Does Knowledge Always Abolish Ignorance?

Just because someone is educated, does it mean that they are not ignorant. Ignorance is not automatically banished by education or knowledge. Education and knowledge only provide a pathway away from ignorance, but whether we choose to walk it or not is often our choice. In "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz," Percy goes to one of the best schools in the world, yet follows his father into the mountain, straight to his death. If education and knowledge were able to banish ignorance, Percy would've seen that if they blew up the mountain above them, they would be buried alive. But he doesn't. He has the education and knowledge to know enough about why that is a bad idea, yet he remains ignorant. So why do we say that education and knowledge are the best ways to fight ignorance?

Knowledge and education help us see and maybe understand why certain things in the world are the way they are, but people can't be forced to use it. For example, Percy followed his father into the mountain, possibly knowing what might happen to them, yet he didn't say anything because the risk of giving up his life was worth it if it meant that there was a chance of saving their wealth from the aviators. However, I believe that Percy remained oblivious to the possible consequences on purpose because he thought he knew what he was doing. 

Ignorance occurs and spreads when people think that they are knowledgeable about something, when they truly know nothing. 

Journey to the Past

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

          -The Great Gatsby (p180)

The straightforward, black and white reality of this quote is that we often try to propel ourselves into the past or try to make the past our present. The truth is we turn back to our past because we know its outcome. We don't usually think of how we can change our present through our future, but rather how we could've changed our present through our past. For example, when I receive a test back, and look through the questions I got wrong, I see the mistakes that I could've avoided, not how I can prevent them in the future. 

So often we get stuck thinking about the things that we could've improved that we stop working to change the future that will soon be our present. Even being aware that I look back at the past often, I cannot stop myself from doing so. It has become a reflex that we revert to all the time. And so we keep moving backward into the past without glancing to the future that awaits us.

We have to train ourselves, push ourselves, and override the default setting of our brains to be able to move forward and change our future. We are all humans. We make the impossible possible, so why can't we seem to move our heads out of our pasts? Why can't we seem to change the boats direction towards the future? 

High school girls learn the art of automobile mechanics. Left to right: Grace Hurd, Evelyn Harrison, and Corinna DiJiulian, with Grace Wagner (under car), at Central High, Wash. D.C.

This picture was taken in 1927, during the modernist movement. This was a time period right after the first World War where social norms were challenged and redefined. Women were in work fields that had been traditionally male-dominated, and wanted to stay in those fields. When the men had left to fight in the war, the women had taken responsibility for the labor that needed to be done and the jobs that needed to be filled. As a result, after the war, women were still in these fields, still doing labor, and wanted to continue. World War I ended in 1918, and this picture shows four high school girls working on an automobile. When the war ended, the girls were likely about nine years old, not old enough to have been working in work fields during the war. They aren't the women that had been in male-dominated work fields and wanted to stay, they are women that wanted in on the jobs. They are interested to learn and are actively trying to seek an education in the field so that they can work as new employees in these fields.

Another thing aspect of this photo that I found intriguing was the title. The title clearly lists the names of every girl in the picture. Many photos we see of women in history are unnamed, unless the woman is famous. However, the names of the girls in this photo are not ones well-known through history, yet are specifically mentioned. This shows that the photographer willingly acknowledged the people in this photo as people in real training of the arts, showing us that the photograph was not staged, that it was legitimate.