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calendar   Thursday - May 25, 2006

An Epidemic Of Ignorance

Every once in a while I run across an editorial in one of the trade magazines that makes me wish I had written it. Mr. Gottlieb puts into words something that has bothered me for decades as I’ve watched the drama he describes unfold. This epidemic of ignorance is spreading across America and is one of the main reasons why I started this blog.

The fact is I have too much to write about here with all of the “arrogant ignorant” running around today ... and the situation is getting worse and worse every day. Too many people in positions of power are taking advantage of this epidemic to spout off all kind of nonsense, knowing that there are very few people left with enough common sense and intelligence to see through their lies.

I include Democrats and Republicans, Liberals and Conservatives, people of all stripes in those groups. We have become a nation of three kinds of people: (1) those who lie for personal gain, (2) those who are too stupid to know they’re being lied to, and (3) the rest of us. Guess which one of those groups is in the minority ...

imageimageThe Arrogance Of Ignorance
A new generation of the serenely clueless is
ready, willing and able to destroy your company

Jan, 18, 2006

By Mark Gottlieb (INDUSTRY WEEK)

Your livelihood and your future are both in peril. The threat you face derives not from any external factors that may affect your company. Instead, it comes from your own employees.

The deadliest business hazard of our time is the result of a sea change in the American approach to education that occurred early in the 1970s.

Across the United States, conventional educational standards were tossed out the window, replaced with feel-good theories like “whole-language learning” that emphasized personal fulfillment over the accumulation of hard knowledge.

As a result, we now have two generations of men and women who expect gold stars not for succeeding, but simply for trying.

And, sometimes, merely for showing up. In Great Britain, even primary school students can name all the monarchs of England. How many American children can name the capital of their own state? In India, the study of mathematics is practically a religion. In the United States, how many retail clerks can make change without relying on a calculator?

In Germany, vocational education is a rigorous and honorable pursuit, producing highly qualified workers and tradesmen. In the U.S.A., people actually boast about their inability to deal with anything mechanical. But sheer stupidity is not the greatest danger presented by the current crop of blank slates. It is the arrogance bred of ignorance that constitutes an unparalleled descent into goofiness.

In the long-dead past, incompetents generally recognized their own incapacity and behaved accordingly. Today, every jackass sees himself as a genius, and every fool fancies herself a philosopher. Once, a young colleague at a major firm accosted me in tones of confusion and desperation. “Mark! Mark!” she called as I walked past her office door. “When was World War II?”

I thought at first that she was joking, but, alas, she was not. The deadliest global conflict in human history had somehow escaped her notice. Yet if I had asked if she honestly believed she deserved her B.A. and felt qualified to perform her job, she would have been gravely insulted and likely kicked me until I was dead. Like the pod people of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the arrogantly ignorant appear at first glance as normal as you or me. But beware.

The most profound risk they represent springs not from their cluelessness, but from their inability to recognize their own limitations. Such blind hubris can lead to monumental errors of judgment, grotesque mistakes, and the refusal to accept—despite a mountain of evidence—that the strategy they are pursuing may be leading your organization off a cliff. When people like that are in your employ, it is you, not they, who suffer the consequences.

These days, the arrogance of ignorance is so pervasive that I feel confident in making a small wager: Ten bucks says that the worst offenders will read these words and wonder, “Who is this joker talking about?” If characters like that work for your company—brother, you’re in for a world of hurt.


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Posted by The Skipper   United States  on 05/25/2006 at 03:42 AM   
Filed Under: • Editorials •  
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:
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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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Oh, and here's some kind of visitor flag counter thingy. Hey, all the cool blogs have one, so I should too. The Visitors Online thingy up at the top doesn't count anything, but it looks neat. It had better, since I paid actual money for it.
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