That’s just you interpreting the ignorance as malice.
Ignorance and malice, on subject/circumstance X, are mutually exclusive. One requires knowledge to be malicious—in other words, one can’t act with malice unless one knows and understands what they are inflicting upon the ‘target’.
And ignorance is by definition a lack of knowledge.
Aware of one’s ignorance and refusing to do anything about it.
This isn’t malice.
I’m aware that I’m ignorant in matters of quantum mechanics, and I’m deliberately keeping it that way, because I’m simply not interested in learning about it.
That’s not malicious of me.
You may be interpreting that sort of thing as malicious when the thing the person is ignorant of is something that you believe they should want to learn about (which is a subjective matter by definition). But that doesn’t change the motivation of the person’s actions—it’s their motivation, and nothing else, that determines whether an act is malicious, not how you feel about it.
I’m aware that I’m ignorant in matters of quantum mechanics, and I’m deliberately keeping it that way, because I’m simply not interested in learning about it.
That’s not malicious of me.
I agree. Entirely.
If you were to then advocate against QM, decrying it as nonsense, that would be malicious ignorance.
An example from my own school years might help. I had some smart (genuinely very clever) friends, they were evangelical Christians, which was fine until we start studying evolution in biology. They literally repeatedly stood up in class and shouted that there’s “no proof of evolution” and got very angry. They did this because their child-aged minds couldn’t reconcile their faith in their literal interpretation of their holy book and scientific evidence. They reaction was to maliciously attack science as a whole. That is malicious ignorance.
A counter example is a colleague from years ago, a young-earther Christian, never once attacked any contrary opinions or statements. He was really cool, open and honest about what he believed, had absolute confidence in his faith, didn’t push that on anyone.
I’m not trying to claim that all ignorance is malicious, and apologize if that’s how my previous argument has come across.
They literally repeatedly stood up in class and shouted that there’s “no proof of evolution” and got very angry. They did this because their child-aged minds couldn’t reconcile their faith in their literal interpretation of their holy book and scientific evidence. They reaction was to maliciously attack science as a whole. That is malicious ignorance.
No, it isn’t. There is no ignorance in what you described above. They’re not ignorant of the aforementioned “scientific evidence”—they’re aware of, and deliberately rejecting that evidence, because accepting it would interfere with their pre-existing assumptions, and they don’t want to confront that (very common human phenomenon in general, by the way, confirmation bias is a hell of a drug that very few people successfully work to even begin to avoid, let alone completely avoid).
Actually, this isn’t malice either. Malice is, by definition, a willful commission of harm, typically upon at least one other person (you could argue that in a way, self-harm is ‘malicious’, but colloquially, only harm directed at others is ever really considered “malicious”). When you break it down, getting defensive over having your biases be challenged by evidence is an act of (albeit misguided) self-preservation. It’s a fear reaction to their own psyches. Those friends didn’t get angry with the intent to harm themselves, or others, they were trying to bail their own brains out of having to deal with a contradiction/dissonance!
can it? I’ve never been able to convince someone that other people exist and have value. it seems like people who grow up without that tend to stay that way. how do you correct that?
I’m not saying ignorant people are malicious; just that malicious people tend to be ignorant.
That’s just you interpreting the ignorance as malice.
Ignorance and malice, on subject/circumstance X, are mutually exclusive. One requires knowledge to be malicious—in other words, one can’t act with malice unless one knows and understands what they are inflicting upon the ‘target’.
And ignorance is by definition a lack of knowledge.
One can be maliciously ignorant. Aware of one’s ignorance and refusing to do anything about it.
Anti-science religious people for example.
This isn’t malice.
I’m aware that I’m ignorant in matters of quantum mechanics, and I’m deliberately keeping it that way, because I’m simply not interested in learning about it.
That’s not malicious of me.
You may be interpreting that sort of thing as malicious when the thing the person is ignorant of is something that you believe they should want to learn about (which is a subjective matter by definition). But that doesn’t change the motivation of the person’s actions—it’s their motivation, and nothing else, that determines whether an act is malicious, not how you feel about it.
I agree. Entirely.
If you were to then advocate against QM, decrying it as nonsense, that would be malicious ignorance.
An example from my own school years might help. I had some smart (genuinely very clever) friends, they were evangelical Christians, which was fine until we start studying evolution in biology. They literally repeatedly stood up in class and shouted that there’s “no proof of evolution” and got very angry. They did this because their child-aged minds couldn’t reconcile their faith in their literal interpretation of their holy book and scientific evidence. They reaction was to maliciously attack science as a whole. That is malicious ignorance.
A counter example is a colleague from years ago, a young-earther Christian, never once attacked any contrary opinions or statements. He was really cool, open and honest about what he believed, had absolute confidence in his faith, didn’t push that on anyone.
I’m not trying to claim that all ignorance is malicious, and apologize if that’s how my previous argument has come across.
No, it isn’t. There is no ignorance in what you described above. They’re not ignorant of the aforementioned “scientific evidence”—they’re aware of, and deliberately rejecting that evidence, because accepting it would interfere with their pre-existing assumptions, and they don’t want to confront that (very common human phenomenon in general, by the way, confirmation bias is a hell of a drug that very few people successfully work to even begin to avoid, let alone completely avoid).
Actually, this isn’t malice either. Malice is, by definition, a willful commission of harm, typically upon at least one other person (you could argue that in a way, self-harm is ‘malicious’, but colloquially, only harm directed at others is ever really considered “malicious”). When you break it down, getting defensive over having your biases be challenged by evidence is an act of (albeit misguided) self-preservation. It’s a fear reaction to their own psyches. Those friends didn’t get angry with the intent to harm themselves, or others, they were trying to bail their own brains out of having to deal with a contradiction/dissonance!
I think ignorance of things like the value of life or the individuality of others excuses them from the empathy we have for the stupid
That can be corrected though, it’s willful ignorance should not be tolerated.
can it? I’ve never been able to convince someone that other people exist and have value. it seems like people who grow up without that tend to stay that way. how do you correct that?
The person has to want to be better. Not everyone does. Especially when their faults form part of their identity.
I guess when I meet adults like that this is usually the case
It seems to be, increasingly, the case in my experience too.