Willful Ignorance

There is a unique cultural myth in our country that ignorance is better than knowledge, that blind beliefs are the essence of real folks, that learning and critical thinking are the phony attributes of snobs.

I am reminded of my father’s phrase, ‘willful ignorance’. It is the one flaw he saw in his adopted homeland, a cultural stamp of approval for know-nothings by the demagogues who use them. He insured his children never bought that easy lie, mostly by example but also through books, newspapers, discussions, debates. For he loved to learn and think.

Two stories, one about my father Dick, the second about his brother Dave in Ireland, illustrate the values that come not from the place or circumstance of birth but from open, energetic minds eager to learn new things and improve on the old.

I was away at college, yes first in the family, when my father got called to jury duty. On trial was a local student who bought marijuana in a police sting. Well, the prosecutors thought that they’d got an easy bunch of jurors, mostly Irish & Italian-Americans, working guys, church goers, family men. Instead, they got ‘real folk’ who weighed the consequences of one foolish act on one kid’s entire life. They didn’t convict him. I won’t say my father was proud. Rather he was confident that doing good was more important than looking good. ‘Now why would you want to turn that boy bad?’ asked Dad. How right he was.

Recently I visited Ireland where my cousin Mary and I swapped favorite stories about two brothers, long dead. Their village was roiled by a scandal years ago. A local girl had an illegitimate child. People took sides. Several townsfolk who were quick to condemn had held jobs in bigger cities, or gone to the States, or England to work. Dave always replied when he heard such talk. “That girl is a good mother.” How right he was too.

I often ponder what Dad & Dave would think of the disintegration of public education here and the culture that trumpets it.

These days I teach part time at a state college, the last chance for many young people to move up. Lately our education system appears to be transforming itself into a system of predation. Students are stalked by fake institutions, fake grades, fake degrees, fake promises of security. Instead, debts and loans bind them like indentured servants while preparing them for nothing but dead end futures. Huge profits are reaped from dumbed down courses and doctored tests. Critics are labeled snobs. Unemployed grads are cajoled.

I reject the false claim that mediocre is the real spirit of America. That isn’t what got us this far; it certainly won’t get us where we next need to go. Education must not be a financial bonanza for the few and the next generation’s shabby substitute for real opportunity and real success, the essence of the American Dream for every arrival, from the beginning onward.