The Age of Ignorance

Every age is personified with a title like the Industrial Age, Dark Age, Iron Age, etc. They subtly denote what was driving human kind then or the general mood or state of life that made a man’s day during those times.  Time as an idea/concept/quantity always is the same, while what men did/do with it in a particular period of time matters in the making of an age. Our age, as people mostly tag is the ‘Age of Information’. Sorry, but many fail to understand the depth of this phrase or why our age is named so.

There are two aspects to any age, which will be discussed, that will conclude why this is also the Age of Ignorance. First will be the information accessibility and then man’s strength to tolerate, purse, persevere & then persist beyond his time. While it may seem like many of the other apparent factors like money, material, technology, etc. which seem very influential in each age was neglected in this article, but all of this are just the means to an age but they don’t define the age itself. Man’s mind above all shapes any age; we shall see it.

Information Accessibility:

Information is wealth, an old adage goes so. All ages are marked by men who shaped it with their vision, innovation or invention. Something they found out, which others missed, made a huge difference. A single idea, a thought (later extrapolated) reshaped the way men saw things. Men started seeing things in a different light, the way the discoverer alone did, initially. This idea or concept gives the information which modifies our viewpoint, when it’s logically convincing for us. Take gravity for an example. Not all, but most of us, still relate it to g, the way Newton defined it as. Likewise, even in a concept as deeply rooted as religion, we follow saints, prophets or spiritual texts that shape the way we see God. This shows the value of information in all the ages. This information was not freely available in all the ages prior to ours.

Two reasons can be attributed to this. One: In the first place, it was yet to be discovered I.e. no information. Two: People who knew it didn’t want to share it I.e. inaccessible information. Although the first seems like it can be waived off, it will form the key to the next part of our discussion; man’s perseverance. The latter is that, men who had information tried to keep it to themselves with their life. People died for information. It is not unheard of in early times; spies, snoopers and betrayers. While some information are meant to be confidential, like a military attack plan (which even now are), some can and should be shared, for the thirst of a man who can become an innovator himself. Now in our age, any one can refer a website or book to know what calculus is; it could be astonishing, but true, that ages before, when men (belonging to a different race, cult or sect) dearly wanted to know/learn calculus, were not taught by men who knew it. It was something among the elite few; you can call them scientists, groups, societies, etc.

Another point is that, dissemination/passing of information even if one wanted to, was difficult in those ages. Take the Dark Age for instance. When a loyal minister comes to know about an assassination plan to kill the king in 5 days, all he can still do is only send a messenger to make it known to the king, and only to the king, for a leak (even to the queen) may cost dearly; any other knowing it will spoil it for both sides; also the messenger should be one of the most loyal and a fast one, for even 5 days might not be enough to scale the land by horse. There is no room for anxiety, hurry, etc. since the time it will take is that time it’s going to take, there was no faster way to do it; no optimizations. So even after knowing this piece of information, the minister needn’t live in a state of anxiety. They had time to live life slowly, no cellphones, no hurried/fast life.

In our age, it is all about information. We thrive on information, we live on it, we’re always connected, even on the move; a digital revolution, so to speak. Sending information secretly is a walk in the park, they say these days. We have the telephones, emails, messengers and a plethora of other means, with which we can convey information in the fraction of a second. In fact, dissipating information became so easy that people have their own blog spaces where they can write about anything they want to sell out. Are all of them listened to? That is a different question.

But the truth still remains; information didn’t roam freely then. What I know, my father doesn’t, what my father comprehends, my grand dad doesn’t. We say, they lived in those obscure times, when they just took care of their field of information and lived with it. While today, we can know what cancer is, or what the design blueprint of a camera is, what is the percentage of uranium that goes inside an A-bomb. Even though in some ages (like the industrial age), these information were available (the author never denies it didn’t), it was not easily accessible or readily available in the intake able state, to the common man. He needs to search a lot to get/understand it. On the contrary, for us this is just a few clicks away; hence the name ‘Information Age’.

Man’s Perseverance to Learn:

As aforementioned, men’s dying for information shows how much he was ready to learn. It went to the extent that they made slaves out of man, due to the result of him being uninformed. Still, men of those times wanted to learn, wanted to know. It is this thirst of theirs that defined their ages. Take for instance Einstein, he didn’t have a proper schooling, which most people do have now (I mean, who live digitally and ramble about info ago), in spite of that, his thirst for physics made him learn what was so distant to a person as him in his early age. Man had the thirst and the attention to look for the details, that which interested him. Even in the state of no information did he find information (all the inventions like telephone, atomic nucleus, etc. display this). As mentioned man’s ability to tolerate, purse, persevere & then persist mattered. First, they had lot of tolerance to learn what seemed boring and unimportant to many, and then they had pursued and persevered their dreams, see it through to success, which made them stand out and made their name to still live on. Above all men were patient then.

Now, in our age, information is everywhere. How many pay attention and read? Man’s this ability to persevere has diminished as much as information accessibility has increased. Coming to tolerance, when you write an article of 11 paragraphs and ask your friends to read it, how many tend to read it fully. They just say, “it’s good, I glanced it, but it’s too long, perhaps when I’m free I’ll go thru’”. (If you are reading this till here, I’m glad you are not whom I’m talking about.) We want everything to be fast, easy and ours. Or else we tag it as “Oh BORING!”, “Oh com’ on, cut to the chase!” and so on. Old fashioned ways of getting the full essence of a happening and replying are gone. People want everything now, everything easy, to put their listening or pursuing senses to sleep. This explains that man is now more of a relaxing creature (looking forward to weekends) with all the information out there, waiting to be read.

Conclusion:

This brings us back to the indelible fact that we are ignorant. If you argue we are not, say for all the information available amongst us, if we had that ability to pursue like our fathers did, why we see a lot of commotions, arguments and lesser sane men in the world. How many new innovations did we hear compared to what we heard during the WWII times? Back then hobby outlets were few, entertaining and also educating. People read a lot of books or played games; as in physical sports or mind games (like chess); they understood more out of life. Youngsters these days, want fast entertainment. The author of this article mostly hears suggestions like “Reading is boring, lets watch a movie or play a computer game!”. When you read, you need to engage all your senses with your mind. Mind controls sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. It requires lot of will to do so (which is a sort of meditation, concentration or focus); by listening to music, thru’ the sense of hearing all other senses are entertained; but movies and virtual games, are the least amount of work/perseverance required of all entertainment forms, as it entertains most of our senses (primarily the important ones – sight and hearing). These days, people who have a hobby of reading are lesser, than people who listen to music, who in turn are lesser than people who have a habit of watch movies or play virtual games.

From inter-continental wars to common house rows, problem roots from misunderstanding or intolerance. Why? We are not listening, not looking enough for the information we need. Even though all information is available out there for us to read, we tend to ignore. Many a time, the author of this article has seen friends arguing about the same idea without knowing it; they did not know/understand what they are fighting for or against. We presume, we tend to ignore, it’s because impatience is the word of this era. We live in an age where people can’t wait. When the first processor was fast, we wanted it faster. We leapt from seconds to milli, micro, nano and now pico-seconds. But whatever the speed of computers are, as long as we, as men, don’t slow down to be more receptive, more willing to learn, understand more from Mother Nature, we will tend to have more and more information (with a few churning them out) and a lot less readers, and more confusions, for we are living in the Age of Ignorance.

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