With Regard to the Newest ‘Big Event’ and Modern Humanity’s Tenascious Attachment to Adolescence
“…ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" (Charles Darwin, 1871)
Another potential silver lining of the COVID19 debacle is that it revealed to a lot of people – possibly for the first time -- the poor footing that many moderns stand on while striving to accurately observe the world around them, and then deciding what, if any, actions to take in response to those observations. With regard to COVID19, we’re all now somewhat shame-facedly in the midst of a worldwide movement to ‘forget about’ the many unfortunate effects of a much too hurried and careless reliance on that poor footing.
Now people are disturbed and excited about events taking place in the Ukrainian ecotone between the NATO countries and Russia, and many, if not most, are now again hurriedly displaying the same weaknesses of observation and judgment displayed ‘during the time of COVID’. For example, in the US it appears that the 74% of US poll respondents have – in a rush to judgment reminiscent of earlier arbitrary and wholesale Bush Jr. era’s unfortunately too precipitate condemnation of Iraq – decided that NATO imposition of a no-fly zone over Ukraine, and a Russian oil ban are justified. This suggests that, on the whole (in the West, anyway), mankind learned very little from recently committing its multitudinous COVID-related mistakes.
David Dunning and Justin Kruger (1999), in their research report entitled, “ Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments”, showed that personal ignorance and consequent incompetence naturally prevent recognition of these faults in ourselves and others:
“We argue that when people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it.”
Sounds like both human youth and human dementia to me.
Mark Chapman explores the ramifications of the Dunning-Kruger effect on the ongoing evolution of the Ukraine matter here. Also very much worth reading right now is this very experienced take on the Urkranian situation.