Ignorance or Illiteracy- Which is worse?

Often times while growing up, I used to hear my grandmum say “Illiteracy is a disease”. According to Wikipedia: Ignorance is a lack of knowledge. The word ignorant is an adjective describing a person in the state of being unaware and can be used to describe individual’s who deliberately ignore or disregard important information or facts or individuals who are not aware of that important information or facts. Illiteracy on the other hand, according to Vocabulary.com is simply defined as the inability to read. It further goes on to say illiteracy can refer not only to the inability to read but also a lack of knowledge in other subject areas. For example, if you have never heard of Shakespeare, some might consider you culturally illiterate. Illiteracy is having or demonstrating little or no education. It is showing a lack of culture, especially in language and literature.  It is referred to as the ignorance resulting from not reading.

So do Ignorance and Illiteracy mean the same thing? – I’ll say no. Ignorance is being unaware or unknowledgeable, sometimes deliberately. For example, an ignorant person is being invited to a fancy cocktail party, he or she could go there in a go there in a casual outfit, now they have the means of doing a proper research and probably asking the host assuming they really do not know how to dress appropriately but no, they decide to remain unknowledgeable or feign ignorance. Take for example, the road signs by the road, it’s permitted if an illiterate breaks a traffic rule because really they can neither communicate properly to ask let alone read or understand the road signs but an ignorant person really doesn’t care to know despite the capacity they have to know and understand but choose to remain plain ignorant and seem pretty unbothered. There honestly is a very thin line between ignorance and illiteracy, even I had a hard time pointing it out but basically illiterates refer to people that haven’t been to school and hence have difficulty in reading and writing but ignorance, on the other hand, could refer to an illiterate but it doesn’t stop there, being uninformed and unknowledgeable. Ignorant is unknowledgeable or uneducated, characterized by ignorance while illiterate is unable to read and write but this doesn’t necessarily mean an illiterate is not informed or knowledgeable.

I personally think that ignorance is worse than illiteracy because what you don’t know most times can’t hurt you but what you know and don’t act on or take heed to often brings about the death of you. One can be literate and yet ignorant, while one can also be illiterate but still not ignorant. I know of some very knowledgeable illiterates that supposedly did not go to school but have enough knowledge and wisdom to pass on. In my opinion, I think ignorance is mostly intentional or deliberate to avoid awareness of a certain issue. It’s worse when a literate person is actually ignorant.  I feel like you have no excuse to be except when feigning ignorance else what is the difference between you and those who have not seen the inside walls of a classroom. Ignorance does not only refer to the illiterate people who have not been to school, it also refers to people who have been to school and still do not know.  My point is, literate or illiterate, everyone should strive to be knowledgeable and keep themselves abreast of every one of life’s issues and affairs. Even employment nowadays is hardly based on what you studied at school but what you know. Knowledge isn’t just power, it is the new big currency.

Let me know your views…