Reply #29: There are fundamental facts indispensable to political opinion. [View All]

[JackRiddler]

If you can't find the countries you think you have an opinion about on a map in front of you, that's bad. If you can't even figure out their neighbors and a few relevant essentials of geography, you're necessarily operating from a prejudice about them, whether it's positive or negative.

If you have an opinion about Islam but can't correctly state even a few of its most basic doctrines, or at least loosely define its different schools, then that's bad. You're missing something. You're pretending. You're operating without context. You should keep your mouth shut until you learn a little about it.

These are not examples of "factoids." These are essential context to formulating an opinion on issues of the day.

EDIT:

As for your question: You can be intelligent (a measure of capacity, not knowledge) and yet ignorant. You can be intelligent and yet woefully wrong. Not wanting to learn is a highly unintelligent attitude, even if your mind is a smart one.