By Ustaz Mark Bang
Believe it or not, if you’re throwing a fit, you lack empathy.
Thus, you also lack intelligence. You can take all the tests you want, but if you’re absolutely clueless about how the world is working around you, you don’t know anything. I’m not saying this to defend a particular position.
I’m saying it because I’ve personally seen a dozen times when a group of people (or one person) dives in to save another group of people without understanding a single thing about them. The “savior” usually ends up making it worse for everyone. This generation doesn’t lack intelligence. It lacks empathy—true empathy—the ability to know other people on a personal level, even though you’ve never met them, which is its own form of intelligence.
Corruption denotes self-interest and the mindset to sell out one’s own siblings to achieve some nefarious goals. It speaks to a disregard of any and all people, interests, and issues but what can be bought. Illiteracy does not mean stupidity. People can still hear, feel, and know things aren’t right.
It is both personally and communally hurtful since that person and that community don’t always have access to the material needed to refine their knowledge of how to correct their complaints. And are also vulnerable to whatever the corrupt might convince them of. Here’s the difference. Without the ill will of corruption, the illiterate would be treated fairly. Taught to read and have access to learning whatever they desired to know.
Example: The U.S. public education system. Upon examination, one could start to suspect that the system prefers to have certain citizens remain uneducated and therefore, too ignorant to understand what the politicians are doing. Better that they just follow along with whatever they are told. Ignorance itself is neither immoral nor displeasurable, but acting on that ignorance can be both. It is the actions leading from the implications derived out of ignorance that lead to harm. In fact, ignorance can be blissful and pleasant, because of all of the real-life phenomena to observe, there are often unpleasantries that some find easier to ignore than others.
However, lack of action is also an act, and if failing to act does harm, arrived from lack of wisdom or knowledge, then the lack of acting was the cause of the harm. Humans do not consistently agree on whether or not acting, out of ignorance, is immoral, but we do have laws that explicitly state that acting illegally, out of ignorance of the law, is not an excuse for acting illegally; no one is arguing here that illegal = immoral.
All this being said, it complicates the answer to this question. Living with more wisdom and knowledge allows us to act more ethically when events occur that lead to such a challenge, but it doesn’t necessarily imply the converse, which is that acting ethically means we are wiser and more knowledgeable. It boils down to knowing what to do gives you the choice to act, and not knowing what to do gives you no choice but to rely only on your own intuitions (which may or may not be accurate).
One cannot claim ignorance after one has been given the knowledge, for denial of such information in order to claim ignorance is morally equivalent to lying and manipulation. This is an internal battle, because those outside cannot determine if one is denying the knowledge, unable to integrate the knowledge into their beliefs, or incapable of understanding what knowledge was bestowed. And, hence, the moral quandary is internal.
A good way of looking at this is the difference between “may” and “should.” It may be ethically permissible for me to allow a child to drown in a shallow lake if I cannot swim; however, it is not ethically best if I do nothing. The “fear of drowning myself because I can’t swim” or “fear of the unknown shallowness of the lake” that creates the ethical dilemma between saving or not saving would be better informed by either knowledge of the depth of the lake or the ability to swim and may leave the observer with a sense of guilt if that information becomes known. One may reject helping the drowning child, but one probably should do something about it.
Education is the key to success. But not only education makes you a better person. It is the society and environment you are in that determine the person in you. Illiterate people are not supposed to be fools. If one person is illiterate, it doesn’t mean he is a dumb. He might have a diverse knowledge in his work field or in relationships with others, etc.
He may have the practical knowledge to solve an issue with more ease than an educated person. There are many fools in the educated sectors also. Because nowadays money can buy degrees. But don’t underestimate them because education gives you the clarity, and it makes people think beyond the limit. It is related to the ethics and integrity of the people. There are many educated people in terrorist organizations also. They are using their expertise in killing people.
It is not ethical. So I am pointing out that it depends upon the people and their environment. Hope it helps.
Taking your question literally makes the answer easier than the poetic connotations suggest. For as much of history as you can imagine, right back to when smarter single-celled somethings survived better by eating their “familiaclones,” it has been almost solely used to promote and develop more numerous and better ways of butchering and/or subjugating/eating members of our own or all other species; it’s the entire basis of organic life on this planet. We all got to kill something to live, as even plants are beings of some sort. Life literally IS death, in a way. Increased intelligence = more and better food, mates, and increased ability to protect oneself and food and mates…
It’s always going to win in the long run, but there’s also the fact that aggression/evil/chaos/insanity results in almost as good odds 1-on-1 and considerably better inside more complex, larger groups of more intelligent, more “social” beings and must be included in our consideration due to that poetic wording you chose.
Perhaps even preferentially over many other “smarter” traits, as intelligence is considerably the costlier trait to develop. Brains cost tons of our energy, but making something more agro is simple; just reduce the fear component or increase “drive” a little. Which also means that smarter, more “evil” people would be the “cream of the crop,” which my logic says must result in some amount of a bond between the two traits.
It’s the requisite “flaw” in Creation, if you will, the “Devil” inside us we should all strive to overcome if we wish to really be “free” or a “real man.” If you look at humans, as well as all beings, as being more than their physical bodies, you may come up with a different question to ask yourself. Thanks for reading. Never hesitate to read the next part coming soon. “Public Staunchest Ally”
The writer of this article is a human rights activist, writer, and professional teacher.