You are so ignorant.
Ignorance. A word that, by literal definition, means “a lack of knowledge or education,” has evolved from a concrete explanation for simply not knowing to an overused insult in everyday conversation.
Let’s say that one claims that smart people can be ignorant. Can smart people be ignorant? Of course they can. One may know every word in the English language and know every important date in history and hold a 4.0 GPA and have a high IQ level but not possess the knowledge of linear algebra.
Maybe this person never learned advanced linear algebra. Maybe they only excelled in history and English, or all other subjects except linear algebra. Does their ignorance of this subject due to lack of education make them less intelligent? Does it make them stupid?
According to modern society, yes. The word ignorant has developed into a word with such negative connotation that many seem to think it can replace other terms, such as stupid, rude, and close-minded.
One could argue that ignorance can also be associated with lack of awareness, and that lack of awareness can then be related to close-mindedness and a number of other words that imply lesser value in an individual. However, when doing so, that person is also implying that some people are ignorant while others are not.
In reality, everyone is ignorant. So why has this word evolved into an attack mechanism when the person using it is nonetheless describing themselves in the process?
I believe that the word is primarily misused because it is overused. Similarly, the overuse of words such as “literally,” “dumb,” and “retarded” is a consequence of many simply ignoring the literal definition of these words. As a result, these words have become of our everyday lexicon and are almost slang.
If used correctly, the word ignorant may be a way for a student to explain to a teacher that they do not know an answer because they missed the lesson, or for a person to ask what happened in China, because they did not yet read the news that day.
Today, though, being categorized with this word is humiliating and degrading. Other words have also become paired with the word ignorant, further perpetuating the incorrect usage.
I have heard others associate traits such as racism and homophobia with the word ignorant. One can know everything about someone else’s culture and identity and still make racist and homophobic remarks. They may choose to be racist or prejudiced because they do not agree with what the culture stands for, and therefore, see it as lesser value to their culture. On the contrary, ignorance of one’s culture can frequently be a gateway to racism, prejudice, homophobia, and a number of other things, but this does not make the word synonymous with these terms.
While disagreement and discrimination may be a result of ignorance, the two do not share the same definition as the word ignorance, and to use them interchangeably would be incorrect.
The word ignorant does not necessarily have a positive connotation, but it was not originally meant as negative. It merely represents one of the many neutral words in our language that has been misused over time.
If we continue to change the true meanings of words through our own, personalized interpretation, it detracts from our arguments and confuses what is true and what is not true. Unfortunately, the trend of exaggerating certain words to have meanings different from that of the original definition does not seem to be improving. Perhaps, this is more evidence of the “dumbing down” of our society, when what is incorrect is acceptable.
