by Belinda Long

Created on: July 24, 2010

According to Webster, the definition of ignorance is: the lack of knowledge, education, or awareness. A person can be ignorant in many ways and none are mutually exclusive to another. I will write about 3 kinds of ignorance, and my personal definition of each.

Unintended ignorance occurs when a person is unaware of something and unaware that they should be aware. This kind of ignorance is the easiest to rectify because the person can simply be made aware. The person can be educated or self-educate in order to gain the knowledge he/she needs to have. A good example of unintended ignorance can come from one of my recent experiences. I told a friend that I have never seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show, because I cannot watch scary stuff. She then informed me that The Rocky Horror Picture Show was, in fact, not scary. That it was more a show incorporating different lifestyles into a funny musical. With awareness, I can now feel comfortable watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Unintended ignorance becomes purposeful ignorance when a person chooses not to educate themselves. This person will intentionally continue to speak as though he/she knows the facts, even knowing he/she does not, in fact, know the facts. We have all seen this kind of ignorance in action with the recent presidential campaign. It was apparent in the commercials that cited only half the facts (the facts the party wanted you to know) or in the media coverage that covered 2 sentences of an entire speech and criticized those statements publicly without allowing the public to hear the speech in it's entirety. This is purposeful ignorance on the side of the media.

Finally, there is lazy ignorance. Lazy ignorance is just a branch off purposeful ignorance. The person who succumbs to lazy ignorance is the worst kind. This person may be aware that he doesn't know all the facts, but he/she is too lazy to make himself aware. Instead the person who chooses lazy ignorance would rather share his/her opinion as he/she knows it, but may refuse to hear anything other than what he/she wants to hear. This person will vote for a president without ever looking at the issues.

There are many, many kinds of ignorance. I have only covered a few of them but I think they give you the basics about ignorance. An ignorant person not only belittles him/herself but perhaps unknowingly belittles those around him/her. This person may feed his/her own ignorance to the children around him/her, thereby creating a cycle of unintended ignorance. It is my opinion that ignorance is not merely a lack of education, knowledge or awareness, but a cycle of a lack of education, knowledge and awareness.

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