a lot. I ignore people who think I think I'm better than them. If they think that, they don't know me. I ignore our past, because there are enough who know our past, and I will never be in a position of authority where it will make a damned difference, what do I need to know about the past for. What I pay attention to, is my life. The here and now. What I have been through, what I have done to get here, and who I have become through it all. The only question that I have that is unanswered through-out it all: Is my brother proud of who I've become? Is he still out there somewhere watching over me, and smiling?


And noone can answer that question, because there is incredible controversy over afterlife issues.. and everyone is full of bullshit. I like a quote from Einstein..

"There are only two absolutes, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not too sure about the universe."

 

[Guest]

colly-
i worked in the ER for the last 15 years and now im caring for my bed ridden mother. what i have learned besides the fact that i love to learn, is that i can only handle so much... we all can for that matter and that fact seems to be stated frequently on this thread.

i choose to ignore the civil uprisings and war in africa. it bothers me to no end.
i choose to ignore cnn and the daily drivel brought to us courtesy of the news because i believe its not as objective as so many seem to think it is... everything is slanted

i wont pontificate on the political threads merely because i do not feel that i can be elloquent enough to post my feelings in a coherant reply.(edited to add: i read them all anyway, to learn...)

what i am trying to say is.. today, i chose to learn about the people around me.. tomorrow, i might chose to learn more about john kerry.. gatta take it one step at a time...