The main cause of ignorance is a lack of knowledge, and for me, a lack of knowledge is inexcusable. Now I know it seems ill-willed to judge a person prematurely just because he or she doesn't know about something, it may be that it just didn't pique their interest. I myself will never hold my ground in an I.T convention, nor will I ever be able to fully discuss quantum radiation dissociative constants with, well, whoever uses them. But the key to success in this world is realising one is, and should be, capable of expanding one's horizons, and furthermore, will go about doing so. A quest for knowledge was what, after all, drove our predecessors to explore the world, and it is what will continue to add direction to humanity for as long as it may endure.

So it seems strange and in all honesty, a little pointless, seeing as how many people in this world seem to not want to expand beyond a certain comfort zone. It's almst as if people are scared of knowledge, scared to be informed and to know things. Or maybe they regard knowledge as pointless? I will not begin to count the number of times I've posed an innocent trivial statement only to be rebuffed with a cold and cruel 'So?' So? So you're an idiot. Do you not care to know and learn about something so you may discuss it in a sociable context? Are you small-minded enough to feel patronised by a simple factual statement? It seems a little ironic that in a world where holding social ground is a valuable commodity, most people don't even want to utilise what should be the best initiator of a conversation.

There are only two reasons I can put this down to. Firstly people somehow feel inadequate in the presence of knowledge, so paranoid are they about someone showing them up as being shallow and uninformed that they are ready to denigrate and typify those who actually know stuff as nerds, and laugh off all semblances of intellectualism. It is a measure of present-day society when people who know stuff are a group to be laughed at. Secondly poeple will always ask this question:"What's the point?" Simple question which we'll always find ourselves posing at one point or another. What's the point? What's the point of knowing this? Does it help me with anything? You see, that's the thing with people these days. Everybody is a mercenary to society, no one wants to know something unless they can see that it'll have a tangibly beneficial effect on their lives. It shows that there really is only one motivation to living these days: money. More and more money, so we can all buy big houses and expensive stuff to show off to all our friends, so we may bask in the glory that is their eternal envy and grudging respect, if it doesn't swell the bank account or pay the dividends, it's not worth knowing.

It is so like humans these days to put a 'point' on everything, that there is a point to learning one thing and no point in learning another. The fact that we are willing to denigrate one facet of knowledge in favour of another is testament to how material-driven the human species has become. We are willing to sacrifice what may have helped our ancestors survive for thousands of years in favour of a new bank plan, or how to manage a stock portfolio. Rather than preserving its legacy and making it important for people to have an appreciation of its finely tuned beauty, we let it all go to waste. This isn't to say it isn't important knowing how to manage a stock portfolio or balance the bank accounts -it is after all, what is most 'important' to most people- but to label one facet of information as worthless at the expense of another is unjustifiable. If you don't want to know about something that's your issue, but don't try and justify your lack of desire by labeling something as pointless. All knowledge is a bridge to truth, and this 'informational discrimination', if you like, is a sign of selfishness and a hallmark of someone possessing issues with his or her own existentiality.