How Ignorance Hinders Growth and Development

In general terms, ignorance means a lack of knowledge. Growth has to do with increase in size or amount, while development concerns maturity or becoming more advanced. Ignorance could hinder growth and development in different spheres of life, and this article helps the reader to understand how this happens. Once there is a problem, there is always a solution to it, and this article is not an exception to that fact. Some areas of life where ignorance acts as a major hindrance to growth and development are education, business and relationships. How ignorance acts as a barrier to these areas will be analyzed in the discourse below.

In the area of education, the ignorant man is that man who does not have the knowledge of what education is. At the same time, he may not know how to read or write. Individuals in this category find it difficult to interact with other people. They are always in fear of being cheated or oppressed in their dealings with the educated people in the same environment with them. As a result of this fear, they remain withdrawn. Growth and development elude people in this category and they are also being restricted from rising to a certain position in the society due to lack of education.

In business, people who do not really understand the tricks and what it takes to excel in the business they do will always find it difficult to grow or develop in their line of business. This is what actually leads to failure of businesses all over the world. A business person who is ignorant of what he should or should not do at any point in time can never expand. Even in transactions, people who do not know the actual cost of things end up being cheated as a result of ignorance in that area.

Relationships in this sense could be between a man and a woman or between people living in the same society. In the case of a man and a woman, the lack of knowledge of what each of them wants make it difficult for the relationship to progress. On the other hand, the growth of any society is propelled by the relations between people living in that society. A situation, whereby the greater number of people in a society are ignorant of what the society needs to grow, development becomes difficult.

The solution to these hindrances lies with the decision by the educated to enlighten the ignorant members of their society through continuous interaction, and the willingness of the ignorant to learn from the educated ones.

Ignorance is a danger to the growth and development of any society and should be properly dealt with if individuals could make any progress in the course of interaction with others living in the same society with them.