Ignorance

I'll go out on a limb and say something really obvious -- I don't understand the glucose cycle or how a dvd player works or how structural engineers determine wind resistance in skyscrapers. And, as I've been trying to self-teach myself Dreamweaver this week, I've been getting the distressing feeling that my brain is about filled up.

But, after a little thought and reading a column by Bob Herbert, I think the story of the last election might actually be the celebration of willful ignorance both by our media and our politicians. It's necessary, to function in society, to pick and choose what we're going to be ignorant about. The question of why so many people have chosen to be willfully ignorant about George Bush -- to believe comforting but patently false truisms about the most important issues in their lives -- points to a level of complacency in our society that even 9/11 was not able to shatter. And it's a complacency constantly reinforced by those who stand to gain from it.

I'd write more, but I actually have some work to get done ...

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