If You Don't Like It, Ignore It
"If you don't like it, just ignore it" is a popular saying. I am sure we have all heard this a few times in our lives. The saying makes sense, and it seems like it would be a good thing to follow. I mean, if we do not like something, then we should just ignore it, what is fundamentally wrong with that idea? In theory, nothing is really wrong with it. In reality, it makes everybody complacent and ignorant by emphasizing that nothing is worth judging and dissecting. The other problem is that people become hypocritical when they try to support this viewpoint. People tend to preach this reasoning when they are criticizing and berating others for not abiding by the very ideology that they are now ignoring.
There are plenty of examples where it is a good idea to follow the ideology. For the most part, if we disagree with things, we should just let it be and move on. That is, if what we disagree with has little to no effect on our lives. Things like what people do behind closed doors. Things like a person's hobbies or likes and dislikes. These are things that we should not be actively trying to change, especially as a society as a whole. We should not be trying to force people to into accepting what we believe, as most of us would agree. We are all different, and we tend to accept this, for the most part.
While it is a good idea to not attempt to change a person's ideologies, it is as equally bad to not judge one's ideologies. I am not supporting the idea that we should judge a person. Absolutely not. I am saying that we should judge lifestyles, choices, and morals of others around us and even within ourselves. How else do we know who we are and what we think and feel if we do not dissect what is that makes us who we are? It is by questioning and judging that we become stronger in what we believe. We are able to then expand our minds and not only improve ourselves but improve our communities and society as a whole. Without questioning the world around us, we would not have technology and advances in medicine. Science would not have existed if people did not ask questions and observe the world. The same principle, I believe, needs to be applied to ourselves. If we don't ask questions and observe ourselves and others, what hope is there for improvement on the grand scale that we, as humans, are capable of achieving?
If we start to ignore the differences between ourselves and other cultures, we become complacent. We no longer strive to learn about why people think the way they do. We no longer care about why we think the way we do, as well. We become ignorant. We give up what makes us so uniquely human. We are creatures who are able to ask questions and think about why things are the way they are. If we allow ourselves to not form an opinion about things we do not like, we are unable to know the differences between what we like and what we dislike. We no longer know who we are. Our quest for knowledge ends with this complacency.
Of course, there are people who take this too far. They start to judge the people and label others as right or wrong, good or evil. This, of course, should be avoided. We are all human, we all make mistakes, and we are never always correct, and a person should not be judged for being human. That is not to say that some people are not truly bad. There are people out there that make it a point to be as evil as they possibly can. These people have no remorse for their actions, and they do not seek to improve themselves to help society. They see society as a burden and have no compassion for it. These people deserve judgment, but it is still not our place.
There are people who honestly believe that we have no place to speak in disagreement of someone else's ethics, but the majority of people who like this idea are generally hypocrites. They tote around this idea of absolute tolerance, but completely miss the fact that by speaking out against others' "less tolerant" beliefs, they are going against their very morals. Of course, the funniest part is when they try to preach this ideology while doing so. These people are clueless, and they do not seem to understand why.
A good example of the event/situation is what inspired me to write this rant. A web comic that I frequent has recently been under some heavy flak by a blogger turned comic critic. The avid fans of the comic I read were quick to use this ideology when remarking on the critical blog. More than once they said, "if you don't like it, you can just ignore it." Of course, in doing so, they prove that they are incapable of doing the same thing. They could just as easily have ignored the the blog that is being critical of the comic that they hold dear. Then they would not be hypocrites, and I would not have a topic to rant about.
I do not blame the people for wanting to speak out against this blog. It is perfectly natural for us to form an opinion about something. I, obviously, support forming an opinion, and I am not shy of being blunt about it. I would, clearly, be a hypocrite if I were to say and believe anything else. We, as humans, generally allow ourselves to be inquisitive. We realize that is our nature to seek answers for the questions that we have. Most of us realize this whether or not we say it. Our actions prove this.
It is unfortunate that there are some people willing to ignore our human nature and try so hard not to judge that they distance themselves from what makes us human. Then, there are the people, as I mentioned above, that are so blatantly hypocritical. I will not go as far as saying that these people want to be hypocritical. I believe these people want to subscribe to idea that we should be completely tolerant, but they clearly cannot break free from their human nature. Unfortunately, they do not see the fatal flaw in all of this, and their willingness to be complacent is their downfall.
I know I have made this point more than once already, but I just cannot stress it enough. We should not try to ignore what makes us human. We all have the desire to form opinions about something. We should embrace what sets us above the rest of the animal kingdom. Why shun this incredible attribute? I am not saying we should be judgmental of others, though. We should not label others because we disagree with them. It is not our place to try to elevate ourselves above one another. We are all human, and we are all uniquely flawed. However, that does not mean we cannot seek to improve ourselves and our society. By embracing each other and our differences, being open about disagreements, we can only improve upon ourselves.