Militant Ignorance

My family has always been puzzling to me. Even as a child, I couldn’t understand why they weren’t concerned with ANSWERS and TRUTH. I know it’s a Scorpio obsession to always want to know the Truth no matter what, but my family is the poster child for the term “militantly ignorant”.

They pride themselves on the fact that they know little and plan to keep it that way. As I was pondering this the other day, I started coming up with slogans for them:

“Avoiding knowledge since 1953!”
“We don’t know how to spell and we’re damn glad of it!”
“We learn all we need to know from Fox News!”
“Directions are for pussies. Just make shit up like we do!”
“We can’t pronounce more than 2 syllables! Any more than that is a waste of time anyway!”
“We won’t leave East Tennessee because pollution and cancer are government hoaxes!”
“College is stupid. We don’t know nothin’ and we turned out OK!”

My mind raced with the possibilities. I know it’s mean, but goddam it’s TRUE.

My family is offended if you try to offer up any sort of information about anything. If they mispronounce something (culBert rather than culVert or TyDenol rather than TyLenol or should’ve WENT rather than should’ve GONE) they get totally riled up if you correct them. My mother will pitch a screaming fit if you remind her that East Tennessee is one of the top 10 areas for pollution and Oak Ridge National Labs has dumped more toxins into the ground water than I really care to think about. She will stridently deny that any of that has any bearing whatsoever on the fact that just about every family member has died from some stripe of cancer. It’s insane!

My family would DIE before they’d look up something they don’t know. I suppose they think that if they don’t know it already, it really doesn’t matter. My mother and father both have ongoing medical issues, yet they can never tell me what meds they take. My mother gets very pissy if I ask what she’s on and what it’s for. She’ll say, “well, the Dr gave it to me, so it must be something I need.” WTF?

My brother does so much stupid shit I can’t even begin to list it here. He just does stupid shit until something bad happens then it’s considered a great story that can be told again and again. Oy!

The notion that there are actually rules of grammar, pronounciation, driving, going to school and the myriad other things that require some sort of ORDER is quite beyond them. The notion that you can look up anything you need to know online or ::gasp!:: in a book is just crazy talk. They simply do not care to know anything.

Militant Ignorance is not just my family, either. The truly sad thing is that there is a large portion of the population that would be right there with them. It’s stunning that so many people in this world actively fight against learning anything, EVER. These are the AOLers and the WalMart shoppers and the Hummer drivers and all the rest of the population that does not give one big shit about anything beyond their little lives and their own backyard. They think along these lines:

Q: Wanna dig up Alaska even though it has little oil to offer and it’ll trash the pristine land?
A: Why not!! We need cheap gas for this here Hummer and Alaska is always cold anyway. Fuck ’em!!

Q: WalMart kills small business and entrepreneurship everywhere it goes. Are you gonna shop at WalMart?
A: Why not!! They’s got cheap crap and all that bad press is just liberal drivel anyway!

Q: Your whole family has died of some sort of cancer. Do you think it’s the pollution and toxic groundwater in your area?
A: WHAT?? What did yew say about mah town?? I’m gonna kick yer ass!

Sounds about right, eh? Yay for the dumbing down of America. I suppose I can take solace in the fact that although my family is the poster child for Militant Ignorance, at least I’m not the only person to suffer with this burden. Even though it’s not contagious to normal people, I wish it was curable for those afflicted and I wish it wasn’t so easily passed through the genes. I can tell my brother’s daughter is well on her way to being another generation of the Militant Ignorant. Already she balks at any word more than 2 syllables.

Oh, the humanity.