enlightened conflict spokespeople

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

Martin Luther King Jr.

“No wealth like education and no poverty like ignorance”
Ali ibn Abi Talib

So. I just had a conversation with a friend and used one of these spokespeople quotes and realized I had never posted these quotes.

Anyway. As typical of most of my friends he is smarter than I and we had a great debate on teaching the next generation of kids the ‘right things.’  While both of us are frustrated with some things going on in the world today and educating our children … I suggested (as I do with most of us old folk) to quit blaming technology for ‘keeping kids inside’ and ‘not teaching them the basics’ and recognize that technology (and the web) simply represents this generation’s opportunity to be a better version of us. So rather than look backwards for ‘the way we used to do it’ (of which I do agree some things could be quite useful) instead we recognize that it is about tradeoffs.

We cannot have everything.

But we should never sacrifice encouraging curiosity (or ending ignorance whenever possible).

Technology/internet will permit a generation of kids to be significantly better than us at a variety of things (thinking multi dimensionally, visual interpretation, iterative thinking, assimilating possibly distracting factoids and laser like quick concentration translating into an action, etc.).

We just need to figure out what is gained and what is lost and manage the opportunity so kids benefit in the best way possible.

What we did agree on.

Ignorance is like poverty. Knowledge is good (to quote Faber College motto – Animal House reference). And we need to figure out how to feed kids with information and learning so that they can be as wealthy knowledge wise as possible.

I know like to encourage intellectual curiosity and the constant pursuit of knowledge (or just simply learning new things whether they be considered true ‘knowledge’ or not) but I imagine, more importantly, that I abhor ignorance. I love that Martin Luther King calls it conscientious stupidity.  And sincere ignorance. Awesome. There are the people who are sincere with their “beliefs” … beliefs based on either a highly biased or an ignorant point of view. Those are dangerous people. Hence my ongoing encouragement for learning and curiosity so that our conflicting point of views can be debated in an enlightened way.

These are great quotes. While I may argue that in the second quote it should be ‘knowledge’ instead of ‘education’ that is quibbling. What I do love about the second quote is ignorance being poverty. I had never thought of it that way before.

Anyway. For those interested, Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib was the first divine Imam of Islam. He was a cousin of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, as well as Muhammad’s son-in-law. While Martin Luther King was not a strict Christian (he certainly believed the Bible was fallible) I do like that a Reverend and an Imam say essentially the same thing.

So. With all that said.

Here are two of my spokespersons for Enlightened Conflict. Everyone read and then stand and applaud.