Reflections on Ignorance

      I have never been given to writing very much. I was an avid reader when I was growing up, but that slowly dwindled, but it then turned around again later in high school. I enjoy reading and I appreciate the writing of others, but I have not really seen a purpose in writing my own material. I think there might be a more substantial point to this otherwise bland observation.      What does writing do for me? That is not something I have reflected on very much, so I will spend some time here doing just that. In order to do that I will first reflect on why I read. I read in order to take in new information, and, as I talked about in my first post, I want to know things. I have read history, fiction, scientific material, classical literature, and a few other things in between those categories. Now I mainly read philosophy and theology books. I have the great privilege of being born in an unprecedented time with respect to mass literacy, so I hope I take a...

    Talk about gender is not spared in our time. It is something that is constantly presented to us. Whether rural or urban, liberal or conservative, old or young, we are all brought into this conversation. But I do not even know what we are talking about .      Some will say that gender is a social construction, and others will say that it is an obvious biological fact. Who is right? Certain expressions of our gender appear to be shaped by our society. This seems indisputable! At some points in history women wore pants, and at other times men wore dresses. Sometimes women wore makeup, and at other times men did. One could probably list these changes until the cows come home. With the advent of modern scientific knowledge, there appear to be distinct physiological  differences between men and women. A man's bones are different from a woman's, and their chromosomes are different, and their gonads are different (although some of these statements are now calle...

      A mantra of our age is that politics is one of the "big three" taboos in polite discussion. Full disclosure, I know very little about politics as it is conceived of in our time. I generally do not follow the day-to-day happenings of political candidates or figures that populate the hellscape that is US politics. I was very interested in these things at one time, but that quickly faded in college. Don't get me wrong, I am interested in politics, but not the reductionist indignation fuel that masquerades as politics on our screens.      Wow, I am very high and mighty in my dismissal of a very common concern. That is not my intention! Although I certainly tend towards a pessimistic attitude about the state of US politics, I do think it is worthy of concern. I could whine and complain about this for pages upon pages of text, but I just want to make a simple point in this blog post. I think the reason I have found myself so estranged from contemporary poli...

       This blog is part of a semester-long project for my Introduction to Mass Communication Course [COM111]. In this blog I hope to explore some topics that interest me, and in doing so I hope to grow in my knowledge of how this medium of mass communications functions. So, without further ado, I introduce the blog: Reflections on Ignorance.      This title is partly inspired from some experiences in my postmodern philosophy course last spring with Dr. Tadie. That class, combined with almost all of my other philosophy courses, has helped shine a light on my profound ignorance. This may seem harsh, but one of the great takeaways from recognizing our ignorance is the peace that it can give us. I do not hold all of the answers to the deepest philosophical questions in my hand, and neither does anyone else. Rather, in my limitations and weakness I bring myself to the fundamental questions that lie at the heart of our existence. Oh, so profound. My intenti...