NM's blog

Emmeline Pankhurst, probably the most venerated in the mainstream British media, defended the presence and reach of the British Empire:  Some talk about the Empire and Imperialism as if it were something to decry and something to be ashamed of. [I]t is a great thing to be the inheritors of an Empire like ours ... great in territory, great in potential wealth. ... If we can only realise and use that potential wealth we can destroy thereby poverty, we can remove and destroy ignorance. For years she travelled around England and North America, rallying support for the British Empire and warning audiences about the dangers of Bolshevism. Quoted in June Purvis, Emmeline Pankhurst: A Biography , London 2002

The more I know, the more angry I get.  "Oh, what a sweet and soft and healthy pillow is ignorance and incuriosity, to rest a well-made head!" —French philosopher Michel de Montaigne

Proctor explains that ignorance can often be propagated under the guise of balanced debate. For example, the common idea that there will always be two opposing views does not always result in a rational conclusion. “Although for most things this is trivial – like, for example, the boiling point of mercury – but for bigger questions of political and philosophical import, the knowledge people have often comes from faith or tradition, or propaganda, more than anywhere else.” The man who studies the spread of ignorance

Occasionally, I get across a rarity, a non-conformist among the complacents, the career-seekers: " The point that you made about people blaming the ‘ignorant uneducated American’ is also very evident amongst my Facebook friends who are predominantly university-educated people. I feel that most of these people live in their university educated-upper class bubbles, completely oblivious to how neoliberal policies are affecting people that live in the ‘real world’." — Pieter Dockx, an LSE student. Will Trump call Sanders?