Nicholas Sine Period Four 4-6-98 Ignorance is Not Bliss “Ignorance is the primary source of all misery and vice.” -Victor Cousin. As knowledge gives us the power to create, ignorance gives us the power to destroy. Over time, man’s creations that may be awesome, turn against, and kill him. In Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, man destroys himself with his own creation. The wrong uses of any creation lead to destruction.
Destruction comes unquestionably from the ignorance of man. Mankind wants to know the answers to any question. Knowledge is something that few people can handle. It holds more power than anything else. While it can put a man on the moon, it can also take man off the earth. Over and over again in history, man has been ready to do anything for power.
The want for power is a sign of ignorance because man will not think correctly while trying to get power. What is not realized is that the paths man takes to get power, are often the trails that lead to the loss of power. Yearning for power is very dangerous and causes destruction in that way. Just the same as knowledge and power, stupidity also plays a main character in destruction. The ignorant, or untrained have no idea what they mess with until they have done it.
The Essay on State Of Nature Gov Power Men
Part one: Human Nature/State of Nature Hobbes believes that, in man, we find three causes of quarrel, competition, diffidence, glory. Violence to make themselves the master's of other men's persons, wives, children, and cattle. During a time that men live without a common power to keep them in awe they are in a condition of war; every man for himself. War is also attributed to the state of nature ...
Like the Ice-9 in Cat’s Cradle, the Hoenikker children were too stupid to realize what they were playing with. When the world was destroyed and their destiny was certain to be death, they realized what they had done; they had destroyed themselves and all of Earth with them. The wrong use of power is one of the leading causes of destruction, and the most evident show of man’s ignorance. When people give a man too much power, he will play with it and use it for his own reasons. Ice-9 was given to just a few powerful people an eventually led to the end of the world. War is a familiar form of destruction.
While a country tries to gain power ignorantly from war, they are actually losing their profits because they are killing them. There is no excuse for such massive destruction and ignorance that war produces. Finally, destruction is a side effect of ignorance. If it is true that knowledge creates, then only one thing can destroy. There is no possible way to destroy something with reason except for ignorance. Feeble-mindedness is the cause for misery.
All life comes from knowledge while death and destruction are products of stupidity. Mankind can destroy anything he creates with his own foolishness. Man will one day, when it is too late, realize all the dumb things he did that led to his extinction.
