Sunday, June 24, 2012

ignorance

Just this week, a friend of mine posted on Facebook (don't you just love how technology keeps us in touch?), that while shopping with her baby, a complete stranger came up to her and told her that she should get a good nutritionist for her baby to help with his weight problem.

A baby with a weight problem?  I mean, I know there are unhealthy babies in the world.  There are seriously undernourished babies and seriously overfed babies.  But after a certain age, babies are just naturally chunky little humans.  Babies are supposed to have some "meat" on them.  You know?  So telling someone that their baby has a weight problem is just completely and ridiculously rude. 

It wasn't even my baby and I am so upset by this.

It just really got me thinking about how inflated people's egos are, how people believe that whatever they think is right, and how people feel the need to thrust their opinions on to other people without thinking first.  And what's worse is those people who use their opinions and words as spears and think that whoever disagrees with them is ignorant. 

Have you ever been in a conversation like that? When you give your opinion on something and the other person says you are ignorant merely for the fact that your opinion is different?  Last time I checked, the definition of ignorance is a lack of knowledge, wisdom, and information.  So if you call someone ignorant because their opinion is different than yours, then that, my friend, makes you the ignorant one.

But I digress.

I'm not really angry at all.  I'm mostly just frustrated that people are like this.  When someone disagrees with me I want to try to help them see my views.  Not necessarily with the goal to change their mind, but with the goal to help them understand why I think the way I do.  But the second the word "ignorant" comes into play, I just shut down because there is no use discussing something with someone who really has no idea what the word "ignorant" even means. 

Is there any hope that discussions will ever be free from ridicule?

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