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If you don't get, then you don't get it

proteanmix

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The Washington Post has the slogan "If you don't get it, you don't get it."

You could respond to that by saying "If you don't know to know, you still don't know, so 'getting it' is basically moot." This basically means if you're not exposed to something to know it exists, it essentially doesn't exist to you. I don't think you can necessarily fault a person because of their lack of exposure to things.

I'm wondering what are the parameters of what is reasonable and fair to expect people to know about their immediate surroundings and the world beyond and how much responsibility does a person have to knowing about it. Basically, how responsible are you for your own education/ignorance and the initiative you take towards correcting it? How much of it is beyond you? How do you go about knowing what you are ignorant of? If you don't conceive of yourself of being ignorant of certain things, how do you confirm you are not? How do you test your own knowledge? This is not contained to intellectual pursuits, btw.

I'm not really talking about being an inquisitive person, I'm more talking about levels of exposure to begin the process of learning about what you don't know. This is also connected to getting yourself out of your comfort zone so you can get exposed to what you don't know about. How do you go about this process?

Eek, I hope I'm making sense!
 

Jeffster

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I don't get it.






(Come on, you knew I was gonna say that!) ;)
 

Anja

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I get it, but nobody ever listens to me, so I'm not going to tell. :smile:
 

Wild horses

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It's important to get out of your comfort zone... but I only started to do that because I encountered things that were out of my comfort zone to start the process and now I seek it out... I don't know... if you don't get that opportunity then can you really be blamed for it.. however, there is an issue here of how realistic such a scenario is in an age when communication is making the world smaller and smaller and people can have access to remote ideas, places and people at the click of a button... However, there are people without that access I appreciate this... I am talking largely here baout the developed world.. also is 'ignorance' a bad thing?? I think it's received bad press!
 

Mole

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It's important to get out of your comfort zone... but I only started to do that because I encountered things that were out of my comfort zone to start the process and now I seek it out... I don't know... if you don't get that opportunity then can you really be blamed for it.. however, there is an issue here of how realistic such a scenario is in an age when communication is making the world smaller and smaller and people can have access to remote ideas, places and people at the click of a button... However, there are people without that access I appreciate this... I am talking largely here baout the developed world.. also is 'ignorance' a bad thing?? I think it's received bad press!

The same space can be infinitely divided - and the more divisions, the more space.

Take a tree - it creates spaces within its branches and leaves - and the more branches, the more spaces.

The internet is the same. It is making the world larger by creating more spaces - an almost infinite amount.

The greatest luxury is space - whether created by a tree or the internet.
 

Mole

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The greatest luxury is space - whether created by a tree or the internet.

And there is only two things - time and space.

And we have conquered space with the internet, so what about time?

Look around you - everyone is time poor - everyone has only 24 hours in a day.

Little do they know that you can slow time down - you can even stop time.

But no one has the time to do this.

How can we resolve this paradox?
 

CzeCze

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You know honestly, this reminds me of the term "Don't pee on my leg and then tell me it's raining"

It's like when 2 people who strongly know their world view is correct argue with each other till blue in the face.

It's true -- if you don't get it, you don't get it.

But, hopefully and usually there is a long process of trying to educate and be educated before you get there.

It's like "it is, what it is". What is that?
 
Last edited:

maerzhase

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The Washington Post has the slogan "If you don't get it, you don't get it."



I'm wondering what are the parameters of what is reasonable and fair to expect people to know about their immediate surroundings and the world beyond and how much responsibility does a person have to knowing about it. Basically, how responsible are you for your own education/ignorance and the initiative you take towards correcting it? How much of it is beyond you? How do you go about knowing what you are ignorant of? If you don't conceive of yourself of being ignorant of certain things, how do you confirm you are not? How do you test your own knowledge? This is not contained to intellectual pursuits, btw.

I'm not really talking about being an inquisitive person, I'm more talking about levels of exposure to begin the process of learning about what you don't know. This is also connected to getting yourself out of your comfort zone so you can get exposed to what you don't know about. How do you go about this process?

Eek, I hope I'm making sense!

I think I know what you mean. I wish people would have that drive to educate themselves and therefore make life easier for the rest of us. Most people will probably need a crisis to push them out of their comfort zone. Some people might be curious by nature.
I love to read biographies of famous people that contributed their knowledge or art to our society. One thing I noticed is, that they rarely had a comfortable or normal upbringing. So clearly they were pushed by circumstances to develop other aspects of their personality and that helped them to achieve exceptional results. I think you can't make the individual responsible for just sticking with the things and knowledge they are familiar with. After all it has worked for them in the past. Still I think governments should be held responsible to provide a good education to everybody and should intervene if parents don't or can't offer it to their offspring.
 

Nadir

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As Socrates purportedly said: "I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing." How does this relate? Well, I don't think I would be very off in saying that humans don't normally think they are ignorant (or any other negative quality). So on an individual level you can't really have an expectation of people educating themselves, because they will already think themselves educated. Society thinks differently, though, and as part of the education and achievement competitions, has that expectation ingrained in all of us, and we'll happily reflect that onto others, stressing the need for a good education, political awareness, and whatnot (because that's what society rewards, very generally speaking). Now to go about correcting actual problems requires personal creativity and vision, so that's even less to be expected, as even society can't force that down your throat. However, depeding on the individuals' intelligence, upbringing, life experiences etc, and combined with education, this can also be achieved. I just don't think it's a very real expectation.

What about the slogan "If you don't get it, then you don't get it."? Well, I've already said that we humans don't normally think we're ignorant. So the slogan becomes an effective provoker: "But what if you are? Read and find out!", it says. We therefore accept this challenge (or not) and read it. Does it do much good? Well, as another result of us thinking we're free of ignorance, there's also a fondness for substituting knowledge with opinion. If you ask a person why he doesn't read books, he might say that he simply hasn't picked up the habit -- or that he can form his own opinions and ideas without them. We're always looking for a way out. So even if the newspaper isn't particularly enlightening, (this isn't to say that newspapers are universally gibberish or anything) chances are that we'll think we're better for the experience even though that's most likely an illusion of having formed an opinion out of gas. In the meantime we help the newspaper propogate and their owners make money. So I guess this slogan is more economically motivated than anything. :)
 

Kangirl

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This basically means if you're not exposed to something to know it exists, it essentially doesn't exist to you. I don't think you can necessarily fault a person because of their lack of exposure to things.

I agree with this, I think. There's a difference between ignorance and stupidity*. One's personal values are going to contribute towards ignorance levels (some people are more naturally curious than others) as are one's circumstances (internet access, access to travel, education etc.). Ignorance doesn't, on it's own, bother me. We're all ignorant to some degree or another. Of many things.

Kind of related to what CzeCze was saying - there is a definite tendency to immediately label the opinions and beliefs of others as stupidity, if they don't agree with your own opinions and beliefs. One of the most obvious examples of this is US politics. Both sides have large factions that are completely convinced that those on the other side believe what they believe because they're *stupid*. This is, imo, a harmful thing. It cancels out meaningful discussion. But this is probably slightly O/T.

Btw, CzeCze, I love your quote. :)

EDIT:

*I have examples! From my real life!

Ignorance = "I have never been to Japan, know nothing about Japanese cuisine and have never tried sushi"

Stupidity = "Sushi is wrapped in grape leaves" (this coming from a 45 yr. old world traveling PhD who has been to Japan 3 times, loves sushi, and lives in an international-calibre city). HOW CAN YOU THINK SUSHI IS WRAPPED IN GRAPE LEAVES YOU TOTAL IDIOT?!! OK, maybe this is just me being a worked-up, spazzy ENTJ but oh boy I wanted to slap him. :D
 

CzeCze

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EDIT:

*I have examples! From my real life!

Ignorance = "I have never been to Japan, know nothing about Japanese cuisine and have never tried sushi"

Stupidity = "Sushi is wrapped in grape leaves" (this coming from a 45 yr. old world traveling PhD who has been to Japan 3 times, loves sushi, and lives in an international-calibre city). HOW CAN YOU THINK SUSHI IS WRAPPED IN GRAPE LEAVES YOU TOTAL IDIOT?!! OK, maybe this is just me being a worked-up, spazzy ENTJ but oh boy I wanted to slap him. :D

LOLOLOL, omg, he's thinking about greek dolma HAHAHAH or else he's thinking about rice wrapped in shisho (mint) leaves.
 

ThatsWhatHeSaid

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Cuz if you don't know, now you know, n****a.

beat.gif
 

nozflubber

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Why would a human being be responsible for his or her own ignorance? I think that is a very dangerous avenue to go down - what, are colorblind people responsible for not seeing reds vs browns? And no they AREN'T all that different if you realize a truly IGNORANT person has no clue or motivation of how to get out of ignorance to begin with. A colorblind person isn't responsible for inventing the technology or uncovering the science behind color generation to fix his/her ailment, either.... both are absurd!

The only logical direction of "responsibility" in this case is the government. Awareness campagins/education incentives, or there lack therof, is what we need to critque to solve the problems you address, my good MotherGoose!
 
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