The phrase "DENY IGNORANCE" is in itself very thought provoking...

The ATS motto has been a subject of discussion before and I am sure debated often. So, why then am I endeavoring to discuss it again? The phrase "DENY IGNORANCE" is in itself very thought provoking. It hits us directly in the face every time we get on ATS. There is no avoiding it, but I think it has different applications aside from the one provided by the site owners.

Here is what they say the motto means to them,

The simple yet effective motto of our membership is "deny ignorance", which signifies an effort to apply the principals of critical thought and peer review to the provocative topics covered within.

This is very elegant and to the point; critical thinking and member participation are required in order to "Deny Ignorance".

The definitions of both words are as follows:

de·ny

de·ny [di n]
(past and past participle de·nied, present participle de·ny·ing, 3rd person present singular de·nies)
v
1. vt say something is not true: to declare that something is not true or not the case
2. vt refuse request: to refuse to let somebody have or do something
3. vt disavow somebody: to refuse to acknowledge somebody
4. or de·ny your·selfvr not allow yourself something: to refuse to gratify your own needs or desires


[13th century. Via Old French deneier < Latin denegare "negate completely" < negare "deny"]
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.


ig·no·rance

ig·no·rance [ígnərənss]
n
1. lack of knowledge: lack of knowledge or education
2. unawareness: unawareness of something, often of something important


ignorance is bliss it is often better not to know about something unpleasant
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

I will suggest another way to look at this, also, I am sure not reinventing the wheel here, but I am denying my own ignorance.

There are topics I simply have no business discussing; I am not qualified, I am ignorant and yet I ignore that at my own peril. I deny my ignorance by trying to pretend I am smarter than I really am. I find myself on the defensive end of the battle before it even begins. Too often I fail to do the research that is required for critical thinking before I reply to an OP.

I clearly am not as smart as I think I am or pretend to be.

Ignorance is bliss? I do not find it blissful at all, I find ignorance to be debilitating and humbling and paralyzing. To deny my ignorance is ignorant. Which leads me to the fact I am a self enabler; arrogant to a fault. Full of conceit and narcissistic tendencies. Trapped by my own inhumanity. How dare me. I have the audacity to think I am special and without faults.

I deserve to be beaten and whipped to an inch of my life for denying my own ignorance.

You're a human being, so you have every right to join in with every topic, as they're to do with human beings. If you still want the beat / whip stuff I know a lady in Soho

It takes a long time for people to advance from lurker-readers, to posters of record, to actual theoreticians.

I always took the motto with a grain of salt, if the purpose of this site is to deny ignorance, it is not doing a terribly good job, ignorance abounds aplenty.. The motto here reminds me of the straightdope message board's mission statement: "to fight ignorance (with education and condescension).. I think that to fight ignorance is to deny it, and vice versa.. I'm not sure you can say that to deny ignorance is to be in denial of its existence..

I think in the case of denying your own ignorance, it should be interpreted as in denying yourself the position of ignorance by learning about the subject matter before posting. If you are informing yourself, others, or are being informed by others, you are by virtue denying ignorance. To be in denial of your own or another person's ignorance is not the same as denying yourself or another person the position of being ignorant.

a reply to: soulpowertothendegree

I deserve to be beaten and whipped to an inch of my life for denying my own ignorance.

That seems a bit drastic. Perhaps a nice sound spanking would suffice.

This site denies ignorance.

Lots of people come on here with uninformed, mistaken or misled notions about stuff, outside the main stream.

What happens over time is they get their eyes opened, sometimes gently, sometimes by avalanche.

Some people refuse to upgrade their understanding of this or that. They deny their own ignorance.

Sometimes members land hard, refusing to allow ignorance to be denied.

Denying ingnorance is ignorant. ........